Thank you for your interest in my work.

CelinderWORKS is a design house, a guitar workshop, and a sound studio. Here - together with input from my partners and their companies - I design, build, voice, and test my guitars, my basses, and my pickups.

All my instruments are handmade exclusively and individually - slowly and meticulously - using my hands and my ears. Thus all tone woods and materials going into my instruments are carefully selected and voiced with the sole purpose of making music. Most all my work (except certain hardware) is done in-house - in my workshop - by hand - and (mostly these days) by myself - only utilising old-school machinery and fine hand tools - using only the utmost supreme, seasoned tone woods from my private stock, as well as using my ears, my eyes, and my sensibilities - in order to let the woods do the talking.  

My woods are air dried and have seasoned in my shop for many years. Most more than 25. My Danish red-alder, Danish ash, Honduran mahogany, American walnut, European and American maples are at least 30 years old. The old-stock-old-growth Brazilian rosewood that I have access to, is out of this world. It has only had one owner, and has been in this country since the 60's well before the embargo and CITES, and thus has seasoned for more than 60 years!

I hand wind my own pickups for each electric instrument, only after I have heard it acoustically, in order to tailor and define exactly what kind of tone enhancement that particular instrument calls for. My fretwork and setups are second to none and I spend days - oftentimes weeks - adjusting and voicing an instrument until it is just right, thereby securing that each instrument performs at its absolute best.

Due to my relentless attitude toward hand making everything in-house the old-fashioned way, my output is very limited. My reason for keeping it this way - now and in the future - is, that only this way am I able to build the instruments for which I am known - where musicality, quality of tone, playability & feel all come together in one instrument. 

Style wise much of my work is rooted in tradition while always trying to break the mould and push the boundaries, wherever I find it necessary in order to heighten the quality of sound, playability, and design.

I strive to build instruments, which will last several lifetimes and I believe in creating instruments that inspire, enrich and facilitate music. Instruments that beg to be played. Responsive instruments which possess an uncanny ability to speak and sing at any volume - in any style. Instruments which feel played-in, alive and breathing, even when brand new, and which will - in time, as they actually do break in - only mature and become even better. Instruments which are an investment in music and art.

My instruments come with a personal lifetime guarantee to the original owner. 

Chris Celinder, maestro liutaio

The Basses

CELINDER Fine Handmade Bass Guitars has been my main focus since 1987. Having built instruments for a whole bunch of my personal heroes (some of which actually are the reason I picked up the instrument back in the late 70's) I have been very fortunate to cater to some of the absolute best bassists on this planet.

The Guitars

Chris Celinder Guitars is my offering to the discerning guitarist. As with some of my bass models, my guitars are mainly rooted in tradition, but I deconstruct the tradition and seek to give my take on how the designs - from, let's say, the hand of a brilliant industrial designer/radio technician - could benefit from a luthier's standpoint and insight.

The Pickups

Celinder Pickups is an effort to bring my own sound to my own instruments. I approach the challenge like I do my other work. Slowly, meticulously, stubbornly. Using old-school proven techniques and handwork of a bygone era. It takes forever, but in the end the results speak for themselves. Let your ears decide...