Montreal Man Turns Reclaimed Wood From Barns and Buildings Into Custom Guitars

In recent years, Nicolas Delisle has made new guitars from old barns, logs pulled from river bottoms and even window frames from his 1930s-era Montreal apartment. The craftsman specializes in turning reclaimed and salvaged wood into one-of-a-kind guitars that he hand makes in the city’s Mile End neighbourhood. Using recycled materials is “part of the story of the instrument,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s just a richer history.” Among the wood he has used to make guitars is old Douglas fir and pine from a barn in Ontario Mennonite country, sunken logs raised from a channel that was part of the construction of the Panama Canal, boards from an old horse barn in New York, and thick maple floorboards saved after the renovation of a concert hall that’s home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra....