I was fascinated by a glimpse into Chris Polin’s guitar workshop at Grit Studios, Manchester and arranged to call back for a more detailed chat the week after. Chris’s gentle Belfast brogue told me how his first guitar, at the age of 11, was a copy of a Stratocaster – that same guitar still beside him in his workshop. That guitar founded his love of playing and through his teenage years when, he told me, all of his contemporaries split into a love of sports or music, Chris nursed a nascent fascination with the guitar. He would draw up designs full scale, research the latest developments, buy parts to investigate. 

 

“At 16 all I wanted to do for my work experience was see first hand how professional guitar makers worked. Guitar makers are a rare breed, but eventually I managed to get in touch with Alistair Hay. Who founded Emerald Guitars, still in Donegal today. He agreed to take me on a week’s work experience and that’s what rooted my passion, showed me the way forward. My dad drove up to Donegal and we lived in a caravan on a farm for a week. Alistair showed me the techniques, whilst my dad walked the Donegal mountains!” This experience turned an interest into what Chris described as a ‘pipe dream.’ 

 

At this point Chris talked me through the technicalities of guitars. As a non-musician this was fascinating but way, way over my head. But also the artistic nuances of different guitars. “There is a sort of tribalism when it comes to guitars. For example Kurt Cobain played a Fender, Slash a Gibson.” More fascinating technical but way over my head techy stuff: single coil pick-ups, two coil pick-ups wired in opposite directions. Design shape, headstock, weight, balance…

 

But Chris had a career path to follow and studied medical physics at Queen’s Belfast, moving on to software systems engineering. Software engineering that would aid and abet his pipe dream. And hours spent watching Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars on YouTube, continuing his fascination. When he moved across the water to Stockport he shipped all of his guitar making books from Belfast and set to making his own designs “in a freezing garage!” As his skill and passion grew he rented space in a local mill “freezing with no windows or heating.” As a systems engineer he self-taught Fusion 360, a CAD programme that would enable digital templates of his own designs – but which, of course, required CNC equipment to cut the materials to shape. A large, flat bed piece of equipment. And that’s where the relationship with Grit Studios came in. “I had been on the waiting list for a studio at Grit Stockport, but then this space became available. Heating, windows, a creative atmosphere – and two minutes walk for my apartment here in town. Perfect. It took some time to move all of the equipment and install it here, but now everything’s established I can split my time working as a systems engineer and fulfilling my passion.”

 

There are other advantages to working at Grit. Sophie Macaulay put him in touch with QEST – the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust – and Chris has recently spent two weeks on a course at Crimson Guitars in Dorset. “On the course they build a guitar from scratch. I have some experience already of course, but what I really wanted to do was build a guitar with a hollow body. I was given such great advice, with experts on hand to help.” The hollow body guitar is still unfinished and in Chris’s workshop. “I’ll work on it between commissions and complete it gradually,” he told me. “My clients talk me through what they are looking for. Technical, sound, style. And I build to their specifications. You can only achieve that with bespoke making.” And what of the future? Chris wants to keep building guitars of course. “I don’t want a big business. I have to be hands on. But maybe one day have an apprentice, so that I can pass things on, just as Alistair Hay did for me when I was 16.”