Osthoff 00-12 Fret Koa Guitar

About Osthoff Guitars

Osthoff Guitars are built in West Bend, Wisconsin by Bruce Osthoff, a one-person shop whose path to the bench ran through toolmaking, electronics, software, and schoolteaching before he went full-time around 2001. The analytical thread shows up in how Osthoff voices a top. Most builders stop at the tap-tone handshake; Osthoff runs Chladni patterns to read each plate's vibrational modes, measures modulus of elasticity and stiffness-to-weight ratios, and feeds the numbers into a spreadsheet he built over years to derive the target thickness for each specific wood set and body size. The shop uses CNC and laser where repeatability matters, and handwork everywhere voice and feel do. Osthoff covers a wide design range — Vintage Series and Custom Series across multiple body sizes, with arm-bevel ergonomics he calls the "Ryan Bevel" (after his friend Kevin Ryan) and an asymmetric body wedge inspired by Linda Manzer. Annual output stays small; each guitar is built one at a time. …

About Guitar Gallery

Guitar Gallery is a Nashville-based online dealer specializing in fine handmade acoustic guitars, run out of South Nashville's Berry Hill music district. Their authorized-builder roster has the breadth few US shops match — Bashkin, Beauregard, Borges, Froggy Bottom, Greven, Lowden, McPherson, Olson, Osthoff, Petros, Sexauer, Tippin, Wingert, and dozens more, alongside a deep tail of vintage and used inventory from harder-to-find names like Traugott, Sobell, Klein, Wayne Henderson, and Dudenbostel. Every listing carries a consistent in-house recording — Shure SM81 or Neumann TLM 102 microphone, no EQ, no effects, mic placement held constant — so buyers can compare what each specific guitar actually sounds like rather than how it was captured. The active shelf rotates broadly across that roster rather than running deep on any single builder; the catalog as a whole is wider than it is tall.

Request a correction