Rachel Badlan

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.

 

In 2025 Rachel and her partner in life and work, David Hole, collaborated with indigenous Taungurung artist Iluka Sax-Williams to create a Huon pine guitar, which has been pyrographied by Iluka and was displayed during the Yirramboi festival in May 2025. It was also shown in a exhibition of Sax-Williams' work at the Mansfield Visitors Information Centre in 2025.

 

New for 2026, Rachel has been introducing various ukuleles into her range and will have them on display for the MOST event.

 

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.

 

Images are a combination of Rachel's and students work.