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Building custom guitars plucks at heartstrings of furniture maker

Sale of family business provides funds for shop

By Mary Beth Breckenridge
Beacon Journal staff writer

Published on Sunday, Nov 30, 2008

BARBERTON: Rick Penta figures he was born to create.

He realizes that urge in the music he writes and performs, in the furniture he builds, in the delicate carvings he fashions.

Now all those forms of creativity have merged in his newest venture, building guitars.

Penta, longtime owner of Rick Penta Furniture Designs, has spun off a second business creating custom-made guitars through his Penta Guitar Works. He builds both acoustic and electric guitars, crafted to please his musician's ear and adorned with such artistry as relief carvings and mother-of-pearl inlays.

It's the culmination of a lifetime spent nurturing a variety of interests.

Penta's father, Phil, was a master carpenter who built houses. From the time Penta was a toddler, he said, his dad would take him along with him to job sites. He'd give the boy a red hammer, a box of nails and some wood, and let him pound.

That interest grew when Penta took woodworking classes at Copley High School. And he still has that red hammer.

''That hammer is going to be buried with me,'' he said.

Not too long after he was driving nails to occupy himself while his father worked, he discovered music. He was 7 at the time, and
his older brother, Joe, was playing in a band. It inspired him to take up the guitar, an instrument he studied for eight years.

Penta made some recordings and just missed out on a big record deal when his contact at the record company was fired. By that time, though, he had a fiancee, and the musician's life seemed too difficult for someone who wanted to raise a family, he said.

He apprenticed at two cabinet shops, and when his family sold its beverage drive-through, he used his share of the proceeds to start his own shop. He crafted custom-made furniture and restored antiques, a discipline that prompted him to learn to carve.

Penta built a guitar now and then, just for the enjoyment. But with clients to serve and a family to support, most of his effort was dedicated to his business.

Then came a bit of what might have been divine intervention.

When Penta was doing restoration work for St. Augustine Church, a priest there heard about his musical background. The priest asked if he would he lead the church band.

Penta agreed. The gig didn't last long, but ''it took the music off of the shelf and back into my life,'' he said.

He built a studio in his house. He began building more guitars. And he started dreaming of shifting his business away from the demands of furniture and more toward crafting musical instruments.

''I'm gettin' older,'' Penta, 49, said, ''and the plywood doesn't get any lighter.''

He knew he couldn't afford to make an abrupt change, but with the support of his wife, Cindy, he started small. He opened an eBay store selling items including fretboards and guitar parts. He enlisted his friend, semiretired mechanic Frank Smole, to help him develop machines that would automate parts of the guitar-making process and speed production. He found suppliers for wood and guitar parts — a process he said has had so much serendipity and so many good deals that he's convinced this business is meant to be.

Building each guitar is an exacting process, a marriage of artistry and engineering.

An acoustic guitar, for example, starts with the formation of the sides of the body by steaming 1/8-inch thick wood and clamping it to the inside of a form. After the wood dries, a kerfed lining — one that's notched to allow it to bend — is applied to stiffen the sides, and notches are cut to accommodate the braces that go under the guitar's top. Their placement is crucial because they'll enhance the vibration at some points and kill it at others, Penta said.

The top and back are then attached and a binding added to hide the seams. Then he cuts a neck joint, crafts a guitar neck to fit the joint and attaches it. The fretboard is built separately and glued onto the neck.

Penta usually has four guitars in progress at a time, each at a different stage of production. That way, he said, he can spread out the excitement that he feels over each stage of construction.

''Every step of the way, you feel the progress,'' he said. ''There's a reward every step of the way.''

The hardest stage, he said, is the finishing. Each guitar requires multiple coats of lacquer with sanding between coats, and then the instrument needs to sit for six weeks before the finish can be buffed out. But before it's ready, ''you're ready to string the thing and play it,'' he said.

Penta said he hopes to build his guitar shop into a self-sustaining business within five years. He intends to have about five models available that can be customized in a variety of ways, including the wood, the electronics and the detailing.

In the meantime, he's sharing his guitar-making skills with four students. They meet on Sunday mornings to work on their guitars and talk about the craft.

Guitar-making, he said, ''brings me all together.''

''This ties it all up together as to who I am,'' he said. ''And when it's done, I can write the song.''

To find online

Some of Rick Penta's guitars and furniture can be seen on www.pentapenta.com, the Web site he shares with his wife, photographer Cindy Penta.

His phone number is 330-825-5526.



Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com.

 

BARBERTON: Rick Penta figures he was born to create.

Get the full article here.


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Animal guy
Doylestown, OH

Posted 08:26 AM, 11/30/2008

Rick is a true artist! His knowledge of wood as well as his talent with music makes him a one-of-a-kind person. My life has been enriched knowing him and his wife. It was a pleasure reading this story of one of the things that Rick is all about. Thanks for sharing him with all the BJ readers.


Fairlawner
Fairlawn, OH

Posted 09:19 AM, 11/30/2008

Rock on, Rick! I hope your business does well.


Shelly the Journalist

Posted 10:51 PM, 12/01/2008

Finally the ABJ prints an article that is worthy of its 50 cent price. I'm going to his web site right now--who knows, this may be what I am looking for
















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