Mike Davis puts heart and soul into handmade guitars from his rural shop

Area residents currently have a shot at winning a Martin D18 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar, a rare model, in a Dec. 13 handmade guitar raffle to benefit the Mountain Grove Heritage Festival.
With a value of more than $3,000, many of the same residents might be surprised the guitar, featuring an Adirondack spruce top with a solid Honduran mahogany back and sides, was made in a modest shop on Highway 95 in rural Mountain Grove.
Mike Davis, owner of M.W. Davis and Co., moved to the area in 2017 and has handcrafted 38 guitars from his location using time-honored hand building techniques fine-tuned through the years with the help of John Hall, of Martin Guitar, and Ren Ferguson, formerly of Gibson.
His journey in the industry started when he was a kid growing up in Mississippi that was too poor to purchase a mountain dulcimer, an instrument not widely available at the time.
After discovering and studying Foxfire books, he was able to eventually make the dulcimer he wanted.
“I thought that if you followed a plan precisely, you would end up with a good instrument,” Davis noted. “Wrong. There is so much to learn about acoustic physics and wood properties. Then you have to manipulate all these things together, including the finish, to create an efficient and maximized performance, sound producing machine.”
After making his own creation, he would eventually land a job with the guitar manufacturer Gibson and was vital to setting up factories in Memphis, Tenn., where he trained many people who worked there.
To make guitars at a manufacturing facility was one thing, but to model that effort in a small rural shop is completely another.
During retirement, he discovered he could get blueprints for guitars with classic sounds like the Martin D-18 or the Gibson J-45. This began a journey of filling his shop with the machinery needed to make each part of the guitar. Many of those machines he either built from scratch and/or modified them to help him create a final product.
“I always wanted a (Gibson) J-45,” he noted. “…And I got the J-45 I always wanted. I had to build it, but I got one.”
Davis said a craftsmen has to be patient in the 100-120 hour process it takes going from a blueprint to a guitar with a classic sound that has stood the test of time.
Wood like the Adirondack spruce was used to make guitars back in the 1930s, which is a sound that many guitarists covet. Davis said World War II led to the tree source in New York being used for the war, causing a shortage of Adirondack spruce for many decades. Only recently have guitar craftsmen like himself been able get product from that source that has finally made a comeback after all of these years.
He first makes a mold and then constructs a wrap that is placed in aluminum foil. With a heat blanket at 400 degrees, it is put under steel in a machine he made for the process that is cranked down as the heat helps him properly bend the wood without scorching it.
As for the fretboard, he has a contraption with a saw used to place grooves for frets with small teeth to be placed into.
After one day of setting up the strings on the fret board, it typically does not have a great sound at that time. The tension works itself out on day two and everything starts coming together as intended.
After constructing the guitar, there is a process in some cases that require 14 coats of a nitrocellulose lacquer.
That process alone may take up to two weeks of properly drying before it can be buffed into a final product.
Spraying that is done is in a climate-controlled booth that he has next to his shop. He built his own so he didn’t have to regulate temperatures.
“I’ve really put my heart and soul in this to get as far a long as I have,” Woods noted. “It’s a passion.”
Woods added that he has Gibson 1940 pattern guitars played and approved by Marty Stuart and local musicians such as Junior Marriott and Eli Stigall. He also has Youtube videos where he tells about the philosophy of what he does.
“It’s something special when you strum a wood box you made from boards and the sound is more beautiful than any production instrument out there,” Davis said.
Mike said many of the guitars he sells range from $2,600-$3,600 a piece. He makes currently around eight guitars a year, but could make up to around 20 annually.
Those interested in more information can contact him at 417-259-9232.
Davis is also known for making long rifles, in which he was featuredon the Discovery Channel back in Nov. 2018.
As for the Martin D18 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar he donated to the Mountain Grove Heritage Festival, tickets cost $5 a piece or six for $25 and are available at Spiceberry on the square.
The drawing will be held on Dec. 13 and participants do not need to be present to win.