Dowina Guitars Focus On Custom Builds From £2000

Written by: Richard Cholerton

Published on May 14, 2025

Last updated on February 28, 2026

Time to read 3 min

Sadly, Dowina guitars have had to face some stark business realities - which include the ongoing domination and technological advancements of brands like Furch, whilst facing ever-increasing shortages of resources which are often priotised to brands who can afford to pay more.

The result of these various factors have led to the following current consequences.

The Dowina Mahogany (shown right) is just one of the beautiful guitars no longer available from Dowina. (at the time of writing this we do still have a small number left)

Shortages of natural resources industry wide means smaller builders such as Dowina are struggling to find the woods appropriate for their needs.

Cedar has become hard to source and therefore has become unviable on lower priced guitars made by Dowina.

Walnut and especially highly figured pieces have become rarer and rarer so once again, they must be utilised on higher priced instruments or not at all.

Due to ever-increasing costs, Dowina cannot justify selling guitars under £2,000 as they literally do not profit from these - and it is unfair to ask them to build them. They are offering to - but I just cannot accept - I could not live with myself selling a guitar that I know someone has painstakingly worked on to then sell at a loss.

Sadly, this means many of the guitars I designed with them can no longer be produced for us and our focus will be solely on custom shop instruments and their premium end.

Dowina produce wonderful guitars and Stan - the legend himself - has literally offered to make guitars for me personally and I am desperate to find a way to continue working with Dowina - but on a bespoke - guitar by guitar basis - whether for our customers or Stan making me wonderful hand made works of art.

It is with mixed emotions I see the incredibly well deserved rise of public awareness of the immense quality and technological developments for which Furch guitars have become reputed (its only taken the world about 25 years to catch up!!!). Of course incredible news for our customers and exciting for me personally as I have been putting my reputation on these guitars for 25 years now! In terms of quality vs price and value, Furch demonstrate clearly when technology is used in the right hands it is impossible for a brand like Dowina to meet Furch's standards of sound, feel and playability for a price tag anywhere close to £1000.

I do not enjoy being in the position of having to make comparisons between guitars I love but I did tell everyone I possibly could whilst they were available that this level of bespoke build should not be possible - and clearly it no longer is - at the prices they were being sold for.

I think the current climate is going to make Furch more dominant than ever before - as resources do become more and more scarce - their dominance at the price is all too clear.

My belief is that whilst it may be painful for Dowina to go through this process, and I have to be honest its not been easy being at the receiving end with little to no information on the problems they are facing - until after the event - that they will come out the other side and be where they should have been from the beginning - a bespoke acoustic guitar builder of the highest quality

Whilst I am dealing personally with Stan - I can be assured my guitars will be built to the original template that I have known and loved and enjoyed promoting for the past 5 years or so.

During the past 12 months we have faced a number of difficult circumstances supplying Dowina but with Stan overseeing all my production moving forward I hope we can all enjoy focusing on the positives of their brand than have them try to make guitars at price points that are simply not viable - and look forward to enjoying some true works of art coming my way from the hands of the legend that is Stan :)