Dake Traphagen

Bellingham, Washington

Dake Traphagen is one of America’s most established luthiers, building from his workshop in Bellingham, Washington. Over a career spanning decades he has made classical, flamenco, romantic and baroque instruments, but his focus has narrowed to the concert classical guitar, where his work continues to gain attention for its blend of traditional inspiration, refined aesthetics, and increasingly sophisticated tonal results.

His designs draw on the Hauser school: spruce or cedar soundboards over a traditional fan-braced top, paired with plantillas based on classic Hauser proportions. Dake believes a truly great guitar still needs the human touch, intuition and insight, and so he works primarily with hand tools and traditional glues and finishes. That patience shows in the details, from his elegant headstock shape to the woods he sets aside for decades waiting for the right instrument.

Dake builds for us regularly, and the relationship runs deep. When he completed a no-compromise 2024 guitar for himself, flamed mahogany he had held for some thirty-five years, named “Havana”, he chose us to represent it. Instruments like that one are benchmark examples of his personal standard and artistic direction, and a good part of the reason his guitars reward both subtle nuance and confident attack.