David Gomes’ 40-year career would be the envy of any acoustical instrument maker worldwide. He has received numerous awards, including first place for an instrument in this year’s Hawaii’s Wood Show. He has a near two-year waiting list for his guitars and ukuleles from musicians in Hawaii, the mainland and Japan. Musicians and retailers come from all over the Pacific to his humble shop in Kohala to pick out their own woods for custom guitars and ukulele.
To Gomes, this is a fortunate outcome to his life’s work, but not the motivation. Instead, it’s all about connection, the artistry of music and life in Kohala.
Gomes’ wood shop is nestled among residential homes, quiet and unassuming, in the Kohala hills just outside of Hawi. The wind is intoxicating as it rustles the pine trees lining the mauka road. It’s warm, but not hot, and smells of sunshine and pili grass.
Inside Gomes’ workshop, thin slats of Hawaiian-grown wood, along with some spruce, fill the shelves to the ceiling. The smell is clean, like a forest, and wood dust swirls on the floor.
“I was born here in Kohala,” Gomes said. “My father worked for the sugar plantation, as I did during the summers when I was old enough.”
At 13, Gomes got his first guitar.
“It was just a piece of junk really, ” he said. “But I guess it did the trick.”
By the late 1960s, the time came for Gomes to go to college on the mainland. But that didn’t turn out to be what he was looking for.
“After about a year, I decided to drop out and follow my dream. I had some money saved up from working at the plantation. Spain was where I wanted to be,” said Gomes.
With his guitar in hand, Gomes made his way to Spain, studying classical and flamenco guitar. There he met one of Spain’s greatest guitar makers, Paulino Bernabe.
“We hung around in his shop a lot,” Gomes remembers. “I loved the feeling of it. I was always interested in what he was doing. When I got back to Hawaii, I just started fooling around with it, like a hobby, really.”
In 1975, the sugar plantation shutdown, inspiring Gomes to follow his dream further.
He went down to the Kohala Credit Union, took out a small loan for some equipment and wood, and then dove in. He sold his first guitar for $30.
Created by a master of the craft, Gomes’ guitars sell for 10 times that price.
“Small changes happen all the time,” he said. “But the small stuff ends up becoming an evolution over time.”
Gomes prefers Hawaiian wood to all others. A large section of macadamia nut tree trunk sitting on his shop floor in its organic rough form contrasts starkly to the smooth and sculpted thin sheets of wood on the shelves ready for use.
“This tree fell in my neighbor’s yard across the street,” he said. “It’s an old mac nut, and the wood is beautiful.”
Gomes points out some other wood pieces in his shop.
“This toon (Australian cedar) came from Laupahoehoe. Here is some koa. The pheasant wood here makes a beautiful grain design for the bridge and fret board.”
In his small shop in rural North Hawaii, Gomes isn’t exactly in the middle of an urban environment where his sales would certainly increase. But that’s not what Gomes is about.
“Living here is number one for me,” he said. “I’d never want to be the guy who looks through the window at my guitars and wonder if my workers are clicking their time cards. I love making them.”
John Keawe, a well-known Hawaiian musician, has been playing and recording on Gomes’ instruments since he bought a guitar from Gomes in 1983.
“I’ve written a lot of songs on that guitar,” Keawe says. “It’s still my favorite go-to.”
Keawe also has one of Gomes’ ukuleles and purchased another one for his wife. If Keawe hears of anyone wanting a great guitar or ukulele, he always points them to Hawi.
“David is a homegrown boy,” Keawe said. “He makes really nice custom made instruments from wood indigenous to the island that you can pick out yourself. It’s a special connection.”
Gomes has enjoyed taking on 30 apprentices in the span of his career. Chester Holt, his current apprentice, describes his experience.
“He is such a humble and compassionate guy,” said Holt. “For someone with his level of success in his craft, I’m surprised that he’s not more set in his ways. But he’s the opposite. He is always open and experimenting on how to make a better instrument.”
As a professional musician, Gomes worked at the Kona Village Resort for more than 30 years until the 2011 tsunami shut it down. He still does gigs throughout Hawaii.
He feels it takes two different sides of himself to make an instrument and then play it.
“It’s like meeting the more practical, constructive self with the abstract, emotional-artistic self,” Gomes explains. ” It’s such a great feeling to make a great guitar and then have the ability to really play it. I’m such a lucky guy to live here and do what I do.”
Gomes’ work at can be viewed at the Hawi Gallery, or online at gomesguitars.com.