A Tasmanian guitar maker will donate Anzac biscuit-tin guitars to his local RSL to raise money for veteran mental health charity.
A Tas manian musician has crafted a collection of guitars, built from Anzac biscuit tins, to be sold for charity. If you're looking for Adrian " Ace " Kitson , you'll likely find him in his garage, hunched over a dimly lit workbench, deep in concentration.
A tuning peg in hand, he gently adjusts the strings of his latest creation until it sounds just right. The Tasmanian musician-turned-guitar-maker has spent the better part of two years handcrafting a collection of cigar-box guitars made from Anzac biscuit tins and local timber. On one, a rifle cartridge functions as a whammy bar. On another, a gun belt is fastened in place of a guitar strap.
Once complete, Mr Kitson intends to sell the guitars and donate the proceeds to Open Arms, a mental health charity that offers military-focused counselling services for veterans.
"I've had friends who have served in the armed forces family, my grandfather," he said. "I feel very sorry for a lot of veterans who returned from overseas who suffer terribly from all sorts of mental illnesses. "Thirty years earlier, an incident on a night out left Mr Kitson with a traumatic brain injury. He says he has had post-traumatic stress disorder ever since.
As well as being novel, each of Mr Kitson's creations is a functional instrument, although with a shorter neck and fewer strings than a standard guitar. A retrofitted piezo pick-up means it can be connected to an amplifier.
"What's the point of having them if you can't grab it off the wall and say, 'look what I can do'? "While Mr Kitson's goal is ultimately to raise money, he also hopes the guitars can bring joy to those who buy them. "When you pass them on to someone else and you see the joy in their face when they get it, that's just priceless," he said. There is one particularly special guitar that will not be for sale.
Honouring local war hero, Edward 'Teddy' Sheean VC, the guitar will be donated to the Latrobe RSL sub-branch to be kept on display. Sheean, who was born in Lower Barrington in Tasmania's north-west and spent his childhood in Latrobe, held the rank of ordinary sailor in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II. In 2020, he was posthumously awarded a Victoria Cross after a long-running campaign by surviving family members.
In the four years he has been in his role as secretary, Mr Kitson's guitar is the first physical donation he's received.
"There's a lot of time put into them and hopefully we can sell a few for him. "
Tasmania Anzac Mental Health Charity Help Guitar Cigar-Box Homemade Timber Biscuit Tin Ace Kitson
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