Pre-War Guitars Co.
0 Brazilian Rosewood and Torrefied Adirondack Spruce Used (2021)
2021 · Listed at Down Home Guitars · Frankfort, IL
Tracked on Tonewood Atlas — view the full listing at Down Home Guitars’ site.
Photos hot-linked from Down Home Guitars’ site — never rehosted.
Specs
- Top
- Torrefied Adirondack
- Back / Sides
- Brazilian Rosewood
- Neck
- Honduran Mahogany
- Fingerboard
- Ebony
- Nut width
- 1 3/4"
- Frets to body
- 14
- Strings
- 6
- Cutaway
- No
- Condition
- Preowned
- Year
- 2021
Pre-War Guitars Co.
Pre-War Guitars Co. operates out of Roxboro, North Carolina, founded in 2014 by Wes Lambe and Ben Maschal. The shop builds vintage-inspired acoustics using 1930s Martin construction conventions — dovetail neck joints, hot hide glue, torrefied tops and bracing — with one deliberate modern concession in the adjustable truss rod. What sets Pre-War apart is the finish. Every instrument leaves with an ultra-thin checked nitrocellulose lacquer at one of three distressing levels, from minimal "case-kept" handling marks (Level 1) through honest play-wear (Level 2) up to a full road-warrior treatment (Level 3). The aging isn't theater — Lambe and Maschal argue, and the recordings back them up, that a thin checked finish lets the top vibrate freely and produces a drier, more open voice than a polished new guitar can manage. Annual production caps around 150 instruments. The customer list runs from Tommy Emmanuel, Molly Tuttle, and Jackson Browne to David Grier, Zac Brown, the Steep Canyon Rangers, and Andrew Marlin — none of them paid endorsers, which is the kind of detail Pre-War puts on their website.
Down Home Guitars
Down Home Guitars has been a Frankfort, Illinois fixture since 2008 — set inside the historic Trolley Barn just southwest of Chicago, with a deliberately narrow focus on hand-built acoustic instruments. The shop carries Bourgeois, Collings, Huss & Dalton, Lowden, and Santa Cruz alongside George Lowden Master Series and Hinde, with new and used inventory rotating side by side. Owner Steve Haberichter has tied the shop deeply into the regional bluegrass community: the affiliated Frankfort Bluegrass Festival has won IBMA Event-of-the-Year recognition, and weekly jams Steve hosts at a nearby brewery keep musicians circulating through the doors. The Down Home Music School operates upstairs — more than three hundred lessons a week across six insulated lesson rooms — and a full repair shop covers everything from setups to neck resets. The retail floor, the school, and the festival presence together make the shop a regional anchor for acoustic musicians across the Chicago south suburbs.
