About Dark Side of the Wood

Some of my oldest memories from my childhood are the pinewood derby races, cub/boy scout summer camps, and building with Legos.  I knew from a young age that I would be a nature loving crafter.  My Eagle Scout project even involved building wooden benches for the local baseball fields. I started playing guitar at 16 years old when I really started to get into music.

After graduating Lower Bucks Tech high school and working as an electrician for a few years in southeastern Pennsylvania, my love for music grew and I started fiddling with my electric guitar. Not knowing what I was doing, I decided to put myself through a guitar making course outside of Atlanta, Georgia. In 2009, I was certified as a luthier under John Marshall's Luthiers International program. This eventually secured me a position for PRS..

I started out making plugs/gauges from scrap guitar lumber while working on a finish production line for Paul Reed Smith. I learned everything from sanding polyurethane to staining wood and spraying finish.  This job had lasted a few years until I had to find better options during a horrendous economy.  I eventually secured a position in a cabinet shop in Denver, CO and relocated there in 2013. My position in the shop went from sanding to the rush manager. I was in charge of running raw wood to a finished product for anything that broke, was mis-ordered or overlooked, and samples for clients. I walked out after xmas of 2016 when I was not getting the assistance I needed from the other managers. I felt like Atlas. The shop closed doors the following year, and it made the decision easier to accept that it was the right choice. All these years, I only ever owned a small woodturning lathe that you will see in my videos. After 14 years, it still kicks!

In late 2017, I relocated back to Langhorne - a small suburb in Bucks County, PA - to face my brother's accident and leave my ex-wife to pursue her dreams. I never knew I would stay as long as I have, but the support I get from my family along with the variety of diseased, dying, or storm fell trees in the area makes it hard to relocate.  I have learned a lot as a self employed contractor from working on homes (like my teenage years), building custom wood furniture orders, and vending a lot of craft shows. I still feel like there's so much to learn, especially as I am finishing my first custom instrument from scratch since schooling in 2009.

My goal is to provide sustainable lumber practices for the local community to support, and I hope ,one day, to own a music shop where I sell my instruments and repair those in need.

-Matthew Barrett July 2025