Something interesting is happening in Detroit. Wallace Detroit Guitars are taking dissembled wood from abandoned homes, and repurposing them into gorgeous upcycled guitars. The reclaimed wood inspires memories of Detroit’s musical legacy. Former Motor City houses are transformed into high-end guitars.

Detroit has a plethora of deconstructed housing. Around 70,000 homes have been abandoned and no one is moving in. The City of Detroit is taking down the houses at a rate of 3,000 structures a year. The focus is on deconstruction, rather than demolishment. This means the houses are systematically dismantled so that the maximum amount of materials can be reused. Deconstruction takes longer than demolishment but offers many advantages, including:

1. Job creation
2. Materials are diverted from landfills
3. Preserves historical resources and cultural heritage
4. Offers opportunities for new and small businesses to emerge

Creatives have jumped on board and have began to repurpose the wood to many different effects. The reclaimed wood has been used for new building materials, coffee tables, sunglasses and now upcycled guitars. The quality of the reclaimed wood is high. Much of it is old-growth wood, harvested from the virgin Michigan forests in the logging boom of the 1800’s and 1900’s. The beauty of the hardwoods shine in these upcycled guitars.

Beyond the beauty of reclaimed wood, sound quality remains central to what makes these instruments special. High-quality components ensure that the character of the material translates into tone, not just appearance. One of the most influential elements in this process is the pickup system, which determines how string vibration becomes amplified sound. For readers curious about how tone is shaped at a technical level, “What are guitar pickups?” offers a clear explanation of how different pickup types affect volume, warmth, and overall character. In the case of these upcycled guitars, thoughtfully selected, hand-wound pickups allow the history embedded in the reclaimed wood to be fully expressed through sound, not lost in the signal chain.

In order to create the upcycled guitars, Wallace Detroit Guitars employs 8 skilled craftsman. The wood must be processed in order to remove nails and debris. it must then be cut into wood veneers. The upcycled guitars by Wallace Detroit Guitars utilize the reclaimed wood and include high-quality hardware and hand-wound pickups.

Mark Wallace, the owner of Wallace Detroit Guitars wants the upcycled guitars to be accessible to a broad range of musicians who will bring the instruments to life:

“I’d like to sell these to everybody. I’d like to sell them to people who love Detroit and love making music.”

Wallace Detroit Guitars from Milk Products Media on Vimeo.

Source: Model D Media