laplante

Around 1994, chemistry professor and longtime guitarist Jean-Pierre Laplante, frustrated by the dearth of decent left-handed instruments available on the market and tired of playing converted right-handed models, decided to take matters into his own hands. “I built myself a proper left-handed electric,” he says, “and basically made all the mistakes that could be made when building a first guitar. I learned from those mistakes and built a second, then a third, and eventually I had a number of eager customers.”

Two decades later, Laplante handbuilds a variety of guitars—archtops, flattops, and electrics, both solidbody and hollowbody— in his one-man shop, in Kingston, Ontario. His creations range from thoughtful, modern interpretations of the Fender Telecaster, to 17" electric archtops with exotic tonewoods, to guitars inspired by the masterworks of artists such as Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt.

Laplante has recently received an uptick in requests for archtops, and is also currently writing a book. The planned title is Building an Electric Archtop Guitar, which will detail the building—from start to finish—of a 16" model. He feels positive about the change in consumer tastes and suspects that more and more electric players will discover the exciting range of tonal colors they can get from archtops.