Gaffney Guitars

Gaffney Guitars is the independent atelier of Julian Gaffney, whose lineage runs through three of American lutherie's most distinguished names: formal training at the Galloup School of Lutherie, seven and a half years alongside Roger Sadowsky in New York — during which he helped revive the Sadowsky acoustic line, dormant for more than twenty years — and an apprenticeship with Ervin Somogyi in California, widely regarded as the pinnacle of modern steel-string craft. From a small shop in Beacon, New York, the instruments that leave the bench today carry that inheritance forward: Sadowsky's precision in setup and playability, Somogyi's uncompromising pursuit of acoustic voice, refined over years of independent work into a sensibility distinctly Julian's own. A modest number of hand-built steel-strings emerge each year, each shaped with unhurried devotion to workmanship, tone, and design.