John Gilbert made his first guitar shortly after going to work as an engineer for Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, California. A coworker showed him a book called "Make Your Own Spanish Guitar". Making and repairing guitars began as a hobby for John but by 1974 the response from players was so encouraging that he decided to build full-time. By 1991 he had made 140 guitars that were played by a long list of professionals including David Russell, Frederic Hand, Konrad Ragossnig, and David Tanenbaum. At that point, John brought his son William (Bill) into the business to give himself more time to develop a line of guitar machine heads he had invented. John died in 2012 but William carries on the tradition specializing in building nylon string classical guitars in 6 and 8-string versions. Gilbert also offers a 7-string instrument and a 6-string cutaway.

Source: W Gilbert Guitars website (15 July 2017)