About
The UK’s most talented and innovative young guitar maker – The Yorkshire Post
This is how I became a guitar-maker. In 2005, I resigned from my London office job and moved to Arizona. I unpacked my suitcase in a tiny, cockroach-infested room, in 120-degree heat.
I was there to study at the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, in the shadow of the Phoenix Mountains. It was a strange, if wonderful place: there were scorpions in the woodpile, a black widow’s nest below the belt sanders and my workbench was also home to a praying mantis. It was very different to my life in the UK.
I was at a trade show in Los Angeles when I met Andrew Bishop, the owner of a chain of guitar stores in the North of England. Upon my return to England in 2005, I established the first Jim Fleeting Guitars building and repair workshops in his Yorkshire store, Ripon City Music.
I make custom acoustic guitars, electric guitars, electric basses, dulcimers and more. Having outgrown my original workshops, I recently expanded to larger, standalone premises in Ripon city centre.
Hello. My name is Jim Fleeting. At my workshop in Ripon, North Yorkshire, I create custom guitars and basses for customers around the UK and Europe. The Guardian describes me as one of the UK’s leading luthiers, which is nice of them. I built the UK’s first nine string bass and popped up in Guitarist and Guitar & Bass magazine, after winning an award from the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust. I also head Jim Fleeting Guitars’ thriving repair shop.