Swope Guitars Archives

In this month’s “Custom Shop” column, Jake Serek goes behind the scenes on Chris Swope’s life and work. Chris started out as an apprentice at Mass Street Music before working with Roger Sadowsky, then on to his own shop, Swope Guitars.

Swope Guitars has unveiled a new bass model called the Dakota. The retro-styled bass features a slickly contoured lightweight alder body in Candy Apple Red. Its neck is flat or rift-sawn hard rock maple that is topped with a quarter-sawn rosewood slab fingerboard. Luthier Chris Swope gives the bass a nitrocellulose lacquer with something he calls the “Knock-around” treatment. “I...