For Glendale resident Harold \u201cHal\u201d Archambeau, building guitars is a craft that has come full circle nearly five decades after he first learned how to turn pieces of wood into musical instruments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Archambeau, a 1978 graduate of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, recently participated in the school\u2019s 50th anniversary guitar-making project, building a commemorative acoustic guitar from historic rosewood tied to the school\u2019s beginnings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The project brought Archambeau back to a craft he discovered as a young man working at a music store in Spokane, Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While working there, Archambeau came across a music industry magazine featuring an article about Roberto-Venn, which had opened only a few years earlier. He was already doing basic guitar work at the store, including setups and restringing instruments, and the idea of learning to build guitars caught his attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLearning how to build guitars \u2014 that sounds like something I\u2019d like to do,\u201d Archambeau recalled thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With encouragement from his mother, he enrolled at Roberto-Venn and traveled to Phoenix for the program in the summer of 1978. Despite having little woodworking experience, Archambeau said he became immersed in the craft. Students were required to build an acoustic and an electric instrument.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After graduating, Archambeau returned to Spokane and looked for work in music stores. But jobs for luthiers \u2014 craftspeople who build and repair stringed instruments \u2014 did not offer enough money for him to make a living at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead, he turned to finish carpentry. After moving to Arizona in 1980, he entered the cabinetmaking industry and eventually spent about four decades doing custom woodworking and high-end interior work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Archambeau moved to Glendale around 2008 after marrying his wife, a longtime Glendale resident and Phoenix native.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After retiring in 2022, he built a small studio next to his home and returned to guitar making. His new endeavor became One & Only Custom Guitars, a name inspired by the individuality of his instruments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no two of them that are alike in appearance,\u201d Archambeau said. \u201cMine are one and only.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archambeau said handmade instruments give him opportunities to use woods, finishes and details that may not be found on mass-produced guitars. He hand-shapes the necks of his instruments, applies finishes himself and completes details such as inlays by hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, the uniqueness of that instrument \u2014 it has its own sound and its own feel,\u201d he said of what he wants musicians to experience when they pick up one of his guitars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His return to guitar making eventually led to an invitation to participate in Roberto-Venn\u2019s 50th anniversary project.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Archambeau builds one-of-a-kind instruments under the name One & Only Custom Guitars.<\/p>\n
(AZ Guitars and Gear\/Submitted)<\/p>\n
Archambeau said he has maintained an on-and-off relationship with William Eaton, one of the school\u2019s longtime leaders, since attending Roberto-Venn. After he began building guitars again, Archambeau would take some of his instruments to the school and ask for feedback.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During one of those visits, Eaton invited him to participate in the anniversary project, which brought together guitars made by alumni and other builders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Archambeau, the invitation carried special significance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey thought my guitars that I built were of good enough quality, and that they felt that I could represent them in their 50-year anniversary,\u201d he said. \u201cI was pretty humbled and very excited to be part of that whole build.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Archambeau received historic rosewood from Roberto-Venn\u2019s collection to use for the instrument. He chose to make a small-bodied acoustic guitar based on plans inspired by a vintage Gibson design associated with musician Nick Lucas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But working with the decades-old wood was not easy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Archambeau described it as old, dry and flawed. Bending the rosewood to form the sides of the acoustic guitar became the most difficult part of the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took some real finesse to make that rosewood do what I wanted it to do,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He worked through cracks and other imperfections until the finished guitar gave little indication of how difficult the material had been to shape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you can work through difficulties and challenges, and nobody will ever know it, because in the end it came out perfect enough that nobody would ever know how much grief it gave you,\u201d Archambeau said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The experience left him more confident in his ability to work with difficult materials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI now feel like I can bend anything,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The project also connected Archambeau\u2019s present work with his earliest days as a guitar maker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He still owns an acoustic guitar he made while attending Roberto-Venn in 1978. Nearly five decades later, he found himself working with wood tied to the same period in the school\u2019s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The completed anniversary guitars were displayed at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix and later taken to California as part of the project\u2019s exhibition activities, Archambeau said. Seeing his guitar displayed alongside instruments made by accomplished builders added to the significance of the experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Archambeau, Roberto-Venn reaching its 50th anniversary also provided an opportunity to reflect on how far the school has come.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He remembers its early facilities as modest, with relatively basic equipment compared with what students have access to today. He said he is pleased to see the school continue educating generations of craftspeople.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI am just so happy for that school,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today, Archambeau continues building guitars through One & Only Custom Guitars, with Arizona Guitars & Gear LLC serving as an authorized dealer for his instruments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Archambeau, however, making guitars is primarily about continuing a craft he loves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just do it because I love doing it,\u201d he said. \u201cI love working with my hands.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And after a career spent turning wood into everything from cabinetry to musical instruments, Archambeau said he hopes what he creates can inspire someone else to create, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to make something that\u2019s unique and beautiful, and can be used to make music,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re giving the world something beautiful that another person can make something beautiful for the world with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Glendale resident Harold \u201cHal\u201d Archambeau, building guitars is a craft that has come full circle nearly five…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1012400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,100346,405214,138967,405215,1589,405213,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1012399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-guitar","tag-harold-hal-archambeau","tag-musical-instrument-museum","tag-one-only-custom-guitars","tag-phoenix","tag-roberto-venn-school-of-luthiery-in-phoenix","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117126731177990287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}