Sinclair students build the future, with six strings and humbuckers

For nearly two decades, Sinclair’s MET 1151 class — awkwardly titled “Guitar Manufacturing using Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics Concepts” — has guided students in the artistry of electric guitars.

All academic majors are welcome here. Students learn to apply the principles of basic math and physics — as well as engineering, computer drafting and computer-controlled shaping of materials — to the building of solid-body electric guitars.

They’ll learn about guitar string intonation and calculating the placement of frets along a guitar fretboard. They’ll explore the mysteries of sanding headstocks and measuring paint pigmentation. They’ll hear the difference between single-coil pickups and humbuckers (pickups that “buck the hum” of 60-cycle electric noise).

Along the way, they’ll learn a lot — and have a blast doing it.

“I like to set my expectations for students when they come in,” Sinclair instructor and adjunct faculty member Matt Mongin said. “I say, ‘Look, guys ... when you leave out of here, you will have a playable guitar.’”

Students will be expected to measure precisely — and measure twice more to make sure they got it right.

“I’ll give you 10 more seconds to make a decision that will follow you for the rest of your life,” a smiling Mongin told assembled students at one point during a Saturday class.

Beyond the fun, this is a serious affair. Sinclair employees produce guitar-building kits educators can use across the nation to guide their own students in making their own guitars and applying STEM principles along the way.

Andrew Shaffer, senior lab technician for and manager of what is called the “Guitar Lab” at Sinclair, estimates that the lab and its student employees have sold perhaps 25,000 of the kits over some 18 years.

The kits have sold to middle school, high school and college teachers in 48 states (none have sold in the Dakotas for some reason, Shaffer said).

They have also sold to educators in Canada and Pago Pago, American Samoa.

“How does word get out to Pago Pago?” Shaffer asked during an interview.

Today, the lab has seven employees, not all of them necessarily Sinclair students.

“Depending upon what type of kit is being put together, from raw stock to completed kit, it takes around two to three hours, give or take, to complete a kit,” Shaffer said.

‘A teaching tool’

The guitars Sinclair students make, they keep. And they should be eminently playable instruments, ready for basement practicing and bar stage performances.

That’s just fine for Karen Terry, who is embarked on her first semester as a mechanical drafting student.

“I want to learn more about software design, and that sort of thing,” she said. “But I also like to build things. And my son was interested in learning how to play the guitar. I found this class about guitar-building, and I decided to sign up for it.”

She and her classmates are working not only with power tools but Autodesk Fusion software for computer-aided design and manufacturing needs.

“It’s fun so far,” Terry said.

Solid-body electric guitar can be seen as a triumph of mid-20th century American industrial design, opening the door to amplified blues, rock and much of modern popular music — as well as an industry that was estimated to hit $4.4 billion in sales in 2023. Some observers think the industry could exceed $7 billion by 2030.

Guitars like the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster, and the mighty Gibson Les Paul, endure as American icons instantly recognizable the world over.

The Sinclair class was started in part thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation. And the idea behind it wasn’t complicated.

“What was noticed early on was that this could be kind of a hook that really gets students engaged in STEM,” Mongin said.

He should know. Mongin said he went from being a Sinclair mechanical engineering student on academic probation to one of the program’s first students back in 2009.

This class helped him find his way. “I said, ‘Yeah, I want to do that.’”

In time, Mongin went from probation to the dean’s list — to a job as an engineer with the University of Dayton Research Institute.

Helping students ‘find their passion’

Karl Hess, Sinclair’s dean of STEM, said the lab has proven to be quite useful in spreading the STEM message.

“We’ve gotten very good feedback about it,” Hess said. “Students really enjoy building something. Just the act of creation is something that students enjoy. But also, if the thing they’re creating is something they find to be interesting, that makes it even more motivating.”

Stebbins High School offers its own guitar lab class as a college credit-plus class, he said.

“I think we really hit on a winner with this concept,” he said.

Getting an engineering or technology focused degree can be a “marathon” of tackling challenging classes, he noted. It’s important to show students early in their academic journeys how this knowledge can improve quality of life and help them “find their passion,” Hess said.

Thomas Singer, a retired Sinclair professor of mechanical engineering technology, launched the class with colleagues from across the country, Mongin said. Together, they saw the potential for not only a new curriculum, but for a resource that can be shared with other educators.

The team landed an NSF grant that helped buy the first tools and equipment. A web site, GuitarBuilding.org, was built to guide teachers on the path to sharing the knowledge and fun with their own students.

The first guitar kits were assembled in early 2010 in the lab’s former location in building 13. “We didn’t even have half of this stuff,” Mongin said, gesturing to all of the equipment around him. “We were just figuring out how to make guitar kits.”

They sold 300 kits that first year. “And it was a rough 300 kits,” he said.

“When they first started, they didn’t have a CNC (computer-numeric-controlled) machine,” Shaffer said. “They were making them all by hand, routing things out. It was amazing how they started.”

Each kit yields a bolt-on-neck, solid-body guitar that when assembled boasts dual humbuckers, a volume pot (a knob to control volume), a tone pot and a three-way switch for turning pickups on and off.

A recent look at GuitarBuilding.org showed that electric guitar kits sold for $200 to $351, although they were sold out. A kit to build an acoustic guitar was available for $227. (Shaffer in early February said he hoped to have more inventory in a few weeks.)

Said Mongin: “It’s a teaching tool, but we want it to be a playable teaching tool. We don’t want the students to spend 40 or 50 hours building this, and it doesn’t play well.”