Abraham Wechter is an American luthier who has been making custom guitars since the 1970s. He is known for building 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars and acoustic bass guitars. He was a student of luthier Richard Schneider, and for ten years he worked for the guitar company

Gibson Gibson may refer to: People * Gibson (surname) Businesses * Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment * Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based * Gi ...

. After leaving Gibson, he started Wechter Guitars in Paw Paw, Michigan. In 2008 he moved his shop to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Wechter builds many guitars with his Pathmaker design, an acoustic guitar with a double cutaway. Some of his guitars have drone strings and scalloped fingerboards. In 1976, he collaborated with jazz guitarist

John McLaughlin John or Jon McLaughlin may refer to: Arts and entertainment * John McLaughlin (musician) (born 1942), English jazz fusion guitarist, member of Mahavishnu Orchestra * Jon McLaughlin (musician) (born 1982), American singer-songwriter * John McLaug ...

to create the Shakti guitar, which was used by McLaughlin in his band

Shakti In Hinduism, especially Shaktism (a theological tradition of Hinduism), Shakti (Devanagari: शक्ति, IAST: Śakti; lit. "Energy, ability, strength, effort, power, capability") is the primordial cosmic energy, female in aspect, and r ...

. The Shakti guitar is a customized

Gibson J-200 The Gibson J-200 (formerly the Gibson SJ-200 or Super Jumbo 200), is an acoustic guitar model produced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. History Gibson entered into production of this model in 1937 as its top-of-the-line flat top guitar, ini ...

with drone strings transversely across the soundhole. He also made him a guitar with scalloped fingerboards. In 2013, Wechter Guitars closed and, according to his web site, Abraham Wechter moved his shop to Guangzhou, China, where he continues to build handmade custom guitars. Wechter has built guitars for John Denver, Al Di Meola,

Jonas Hellborg Jonas Hellborg (born 7 June 1958) is a Swedish bass guitarist. He has collaborated with John McLaughlin, Ustad Sultan Khan, Fazal Qureshi, Bill Laswell, Shawn Lane, Jens Johansson, Anders Johansson, Ginger Baker, Michael Shrieve, V. Selvaga ...

Steve Howe Stephen James Howe (born 8 April 1947) is an English musician, best known as the guitarist in the progressive rock band Yes across three stints since 1970. Born in Holloway, North London, Howe developed an interest in the guitar and began to le ...

Earl Klugh Earl Klugh ( ; born September 16, 1953) is an American acoustic guitarist and composer. He has won one Grammy award and thirteen nominations. Klugh was awarded the “1977” Best Recording Award For Performance and Sound” for his album “Fin ...

Johnny Hiland Johnny Hiland is a legally blind American musician/guitarist. Early life Hiland grew up in Maine, with an eye disease called nystagmus. He started playing guitar at age 2, played his first talent show at age 5, performed on Dick Stacey's Jamb ...

, and Roman Miroshnichenko.

References

External links

Official website

Interview with Wechter on his official YouTube channel

Interview with Wechter at the NAMM Oral History Library (2017)
Guitar manufacturing companies of the United States People from Paw Paw, Michigan Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{US-music-bio-stub