Quick Facts
Biography
Abraham Wechter is an American luthier who has been making custom guitars since the 1970s. He is best known for building 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars, but also builds acoustic bass guitars. He was a student of Richard Schneider, and worked for Gibson for ten years. After leaving Gibson, he started his own company, Wechter Guitars, based in Paw Paw, Michigan. In 2008 he moved his shop to Fort Wayne.
Wechter builds custom guitars, many of them with his "Pathmaker" design (an acoustic guitar with double cutaway). Some of his custom-built guitars have such features as drone strings and scalloped fingerboards. His most noted collaboration is with guitar virtuoso John McLaughlin, a collaboration which began in 1976 when Wechter build the "Shakti guitar," used in the recordings with Shakti. The Shakti guitar is a customized Gibson J-200 with drone strings transversely across the soundhole. He also made him a guitar with scalloped fingerboards.
Notable players
- Johnny Hiland
- Roman Miroshnichenko
- Jonas Hellborg
- John McLaughlin