My interest in guitars started in my early teens. My dad had a Kalamazoo flattop and I was fascinated with learning to play it. I got my own acoustic flattop at 13 and my first electric at 14 my first job was working on guitars for a music store near my home where I hung out and begged my way into guitar repair. I began painting guitars for Morgan music and for friends and local musicians who wanted to restore or personalize their instruments in those years too. I moved to Nashville and found work at O'Donnell music doing repairs and refinishing. I also worked with Tut Taylor and Bob Givens at Tn'T in Donaldson  Tennessee where they built guitars banjos and mandolins. I played in bands and tried a variety of different guitars all of which I tweaked and modified in my endeavor to improve sound and playability. I moved to Colorado in the late 70's and began restoring and customizing guitars and basses and also started to design and build bodies., which at first had Fender necks, and later had Warmoth necks. During the past 30 years I have worked on thousands of guitars in all areas of repair restoration design construction and custom finishing.

My current clientele includes walk in customer guitar repair customer and area artists and collectors. I specialize in the restoration of Hofner guitars and basses. I have a particular interest in European vintage guitars and basses including Framus, Hagstrom, Hofner, Hoyer, Klira and Zenith among others. I am a certified Fender tech and formerly a Martin tech. I am also an authorized  Buzz Seiten tuning system retrofitter and Stetsbar dealer/fitter. I offer a full range of lutherie services with specialization in vintage color matching, custom graphics, hot rod mods, vintage arch top and flattop restoration, and custom shop caliber refinishing. I am well experienced in all areas of structural repairs including broken heads, broken heels, neck joint rebuilding, body and neck cracks, finish touch-ups and fret board replacement. Other experience includes involvement with Neil Skin on the Transperformance automatic tuning System (routing and fitting the first generation) and custom paint for Graham Nash and Jimmy Page. I have also done custom graphics on a Les Paul for Mark Slaughter, and custom inlay and finishing on a Hofner violin bass for Paul McCartney.

I have played lead guitar in several bands including three Beatles tribute bands, and I am familiar with all of the instruments the Beatles played throughout their careers. My son and I have collected many of the instruments similar to the ones played by John, Paul, and George for use on all recordings so I am very familiar with the quirks and nuances of these guitars. You can hear me play lead guitar acoustic guitar and bass on the Clues CD entitled "maybe it's time" or on other Clues recordings on Garage Band.com.

You may view our collection on this site and you can see several of the Hofner instruments I have restored here too. I invite you to present to me any challenging project or custom project concept that you may need help with. I receive guitars from customer all over the US and you can rest assured that your instrument is in good hands with me at Virtuoso Lutherie. Thank you for your interest, Dan.