Campbell County High School grad moves guitar manufacturing business to hometown

Conner Baldacci talks about his guitar making process at his Baldacci Guitars shop in Gillette on Aug. 9. Baldacci, a Campbell County High School graduate, started his business in 2017, after attending the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix where he learned his craft. Photo by Ed Glazar, Gillette News Record.

GILLETTE — Conner Baldacci never tires of it. He’s been building and selling guitars for more than five years, but he hasn’t become numb to the feeling he gets when he sees a completed guitar.

“I’d say it’s the opposite,” he said. “Every time I open one that comes from the lacquer booth, I just get goosebumps.”

Baldacci graduated from Campbell County High School in 2016, then attended the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, where he learned how to repair and build guitars.

In the winter of 2017, he started his own business, Baldacci Guitars.

Living in Phoenix had its perks. The market for guitars was a lot bigger, and it was much easier to find supplies and equipment, but Wyoming was home. He and his wife began looking to move somewhere in Wyoming to be closer to family.

They ended up picking Gillette, and Baldacci moved the family, as well as his guitar manufacturing operation, here this summer. Because most of Baldacci’s business comes from online orders, the physical location doesn’t matter as much.

His guitars are made in batches of six to eight, and each batch takes about 10 weeks from start to finish. Baldacci uses a CNC router, rather than doing it entirely by hand.

“As much as I like carving a guitar neck by hand, I’ll never do it the same way twice,” he said.

Each guitar he makes has its own personality. Two guitars can be made from the same tree, but there are a lot of little unique elements that can make them sound different.

He’ll start with the neck of the guitar. He’ll put it through the machine and let it sit for a week to stabilize.

“As the tree grows, there’s tension within it from wind and rain and other outside factors,” Baldacci said.

That wood can twist and warp from all of that tension, so it needs a week to stabilize, because if the neck isn’t stable, the guitar won’t stay in tune.

The body of the guitar is made out of mahogany, and a piece of maple is glued on top of it. Once it gets through the CNC router, then comes the sanding. Each guitar requires two and a half to three hours of sanding.

Baldacci said he’s always trying to find ways to make his guitars better.

“After I send it off to the spray booth, I’m sitting there thinking, what could be done better, how could it be improved?” he said. “By the time it comes back, you’ve forgotten all the imperfections, and you open it up and see it in the case, and it’s all good.”

While chasing perfection is still the goal, there comes a point of acceptance, he said. He’s come a long way.

Baldacci started building guitars in high school. Back then, he was buying and trading for any guitar he could get his hands on. He remembers trying, and failing, several times to make the red, black and white striped guitar in the style of the Frankenstrat, played by Eddie Van Halen.

Through this process, he learned which pieces worked best, and he came up with his own guitar, which is a combination of “what I think are the best attributes of all the major manufacturers.”

There are pieces of the guitar that can be bought for a few dollars, but Baldacci wants to ensure his guitars have high quality hardware.

“For the guitar player, if you’re on stage and that piece gives out, that’s a big deal,” he said.

His guitars have proven to be popular among country guitar players. Ironically, Baldacci wasn’t a fan of country music growing up. He preferred southern rock and blues, and he’s more of a metalhead these days.

But after years of setting up stages at Cheyenne Frontier Days, he grew to appreciate country music and, more importantly, he got to know a lot of country guitar players. Those connections helped him down the line.

He has a friend in Nashville who works in artist management, and Baldacci will send him b-stock guitars, which are new guitars that have superficial blemishes that don’t affect their sound or playability.

“He’ll give it to one of his buddies who plays guitar, and if they like it, they’ll keep it,” he said. “If they don’t like it, they’ll pass it off to their friend.”

His guitars have been played on stages with big-name country artists like Kane Brown, Ian Munsick and Riley Green.

When he started out, he made a list of venues that he’d like to see his guitar played at. Cheyenne Frontier Days was one, along with the Grand Ole Opry and The O2 Arena in London, and football stadiums around the country.

A couple of weeks ago, one of Baldacci’s guitars popped up at a Luke Combs show in Ford Field.

One of the coolest ways he found out his guitar was going to be on stage was at Cheyenne Frontier Days a couple of years ago. He was helping get the stage ready for Thomas Rhett.

“We were unloading their stage, we opened up the guitar vault and one of them’s just sitting there,” he said.

As far as artists that he’d like to see on the stage with his guitar, Chris Stapleton tops the list.

Zakk Wylde, founder of the band Black Label Society and also the guitarist for Pantera, is another one, as is the biggest pop star on the planet, Taylor Swift.

“If the Swifties like you, you’re set for life,” he said.

Baldacci makes about 50 guitars a year, and he’d like to see Baldacci Guitars grow “as fast as possible, but within reason.”

“Things become trendy real fast and they’ll die out real quick,” he said. “We want to avoid becoming the trendy thing for a few weeks.”

And he’s still improving his craft. He’ll take notes on every guitar he makes to see what he can do better.

When he sees a guitar player on stage with a guitar that he made, it never fails to make him emotional.

“I still tear up every single time,” he said.

Log In

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,racist or sexually-oriented language.PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.Don't Threaten. Threats of harming anotherperson will not be tolerated.Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyoneor anything.Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ismthat is degrading to another person.Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link oneach comment to let us know of abusive posts.Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitnessaccounts, the history behind an article.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.

Sunny. High 82F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.

Mostly clear. Low 58F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.

A mix of clouds and sun in the morning followed by cloudy skies during the afternoon. High 88F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.