Work Spaces

Different places to do different things. A paint area, adjustment and setup, construction table are a few.

Customer Service

It helps to have a comfortable place to sit down and play, and amps or other accessories.  We want you to feel comfortable and welcomed.

Things for Sale

Oops, sorry, not really the focus.  We're not about selling you something new  although we sometimes  have restored instruments for sale.  We just help make what you have better. 

Tooling

It's taken a while to figure out what's needed.  The old standards like drill presses and band saws and newer additions like a vertical mill and CNC machine as well as many Luthiery specific tools and jigs.

‣   Works of Art on Paper

Restoration Guitar Philosophy

‣   Paintings

Workshop A physically secure location, alarmed and fully insured to protect your property

Our History

We are open in our location  at 2951 Colerain Ave in Camp Washington

                    

Whether it's a guitar, bass, banjo or some other fretted instrument it is the tool you use to make music.  

Our mission is to provide and enhance the tools you use to create music.  Whether you play only at home or in concert to thousands you use your instruments to create music to touch emotions and thoughts.  Having an instrument that responds to your touch makes the creative process simpler and more direct. We understand what it takes to let that creative stream flow and we will do whatever we can to help.

I'm Chris Sisson, the owner of Restoration Guitar.  This is my life's work and I feel very fortunate to be able to do it.  I have been making stringed instruments since the age of fifteen and had my own repair shop in the Big Four building on Third St. in Cincinnati in the mid 1980's where I built custom guitars and basses, did repairs for direct customers as well as area music stores.  I took a long break from full time luthiery to raise a family and work as a software developer but never stopped working on guitars, building them for my sons as well as myself and restoring instruments as an online business.

​I'm excited to open my new workshop in Northside.  It's a little different from anything we've seen in Cincinnati before, It's a retail location that's open to the public but offering just the stringed instrument services part of a traditional music store.  It's happened in other cities like Columbus, Nashville and Chicago and I hope I can earn your trust and business so I can make it work here.


Please take a few minutes to look at the photos of some of my work in the gallery section.  These photos are mostly from within the last 10 years, You can see  some of my earlier work but it was much tougher before digital photography became available.