A child of the ‘60s, Bob Robinson grew up loving the guitar. And while like everyone else, he was listening to Jeff Beck, and Jimi Hendrix, his first serious, personal experience learning the instrument was his studies in classical guitar. While still in school, in 1976 Bob decided he needed a hand-built instrument. So, he paid a visit to the workshop of Harley Day and Michael Betel in his home town of St. Petersburg Florida. He didn’t get the guitar he was after, but he landed a position as workshop assistant and learned the craft and traditions of the Luthier…and built his first classical guitars.

In the early years, Bob built primarily classical and flamenco guitars, both along very traditional lines. When he and his wife founded Troscan, a Chicago-based furniture design and manufacturing business in 1999, the experience greatly influenced his guitar-making. Energized and challenged by the demands of furniture manufacturing, he was fueled with a love of innovation, a search for new solutions that impacted his approach to making guitars. Since then, he has both expanded his work—building steel stringed and electric guitars—and circled back to take a new look at the classical guitars he once built.