Tim Sway Perspectives
Tim Sway's Business Mantra: "I make nice things for nice people out of things that would otherwise be thrown away."
"After a 15+ year career as a performing, recording and teaching musician, I recently "retired" from being a full-time musician to spend more time making things out of reclaimed, upcycled and salvaged materials- and to spend more time with my family and less time in band flop houses! I often make things out of discarded instruments and instruments out of discarded things. One of my long-term goals is to make high quality, sustainable, handmade instruments from locally sourced and reclaimed materials that are affordable for working class musicians-like myself."
"My mission is to make professional, working class musician quality instruments (classy and silly!) from reclaimed materials. I want to prove we don’t need to deforest Africa and the Amazon for a good axe."
Green Roster Luthier
Joined: October 2015
Eco practices
"I work almost exclusively with reclaimed, salvaged, upcycled, etc. materials. I aim to keep my personal and business’s environmental impact at a minimum."
Tim Sway has a VERY active YouTube channel that highlights his process of making and upcycling. Check it out Here. These are a few of Sustain's favorite episodes:
Annual Green Goals
Tim is really dedicated to working and living in an environmentally conscious way. Besides keeping up his 20 years of vegetarianism, this year he'll also plan to:
- Cut landfill waste in half.
- Buy 50% less new materials and tools. Tim currently buys about 25-30% of the materials new (paints, stains, screws and some other hardware, occasionally some plywood...) and he would like to find ways to reduce this even more.
- Better insulate his shop to use less wood to heat it next winter.