Guitar business Tonetech welcomes Japanese delegation

From left: Hiroshi Isomura, Mikio Yoshioka, Bill Quinn, Masaki Gotoh, Shinji Hosokawa, Dan Horsfield

A Stockport business has hit the right note with a Japanese business delegation.

Tonetech supplies professional and amateur guitar makers and luthiers – someone who builds or repairs string instruments – throughout Europe with the tonewoods used for acoustic instruments, guitar building parts, guitar paints, lacquers and other tools they need.

The business, founded by Bill Quinn in 2007 and business partner Dan MacPherson, recently hosted a delegation from Japanese guitar hardware manufacturer GOTOH and their international distributor HOSCO.

They toured Tonetech’s Pear Mill workshop and discussed future collaborations and how to grow the distribution of their guitar machine heads and bridges within the UK market.

During the meeting the president of HOSCO presented three new products to Tonetech managing director Mr Quinn – a special tool to help guitar repairers and two new items made by GOTOH – and both companies expressed a desire to collaborate with Tonetech on any enquiries they receive from UK customers.

Mr Quinn said: “I was intrigued at first when both HOSCO and GOTOH asked if they could come to the UK to visit Tonetech and our workshop and to discuss growth plans.

“We talked together about ways of working, growth ambitions and how to provide us with key information, engineering diagrams and other essential literature that will enable Tonetech to better explain and sell their products to our UK customers.”

He added: “Hosting the Japanese delegation was a great experience and I’m really positive about what our collaboration will mean for both Tonetech and the UK luthier market.”

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