Thanks for stopping by and checking out Clinesmith Instruments.  We are located in the beautiful mountains of Idleyld Park, Oregon, on west side of the Cascades.  My shop is on our property where I raise a family with my wife Shelly, and enjoy our outdoor lifestyle. Besides building instruments we stay busy with a garden, orchard, bee's , pigs , goats and sheep, as well as hunt, fish and bring in firewood for our winter's heat.

I first became interested in building instruments back in 1992, with a few Dulcimers.  I started building my first resonator guitars in 1996, and in 2001, I started Clinesmith Instruments. I concentrated most of my instrument construction to Resonator and Hawaiian guitars.

In 2006 I purchased the remaining stock of parts and aluminum casting patterns of Paul A. Bigsby.  These same patterns made some of the steel guitars built for the finest steel players of the 40's, 50's, and 60's, including Joaquin Murphey, Vance Terry, Buddy Emmons, Bud Isaacs, Leon McAuliffe, Speedy West, and Noel Boggs.  I am proud to offer these instruments built with excellent attention to detail, and with the sound and look just like the originals. I also offer several lap Steel models, and I am always pursuing new designs and sounds in the steel and resonator guitar world.

I am a one man shop here. Though I do work a few foundries to cast my aluminum patterns. Just about all of the parts I make my steel guitars with are custom made in house. Besides some of the tuning machines, and electrical components, all of the pieces that make a Clinesmith Steel are unique.

I keep my hands on the instruments. I enjoy playing swing standards from the 30's and 40's, and I am a member of the Barn Door Slammers.  A traditional Western Swing band out of Portland, Oregon.

Here's an interview I did with the finest guitar magazine, The Fretboard Journal, click here .

Feel free to call or email with any questions or ideas you may have.