(upbeat music) What if a creator built guitars from historic wood?

Who turns buildings, bleachers, and battleships into music-making masterpieces?

This guy!

(bright music) (machines whirring) Phil Whitmarsh turned to makerspace hobby into a business, Old Market Guitarworks.

He builds guitar bodies using wood he gets from sources like the deck of the decommissioned USS Texas.

(bright music continues) Places with a story behind them, which makes sense for a guy whose day job is helping others tell stories through his publishing business.

This side gig started during COVID.

I was looking for something else to do, and that something else was building guitars.

Had the idea for a while and didn't know when I was gonna be able to get that started, but the way it worked out, I had time to watch videos and practice and build prototypes and here we are.

There's a green pencil around here somewhere.

There it is, a red pencil.

[Mike] Phil grew up with a recycling mindset.

His architect dad once built the kids a playhouse made from shipping pallets.

Kind of thought this looked like a rattlesnake head, may or may not use it in a body.

[Mike] Phil also developed an early passion for guitars, playing a little then collecting a lot.

He heard about a guitar maker in New York City making guitars from wood saved from a historic hotel renovation.

An idea was born.

So from the very beginning, the intent was not just build guitars, but build guitars from wood that had a meaning, right?

Yes, but also exceptional product, exceptional output.

[Mike] The first was Mary Kate, built from wood salvaged from the Woolworth building in Omaha's Old Market.

Phil has since built guitars using wood from the battleship, old barns, a tool company's floor joists, and old Memorial Stadium bleachers.

This one given as a gift to Maroon 5 guitarist and Lincoln-native James Valentine.

Oh, and so you used the Valentine shape?

-Yeah.

-Oh, this is sick.

-So these were the bleachers?

-The bleachers.

Football bleachers.

It's a nice moment to just remind him that he is still beloved of our state.

Tell me about the wood.

These are beams that came from the Susan LaFlesche Picotte Center in Walthill, Nebraska.

[Mike] Another special project, creating guitars celebrating the first Native American woman to earn a medical degree with wood harvested from her clinic.

We start by cleaning up the wood and getting the nails out.

[Mike] Finding and removing nails is one of many steps it takes Phil to make guitars out of old wood over the span of several weeks, often working on several at the same time.

(steady music) [Phil] This is where you take all the rough edges off so that they can be laminated together.

[Mike] You dig out a few splinters every now and then?

-Every day.

Yeah.

-(Mike laughs) It's part of the beauty, part of the art, right?

Definitely.

You bleed for your art.

(steady music continues) You like to see -imperfections, right?

-Yes.

-Absolutely.

-You like to see the nail holes and the knots and... Yeah, that speaks to me as a person who loves trees and loves nature and... -(steady music continues) -(machine whirring) Phil found something I can handle.

So the grain filler is filling the wood grain and pores so that it's easier to shine up the guitar.

(steady music continues) [Mike] You like it?

Yeah, I like it.

It feels good to know that the energy from the wood and from the places and faces is coming through.

[Mike] Working with old wood isn't easy.

I think the hardest thing about working with any new project is the wood because the wood's always different, where it came from, how it's been treated.

[Mike] For Phil, the results are worth the work because most of the guitars he builds at a wholesale cost are later used by entities to raise money for different needs.

What attracts you to a project?

When do you say, "Okay, this is something that fits within what I do?"

For me, I think about the function of the material, the history of the material.

What has been its life to this point?

Is it something that's going to be disposed of and needs to be perhaps saved from a dumpster or a landfill?

It's helping people dream dreams and realize those dreams in the form of a guitar from a historic place, but special to them.

(guitar resonates) (wood grating)