Cameron Stapel is using skills he learned as a tool and die worker and guitar player to make custom electric guitars and start a business.
Galaxy Guitar Shop USA started after Stapel of Verndale talked with his daughter and her fiance who live in California. His daughters fiance is a first cousin to a member of Los Lobos, a rock band.
Stapel has played guitar off and on since the 1960s and has played in rock bands and folk bands. He was encouraged to try making guitars when he visited his daughter and future son-in-law in California. He got a guitar body and then experimented to see what he could make.
No one taught him how to make guitars he just taught himself.
After returning to his Verndale home, where he lives with his wife, Deloris, he researched guitars and began to make them. Stapel worked at Homecrest as a tool and die maker for many years before he retired.
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Im used to doing careful work, he said.
That experience was the perfect background for making guitars, he said.
So far, Stapel has made three guitars. The guitars he makes are custom made and are a Fender style. He has a shop at his home where he makes the guitars. The guitars are hardwood solid body guitars. Stapel does everything from drilling holes and angled cuts to sanding, painting and adding hardware.
Each guitar takes about 60 hours to make, Stapel said.
He hasnt sold a guitar yet but he just began marketing the guitars. Stapel hopes to eventually make three guitars a month.
He can gear a guitar toward a certain person. If, for example, a younger person wants a louder setup Stapel can make a guitar with that feature.
The lacquer paint on the guitars makes each unique. The first guitar Stapel made has metal flake paint and another guitar has a tobacco burst style finish.
His daughter, Deborah, is handling the marketing of his guitar business.
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Galaxy Guitar Shop USA has a Web site, www.galaxyguitarshop.com . Stapel can be reached at (218) 445-5121.
