34-year-old Hanni Osman started fixing guitars before he was even a teenager.
His mum had a guitar that she was given as a teenager. When the bridge broke, 12-year-old Hanni refitted it.
Soon after, Hanni’s friend bought a guitar which fell off his bed and snapped.
When the friend’s insurance replaced it, the broken guitar was given to Hanni, who worked out how to make it useable again.
“That was my first personal guitar,” said Hanni.
Then, at the age of 16, he attempted to make the instrument from scratch for the first time.
Although this ‘guitar’ now serves as a shelf in Hanni’s workshop, it ignited a passion for acoustic guitar-making which has continued throughout his life.
His first paid job was carrying out repair work on renaissance lute for a friend.
The friend’s father, who was a string instrument enthusiast, had passed away, leaving the lute unfinished.
Hanni made the instrument playable again, much to the delight of his friend, and fell in love with the process.
Previously, he was sharing a workshop space with his mum and brother – both of whom are artists – but admitted that art and woodwork “don’t mix very well”.
“They were getting annoyed at the amount of sawdust,” he laughed. “I needed my own dedicated space.”
This led to Hanni designing and building his own workshop, which is humidity and temperature controlled.
“It’s a small workshop but plenty for what I need,” said Hanni.
Even before he started creating with wood, Hanni had an appreciation for trees instilled into him from a young age.
He grew up at his grandparents’ house, who owned an arboretum filled with rare species of trees.
As many islanders struggle to come to terms with the impact of the recent storm on Jersey’s tree population, it is something Hanni has dealt with before.
“Whenever a big tree from my grandfather’s arboretum fell, it was losing a part of my childhood,” he said.
The havoc wrought on the island’s trees by Storm Ciarán was devastating – Jersey Trees for Life reported that the Val de la Mare aboretum had lost many of its rarest species, while 400 trees were damaged or came down along the Railway Walk alone.
Speaking of the impact of Storm Ciarán, he added: “The sentimentality of something like a tree becomes more prevalent when something like this happens.
“You realise these are key landmark features in someone’s life.”
But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining – or, as Hanni put it in a social media post calling for donations of wood from trees felled by the storm, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”
Pictured: Hanni posted in the ‘Ecycle Jersey’ Facebook group hoping to transform some of the fallen trees into guitars and “trinkets”.
“The storm, while devastating, presents a unique opportunity as good quality local timber isn’t really commercially available,” he wrote.
The post prompted a flurry of support, with one commenter saying: “It would be wonderful to make things out of some of the felled trees – they hold so many memories for islanders.”
Hanni explained that the storm presents the opportunity for him to create guitars from “local sustainable timber which [he] wouldn’t be about to normally get”.
“It feels nice to be able to reuse some of the wood from these trees rather than it just being turned into firewood,” he said.
“It gives me the opportunity to be creative, whilst also giving back to the community.”
Hanni added that anyone who donates wood will receive a trinket of their choosing made from their tree as a repayment.
Bespoke guitar-making is a “lengthy process”, taking over 100 hours per guitar.
One of the key parts of the process is the bending of the side of guitar, which Hanni does by steam bending the wood around a mould rather than by using a machine.
Although his acoustic guitar making is currently just a hobby, Hanni would love to see it become a full-time career under his brand Meroe Guitars.
“I find it really therapeutic,” he said.
At the moment, the woodworker creates bespoke guitars on a purely commission basis which he says allows clients to select their own woods and decorative material, as well as being able to personalise the size and playability of the guitar.
Around seven people have already been in touch with Hanni after their trees were felled by Storm Ciarán, and he is also hoping to make further guitars from the fallen trees in his grandfather’s arboretum, which is now owned by his uncle.
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This article first appeared in the December 2023/January 2024 edition of Connect Magazine – read it in full below…