Philly Luthier Melds Art, Design, And Music In Unique Guitars

PHILADELPHIA — When most people think of electric guitars, they will likely imagine a classic Fender Stratocaster with Jimi Hendrix wailing away or a Gibson Les Paul in the hands of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page tearing up a solo.

Those guitar models are among the most famous and recognizable in the world.

But some guitar builders, luthiers for the uninitiated, strive to break out of the molds created by staple companies like Fender and Gibson.

That's exactly what Philadelphia luthier James Sturner has sought to do and achieved.

Sturner is an artist and a teacher.

He focused on painting in high school at Council Rock North (where he teaches art now) and then at Temple's Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

And like many a guitar player, he started playing in middle school after getting into rock and roll, with an emphasis coming from the White Stripes.

The inspiration to try his hand at building a guitar came after he watched Jack White of the White Stripes build a guitar in the 2008 documentary "It Might Get Loud."

"I said, 'I'm dumb enough to try this,'" he told Patch with a laugh.

He started building "cigar box" guitars, which are rudimentary guitars made out of cigar boxes, of course.

"I made a couple cigar box guitars, then starting getting more complicated with the builds," he said

He added frets, which are the lines you see on the neck of a guitar that allow the strings to hit different notes, to the cigar box guitars.

But he said it didn't play right, it wasn't intonated properly, meaning notes were incorrectly pitched.

"I started doing research and figured why not go for the real thing," he said. "After watching a bunch of YouTube videos, I went at it."

Sturner's tools for painting started to become increasingly used for building guitars.

With his art background, Sturner sought to make his guitars pieces of art.

Again, as a White Stripes fan, Sturner was inspired by the unique shape and color of White's Airline he so often used back when the band was still around.

Sturner found the angularity of the Airline guitar to be intriguing and that it stood out among the aforementioned classic models.

"Things are swoopy," he said of many guitars models. "I wanted the opposite of that."

So in 2015 he began making what are now officially dubbed Sturner Guitars.

"At Sturner Guitars, we believe that musicians get noticed, when they should stand out both visually and sonically," its website reads.

And that is true, as his builds are not like most builds.

"My inspiration comes from painting," he said.

The guitar shapes and finishes focus on composition and rhythm.

"A good way to make something feel cohesive is to pick and angle or a sloped like and repeat it," he said.

One of his models, the Hazzard, has an angle that repeats along its bottom. The Hazzard's headstock (where the tuners are) resembles a check mark, and that's the same ratio of the checkmark at the bottom.

"It's small things," he said. "I think people notice them subconsciously."

And on top of the guitars' actually shapes, he often pains them in a manner that also catches the eyes.

Whether it's a contrasting black and white finish or speckled and tortoise shell pickguards, Sturner's passion for art and painting truly shine.

And making his guitars pop with color is a labor of love.

"Finishing is the most lengthy process," he said of building guitars. "Building any guitar is like 90 percent finishing, and 95 percent of finishing is sanding.

Glossy finishes, for example, have to sit for a week after being sprayed.

Then they are sanded more.

But that sanding runs a risk of sanding through the finish, which can add another month to the building process, which takes about a month and a half to two months, he said.

It all comes together for truly striking models.

He said he often hears comments like "I like it, but I don't know why," about his guitars.

Last year, he made eight to 10 guitars.

The number he produces depends on several factors, such as how many people are ordering builds, the complexity of the builds (Sturner Guitars offers custom models), and his workload overall.

His process is much more streamlined now than when he started, too.

He spent a year learning to use a CNC machine, which is a high-tech router that is programmed by a computer, saving time that would be consumed when woodworking by hand.

That has allowed him to try out even more unique features on his guitars, such as fanned frets and more intricate wiring set-ups.

Sturner often posts videos of his building process on his Instagram page, where he's got more than 9,000 followers, along brief summaries of the work he's doing.

And building guitars has a therapeutic aspect.

He works out of The Loom in Port Richmond and said it's nice to go somewhere alone, zone out, and work with his hands.

As for Sturner Guitars' future, Sturner said he doesn't imagine being a full-time luthier as he loves teaching.

However, he recently started working with a Chinese company to help him produce more guitars.

The Chinese-made guitar he said come off the line sounds pretty good, but when he gets them in his hands he takes some extra time to bolster their offerings, adjusting frets or replacing electronics to bring them to his level of quality.

Check out Sturner Guitars online here.