About Richard Wilson Guitars

Based in Brisbane, Australia, Richard Wilson Guitars specialises in acoustic lap steel guitars modelled after the original 'Weissenborn', a unique acoustic lap steel guitar famous for its hollowneck design, invented in the early 20th century.

Your guitar can be tailored to meet your specific tastes and requirements with the range of custom Weissenborns, with prices to suit most budgets. Every piece of timber is different, so whether custom ordered or one of our off-the-shelf instruments, you can count on individual handcrafting. Hardcrafting that utilises a delicate blend of traditional techniques and modern effiencies to result in a truly unique instrument that looks and sounds its finest. Each and every time.

All guitars are crafted by and sold directly through Richard Wilson Guitars. At this stage we don't sell through distributors, but do have limited opportunities for consignment and similar arrangements, so if you are an established music store interested in stocking Richard Wilson Guitars feel free to contact us for further information.

About Myself

Wanting to expand my guitar playing to include lap steels but faced with their lack of availability in most music stores, I embarked on my first homemade lap steel guitar as a university student; a simple hardwood plank with six strings and a crudely attached pickup. To my own surprise it sounded pretty good, and I quickly set to work on #2, much the same but with a shaped body and lots of lessons learned from #1. #2 was sold to fund parts for #3 and #4. This process continued through my studies as I found myself building more and more lap steels. I eventually embarked on my first acoustic guitar -- a simple Weissenborn and as I got my head around the unique construction process for these instruments I soon started selling these instruments as well.

As time went on I refined the process and made numerous changes to the design to make the instruments I built unique guitars based on -- not copied from -- the original Weissenborn. Now, the majority of the instruments I build are Weissenborns, with electric lap steels, ukuleles and steel string acoustic guitars built from time to time.

Today, approximately 30-50 guitars are built annually, each constructed from raw materials into a completed guitar in my Brisbane workshop.