Welcome to Meroë Guitars
My name is Hanni Eldirdiry Osman. I was born in Jersey (original) to a European Mother and Nubian Sudanese Father.
Meroë was my fathers hometown and was formerly the central city of the ancient Kingdom of Kush - the Nubian Empire. The surrounding desert area is littered with Nubian pyramids which were similarly constructed as tombs for the Pharaohs.
I’ve always had a love of crafting and music. Combining these interests led me to look into the craft of luthiery (the crafting and repair of string instruments). At around 12 years old I was first given the opportunity to indulge my inquisitive mind. My mother was gifted a guitar in her teenage years that had stayed with her. After 40 or so years the bridge came away from the soundboard, making the instrument inoperable. I repaired the guitar, returning it to better condition than it was prior to my work.
Fast forward a few years and my late friend Dave Miller had recently bought a guitar with my advice. Within a couple of weeks of purchase, the guitar had been snapped at the headstock/neck joint. It was replaced on insurance and I was gifted the broken guitar to fix. This became my first personal guitar but also gave me further experience in the repair and maintenance of guitars.
In my late teens I attempted to construct a guitar from scratch with what little knowledge, materials and equipment I had at the time. This wasn’t a success, however it now forms a useful shelf and decorative feature in my current workshop.
Following my departure from Planning due to the stress and burdens of the role, I decided to design and build my own workshop, purpose built for guitar construction and to invest my time in luthiery and other fine woodworking. I had been working in a converted outbuilding but this room was being used by a brother and my mother as an art studio which due to dust made my use of the space problematic. At the time, I was working for a Cabinet Maker whom kindly donated a large amount of material that would otherwise have been sent to the dump. This provided the inner skin of my structure. I started in the summer of 2022, completing shortly before the winter set in. I carried out the majority of the work singlehandedly but a couple of friends have chipped in at various stages.
