Customer Care

Yes, sort of! Our workshop and offices in Savannah, GA include examples of almost every model we make. We also sell our Bob’s Boutique guitars from our offices. You are welcome to come and shop, and even take a tour of our workshop – but by appointment only, please!  We also maintain a small presence (two or three guitars) in New York City (NYC Guitar Shop in Brooklyn) and Los Angeles (Imperial Vintage Guitars and Amps in Sherman Oaks).

Yes, you can pick up your Bob’s Boutique or custom made guitar at our workshop, but be aware that there is a 7% Georgia State Sales Tax added to the price.

We don’t sell our guitars through retail dealers/music shops. We’re simply too small to generate that kind of inventory. You’ll need to visit our Savannah workshop, our NYC or LA partner retailers, or email us to see if you are close to one of our Artist or friendly customers who might let you check out their guitar. Benedetto guitars have been around for over 50 years, so it’s likely we can help you find one to try out somewhere near you in the world!

There are very few stores that carry new Benedettos, and their inventory is often owned by the store and not use. The number of instruments are always limited.  Contact us to see if there is retailer near you that has a Benedetto.

We only sell new Benedetto. But sometimes our customers will let us know if they have something they want to put on the market. Shoot us an email.

Bob started building guitars in 1968, licensed Fender Guitars to build under his supervision from 1999 to 2006 and created his own “factory” in Savannah GA with partner Howard Paul in 2006. Bob fully retired from the company in 2015 but remains on our board as a non-equity director providing advice and helping us preserve the integrity the guitars that bear his name. We are in touch with him continuously!

We can identify your Benedetto by its serial number.  Generally:

Bob’s personally made Benedetto guitars’s serial numbers indicate the Sequence and Year built: 33195 was Bob’s 331st guitar, built in 1995.

N-designations were built in the Fender Nashville Custom Shop under Bob’s direction between 2000-2002: N14001 would be the 40th guitar, built in 2001.

2002-2006 Serial numbers were sequenced only, without identifying the year built, but they were constructed in the Fender Custom Shop in Corona California under Bob’s direction.

All guitars after 2006-present with an “S” designation were built in Savannah GA under Bob’s direct supervision while active, and under master luthier Damon Mailand’s direct supervision since Bob’s retirement. For example, S1254 would be the 254th guitar built in Savannah.  Contact us for the year and month of construction.

The right guitar is a very personal choice based on factors like body size, nut width, acoustic vs. amplified use, budget, etc. We can help you walk through the advantages and disadvantages of each Benedetto model based on your musical approach, typical playing situation, recording needs, etc. We are not just guitar makers here, but we are full time professional guitarists too.

New Benedettos are strung with Benedetto strings – pure nickel made to our exacting specs. Carved Flagship models with roundwound .14-52s; laminated Professional Series with round wound .12-.52s; Benny’s with round wound .11-.48s; and our Pat Martino with Pat’s flat wound .15-.52s. Our strings are available in our Benedetto Gear store.

Benedetto pickups are build to Bob’s exacting specifications co-designed by Seymour Duncan. Available for retail sale through our Benedetto Gear store.

Our S6 is specifically designed as a floating mini humbucker built for our carved acoustic archtop guitars.

The A6 and B6 pickups are double coil humbuckers designed to be built-in to the tops of our carved and laminated guitars and are also used in the Benny and Pat Martino models. Internally, they are the same pickup, but the covers make a huge difference in the amplified sound.

The A6 with its metal stamped cover and individually adjustable pole pieces is more adjustable to string intensity, brighter, more “direct sound” and more appropriate for using with pedal boards.

The B6 has an “ebonova” epoxy formed cover with no individual adjustment per strings, but can adjust cant and height across the strings. It is warmer, and lusher, but requires a little higher gain to achieve the same volume as a similarly positioned A6. Both are extraordinary pickups!  We can help you pick the right one for you.

We keep our wiring harness schematics on our website in PDF format.

No. Benedetto Amps were a separate project and company owned by Bob Benedetto and Bill Neale apart from the Benedetto Guitars, although we sold them on behalf of Bob. The amps were built by Henriksen Amplifiers in Colorado, which we still feel is an exceptional company and whose products we strongly recommend!

No.  Fender never owned Benedetto Guitars. From 1999 to 2006 Bob Benedetto had a licensing agreement allowing Fender to hand-build Benedetto guitars at their custom shop, with regular visits and inspections from Bob during the entire construction process. The guitars were sold by Fender dealers worldwide, and each instrument was inspected and signed by Bob before release from the factory. The agreement ended under good terms, and all Fenders were sold by the middle of 2006, when Bob started production of his own guitars again in Savannah GA in mid-2006.

We discontinued construction of our GA-35 in 2018 after completing about 40 instruments. Gibson Guitars initiated an industry-wide litigation effort to stop all companies from impinging on their “trademarks,” all of which claim they own the shapes including the Flying V, Thunderbird, ES style double cutaways, F5 Mandolin and the “open book” headstock. All of these shapes were trademark applied-for long after the fact, and are now considered ubiquitous in the industry, with hundreds of companies using the same or similar shapes for generations. The legal threats are being fought in federal trademark court, and Gibson has already lost several suits over the last 20 years both nationally and internationally. Our position was to discontinue construction and eliminate the model from our catalog. We have not agreed to acknowledge Gibson’s legal posting and will sit on the sidelines for the time being.

Carved guitars are built like fine violins, carved from book-matched quarter-sawn billets of spruce (top) and maple (backs) in the shape of an arched plate, allowing the instruments to resonate and project with a full, balanced acoustic voice.

Laminated guitars are built using thin veneers of maple, spruce, on other veneers pressed and glued into an arched shape that imitates the architecture of the carved guitar, but is more dense, less susceptible to humidity and heat expansion and contraction as carved guitar, and with a lesser volume and resonance. They are also less susceptible to feed back, and are more durable than carved guitars. Amplified when accompanied by other instruments, they are often indiscernible from carved guitars for the seats in the audience.

A semi-hollow body guitar implies that the instrument is a hollow body instrument with a top, back and sides, but has a solid block of wood built into the middle to keep the instrument from resonating to and causing feedback

A chambered solid body is a solid block of wood shaped into a guitar body, with wood scooped (routed) out of body in order to lighten the density, reduce the weight, and increase the resonance of the instrument with air chambers. After creating the chambers, a solid wood top is glued to the body and carved into an arched outer surface to replicate a traditional archtop, and pickups installed into the top.

Think of an ES-335 as a semi-hollow body and a Les Paul as a chambered solid body. A telecaster (solid body) is a solid block of wood with no separate top.

We have all construction in a 10,000 square foot metal warehouse in Savannah, GA. We have 11 employees – 3 front of house, a master luthier, 6 luthiers, and a master finisher.

We sell direct from our Savannah GA factory in the USA. Guitars can be purchased directly with payment via international bank wire and shipped directly to the customer via FedEx International shipping. The customer is responsible for all taxes and duties as required by customs in their destination country, as determined by FedEx.

With the very rare exception of custom orders, all Benedettos are made using traditional violin woods – Spruce, Maple, Ebony and Mahogany and don’t use CITES protected wood.

Our artists endorsements are among the most coveted in the jazz world. Most of our artists are already Benedetto customers whose accomplishments warrant special acknowledgment by our company, intending to bring higher acclaim to their careers and their collaboration with Benedetto.

Generally, there are three paths to being a Benedetto Arts:

Benedetto Artist:  Achieve the highest levels of acclaim in the industry: recording contract, headlining in major concert venues, acknowledgment by major industry publications like Downbeat and JazzTimes, visibility as a featured sideman with top jazz touring artists, etc. These achievements in conjunction with a major teaching engagement at the university level, or widely viewed digital education programs.

Artist/Educator: Guitarist who occupies a teaching position in a major university, conservatory, international conservatives, and highly acclaimed non-University level programs.

Ambassador: Highly acclaimed regionally recognized artists who are widely influential but not necessarily nationally known or recorded by a major label.

Autographed books can be purchased from our Benedetto Gear site. Blueprints are available from Stewmac.com.

Benedetto does not offer luthier classes or workshops.

Watch our website’s Career page for openings! You can also email us at dmailand@benedettoguitars.com

Our guitars included a limited lifetime warranty. Visit our warranty page for details.

Contact us and we’ll try to find a qualified luthier near you.

Most guitars are happy if we’re happy. 40-60% humidity and temperatures between 68-80F. If you live in seasonally extreme conditions, make sure you humidify or dehumidify accordingly.

As long as you maintain the temperature and humidity criteria above, your guitar can be stored in or out of the case.

We recommend Benedetto polish, or similar non-wax-based polishes. Always you a microfiber cloth!

You can modify certain specifications of any Benedetto model, including color, nut-width, pickups, wood selection, and neck shape. But you can’t redesign the shape, scale length, headstock or other aspects that make a Benedetto a Benedetto!

Feedback is caused by soundwaves from the amplifier setting the top of the guitar in motion, thus setting the strings in motion through the bridge, and eventually cause the frequency to feed back into the pickup and into the amplifier. Ways to reduce feedback are any combination of changing the direction of the amp’s sonic signal to avoid the body of the guitar; incorporate a technique the mute open strings; increase distance for the amp. Restricting the guitar’s top from vibrating through sealing sound holes, muting the top or back, etc. Laminated guitars feedback less than carved guitars. Smaller body guitars feedback less than larger body guitars. Chambered solid body guitar feedback less that laminated guitars. The bottom line is that technique and band setup choices have more to do than the instrument itself in most case.

Flat wounds were more popular in the 60’s and 70’s, but more recently round wounds have become more popular. We used the best strings available that tend to be the most popular dimensions and tensions that are appropriate to the instrument’s construction. But we are happy to install your favorite set on your new guitar—just send us a set and spare!

Bob and Cindy are happily retired in Florida close to many of Bob’s family members who retired from New Jersey to Florida to get away from the snow! Bob keeps busy making wooden planes for the lutherie community and Cindy with her Benedetto Archives.