Making, playing guitars: Lindquist’s labour of love

By Rob Vogt
As local artisan Dean Lindquist continues on his journey of making guitars, each instrument tells its own story.
The journey started simply enough for the retired Grade 5 teacher with cigar box guitars.
“I had tried to play regular guitar,” he said from his living room in Claresholm where he was surrounded by the fruits of his labour.
His sister is a master guitar player, but Lindquist could not read music no matter how hard he tried.
Yet, he loved guitars.
So, when his retirement came, it offered an opportunity.
“You have to do something to keep your brain busy,” Lindquist said.
“What can I do by myself?” he asked.
Lindquist sought the answer by going on the Internet.
That’s when he came upon cigar box guitars.
After all, he had learned a number of concepts about guitars awhile back.
However, the fact he did not know how to tune a guitar, had also held Lindquist back.
He needed a guitar he didn’t have to tune. The cigar box guitar fit the bill.
Lindquist set to building a cigar box guitar.
Still, he had a tough time trying to play.
His friend told him to try playing electric, not acoustic guitar.
It was different.
That same friend suggested Lindquist get an electric guitar, and go to Long and McQuade, a renowned music store.
There, he bought a telecaster guitar.
Fender Guitars did a study of their buying audience, and found 90 per cent quit playing guitar in 90 days after a purchase.
Lindquist brought it home and looked at it for a week.
Finally, his wife Ruth said he should play the telecaster like it was a cigar box guitar.
That got him to risk playing a regular guitar – and he hasn’t looked back.
“You never quit learning,” Lindquist said.
He has now made about 30 guitars of all kinds – single, two, three, four and six-string guitars, box and cigar box guitars.
“You keep learning,” he said.
Lindquist starts every job the same way.
The first step is finding a reason for making the guitar.
“Every one of these guitars has a reason,” he said. “Every guitar – all 35 – is made different.”
For instance, one guitar is based on a Spider Man comic.
It is an example of how Lindquist keeps his mind busy and looks at things in a different way.
The second step is collecting the materials.
Lindquist uses common materials such as a door latch, piece of a bed headboard, or just a piece of wood.
One time, he found a piece of maple.
“This piece of maple spoke to me,” Lindquist said. “I’m going to make a guitar out of this.”
The third step, and biggest part, is making the neck.
“You spend three-quarters of the time on the neck,” Lindquist said.
He utilizes special tools for the neck and the whole guitar.
“You are guiding the tools,” he said.
The next step is deciding what kind of guitar he wants.
He then fits it to the box, and the electronics.
Lindquist also creates an owner’s manual for each guitar.
Every guitar not only has a reason, but a story.
He made one six-string guitar, with his family’s cattle brands on it.
The same steel was used to make the brands that was in the iconic buffalo statue at the University of Lethbridge.
Lindquist calls this guitar the Brandcaster.
“I spent six months researching brands,” Lindquist said.
In another case, Lindquist achieved one of his goals.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if some musician used one of my guitars,” he said.
One day, a musician named Jessica Olivero contacted him. Lindquist had purchased a guitar neck from her boyfriend, and sent along some stuff he had been working on.
When Olivero contacted Lindquist, she told him she had a facility called Great Bird Studio.
Lindquist made a phone date with her, where she told him she wanted him to make her a guitar.
He asked if it would be used as an instrument or a wall hanging.
“I want it for my studio for the sound qualities it has,” Olivero said.
Lindquist then spent three months making that guitar.
“I put a lot of work into making it very precise,” he said.
Later in the same day he gave the guitar to Olivero, she sent him some sound bites, to show the job he had done.
One of his first guitars was made for his dear friend, and fellow teacher Dave Armstrong, who was a lover of music.
“He would have been so happy to see me play,” Lindquist said.
The Spider Man guitar is another favourite.
Lindquist took it to Long and McQuade, where one of the people there started playing the Spider Man theme song on the guitar.
It attracted all these people from the adjacent mall including one in particular, who had been standing in line to get a Spider Man tattoo.
“It’s about connection,” Lindquist said.
Another guitar utilizes a licence plate from Ruth’s dad’s garage.
Lindquist said it is all about character.
“You learn things you didn’t know were a thing,” he said.
Ultimately, making cigar box guitars allows Lindquist to be himself, with no pressure or expectation.
“I can be me, and you can be you,” he said. “That’s why I make cigar box guitars.
“It’s fun.”