♪♪ I feel like doing stuff by hand the old way is, it's a different skill set when you have literally one person doing every aspect of the build.

♪♪ It's everything, it's functional art.

♪♪ Every piece of wood that is removed, even if with a power tool, it is done by hand, controlled by hand, carved by hand, anything is an option.

♪♪ For some people, these guitars are their babies.

People really attach themselves to their instruments, whether they're expensive or not, it's a sentimental thing.

♪♪ But also, guitars are cool, there's that.

♪♪ So right now, I'm just taking the meat off the braces.

This is trying to maximize how much the top vibrates, which pushes more air, which makes it have more sustain or more treble or bass depending on where you're carving the braces.

The idea is you want to hear -- you want to hear as much resonance as possible.

Mike Marcovis: I got my first guitar in fifth grade, took lessons for a year at Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe on an acoustic and then quit because I didn't get an electric.

Once I got the electric guitar though it really kicked in.

That's what sparked the interest again I guess you could say.

And the guitar building came from I had kind of done everything in the art field in high school -- did ceramics, did jewelry, photography and there was a local builder named Dave Plummer here in town that I heard about through a guitar shop or something and I went and visited him and he's the one that told me about the school I went to in Phoenix called the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery.

Once I found out about that it was a quick decision what I was doing after high school.

And that was fall of 2001, so I've really been building ever since then.

♪♪ Mike Marcovis: So, a luthier is a person that builds stringed instruments.

So, it could be violins, could be cellos, could be guitars, harps, really anything.

Nowadays a lot of the guitar building, the big companies you're working at a factory, so you maybe specialize in one task versus the entire process.

Like acoustic guitars?

Yeah, I build acoustic guitars, I build electric guitars, I work on all that stuff.

Mike Marcovis: What I think is cool about at least my job is the guys that can't get what they want somewhere can come to me and say, this type of wood, this type of size, you basically can pick whatever you want because it's all, it's one person taking raw materials and creating an instrument out of it versus somebody doing this step, somebody doing this step, a robot doing this step.

It's old school but I definitely think that there's value in that.

♪♪ Eli Clark: It's dangerous.

♪♪ Eli Clark: There's a certain caliber of guitars that once you put it in your lap and you're like oh, okay.

♪♪ Eli Clark: My way of explaining it is, the higher up in the price you go, the playing field kind of levels and it's all really, really good and it's kind of a do you want the keys to the Corvette or do you want the keys to the Camry?

♪♪ Mike Marcovis: I have made 38 guitars.

I've built basses, I've built ukuleles, I've built guitars, you know, someone might order something really wild and we'll have 17 horns on it and a bunch of lights and you never know, but it would be a fun project.

It's the same thing I say to everybody about this is nobody needs a $5,000 guitar, there's no need for that, it's a want.

You can by a bullet Strat from Squier for less than $300 that can play fine, but it's not the same as a custom-made instrument.

And it's kind of cool to look back and think about being that kid like, man I'll never own one of these, or how could you ever afford something like this, and then sometimes it just works out.

♪♪ Jordan Jensen: I actually own two Marcovis instruments.

I have this bass.

I also have the guitar that's right here.

♪♪ Jordan Jensen: I really like the body style that he puts into it.

It's familiar and traditional, but it is unique.

And then just the quality of the woods that he uses for the built, just the flame at the top, the back of the neck, the body.

One little thing, I really love the handwritten serial number on the back of the headstock.

I'm not sure why.

He's got a great eye for everything that is going to look together in terms of how the hardware is going to go with the finish and the woods themselves and how it's going to pop.

♪♪ Mike Marcovis: You just meet a whole lot of different people and it's anything from teenage girls to 80-year-old men that play guitar and need something fixed or want it tweaked to their liking.

It's not just one type of person that does this, you get to meet all sorts of people.

♪♪ Mike Marcovis: If you really can find something that you're passionate about and that you enjoy on a personal level, not just a work level, it doesn't feel like work.

I feel lucky that I have found that and that it has worked.

There was no guarantee.

It's not been easy, but it's definitely fulfilling.

♪♪