Rachel Badlan
Guitar Maker
High Country Guitars
My Story
Rachel loves finding different ways for people to personalise their guitars and encourages students to incorporate their own designs into their own builds. Options that she has done include: making your own segmented rosettes, resin-filled rosettes, pyrography inside the guitar (allows for fun discoveries, especially if students are making them for a gift!), pyrography on the headstock and back, and soundboard. She is also looking at potentially adding inlays at some point.
They have recently collaborated with an indigenous Taungurung artist (Iluka Sax-Williams) to create a Huon pine guitar, which has been pyrographied by Iluka and has been displayed during the Yirramboi festival in May 2025.
Both Rachel and David play guitar (although not as much as they would like) and compose and arrange their own music. They both encourage students to take time in planning their guitar to make it a unique and beautiful instrument to give you years of pleasure for both your ears and your eyes.
