From a purpose-built craftshop inside a historic 1850s mill, where wool for a world at war once poured out by the thousands of yards, Bourgeois Guitars produces around 400 intimately crafted guitars each year. Dana and a skilled team of about 20 craftspeople create guitars in popular sizes and tonewood pairings for players around the world who aspire to play their best and enjoy the feeling of owning an exquisite instrument that will be a family heirloom someday. 

Our founder, Dana Bourgeois, played a legendary role in the modern development of craft-built acoustic guitars. He developed a lifelong passion for learning, and building great guitars, while attending Maine’s Bowdoin College. In the early ’70s, Dana built his first guitars in his dorm room, using only the pivotal Irving Sloan Classical Guitar Construction book as a guide.  

“My father was an amateur woodworker and my grandfather was a machinist. Between the two of them, I received just enough help to actually build a guitar,” he remembers.

By 1977, he’d started a one-man shop in Brunswick, Maine, repairing and building guitars. He also became immersed in the burgeoning folk and bluegrass boom in New England, giving Dana the chance to display his work to Tony Rice, who offered encouragement and honest criticism. 

 “I used to go to Tony’s shows and show him my latest Dreadnoughts,” Dana remembers. “Tony usually gave my guitars a good test drive and graciously let me play his famous D-28. His feedback was invariably polite, even when delivering hard-nosed criticism.” 

 Once, Dana showed Rice a smaller-bodied OM he’d built. To his surprise, the master flatpicker showed greater enthusiasm for the OM than for his Dreadnoughts. “This one has the better overall sound,” Dana remembers Rice telling him. “Try putting it in a bigger package.” 

 Upon reflection, Dana realized that, like jazz players, contemporary flatpickers used every note on their fingerboards. String-to-string, note-to-note balance and clarity held the same value for linear melodic improvisation as for polyphonic fingerstyle playing. Armed with this revelation, his pursuit of Rice’s visionary challenge led to many inflection points in the rich history of Bourgeois Guitars.  

Bourgeois Guitars innovations include: 

• A unique x-bracing system that scallops only the bass-side braces while the treble braces are shaped and tapered, to enhance bass-to-treble balance in a large guitar. 

• The reintroduction of Adirondack (red) Spruce as a tonewood, from old-growth stands still existing in northern Maine. 

• A now-renowned method of tap-tuning each top to find its optimum sound at proper flexibility. Dana’s voicing method can be successfully employed regardless of body size and species of tonewood.  

• A unique bolt-on neck design that allows the neck to be removed without drilling, cutting or steaming, coupled with a modern, fully adjustable truss rod that mimics the tonal response of vintage guitars having a steel t-bar neck reinforcement.  

• Advancing a little-known Finnish method of heat-treating raw timber, called torrefacation, for curing tonewoods for tops, backs, necks and braces. “Torrefaction is basically artificial aging,” the master guitarmaker explains.  

Touchstone Series

Drawing on Dana’s near half-century of lutherie experience, the Touchstone Series is designed to deliver legendary Bourgeois tone and build quality to a wider range of players than ever before.

 

PRODUCT

Bourgeois M5F Mandolin

$1,552.50

PRODUCT

Bourgeois Touchtone Vintage Series-OM

$2,969.00

PRODUCT

Bourgeois Touchtone Vintage Series-Dreadnought

$2,969.00

PRODUCT

Bourgeois Touchtone Country Boy-OM

$2,699.00

PRODUCT

Bourgeois Touchtone Country Boy-Dreadnought

$2,699.00