With more people looking to buy ‘made in Canada’ products, a guitar string manufacturer called NorthTone Strings noticed a gap in the market a year and a half ago and decided to open shop in Sudbury. And now, the company is just a few weeks away from its official launch. “Nickel is one of the key ingredients that goes into making electric guitar strings,” said Amanda Diamond, co-founder of NorthTone Strings. “So that just seemed fitting. Like if anyone’s going to do it here or in Canada, Sudbury seemed like the place.” Al Henry, co-owner of NorthTone Strings, said the demand for products made in Canada really intensified about 18 months ago. “People were asking for Canadian-made guitar strings … and I knew it wasn’t a thing,” Henry said. “But one thing led to another. Amanda and I, we just looked into it briefly, and then we just didn’t stop. We just kept asking questions and trying to figure out why. Why don’t people do this, you know? And it just kind of sent us down an amazing journey.” Since then, other Canadian manufacturers have emerged, Diamond said. “Guitar strings are interesting because it’s kind of like making a cake -- there’s not one way to do it,” she said. “Every producer has their own recipes, so from the materials that they source to the combination of gauges that they use and the way that the string is produced, the speed that it’s wound at, there’s all these different variables that give that string its unique properties.” “I feel like Canada right now, we’re not making very many things when it comes to manufacturing,” Diamond added. “This is a perfect example of anything’s possible if you really put a lot of time and effort and hard work into it.” Independent shops from across Canada -- and in Sudbury -- have made partnerships with North Tone Strings to add the products to their shelves, including Cosmic Dave’s Guitar Shop, which sells and repairs guitars. Used locally Beyond selling the strings, the shop will also be using the locally made strings on its guitar repairs. Henry said musicians have been reaching out from across the country and beyond to find out more about their strings. He said that quality control is hard work, making sure every string plays to perfection. He held up Butticles, his dog, who sniffs out the imperfections. “She’s a quality control consultant,” Henry laughed. In reality, Henry said quality control is a painstaking process. “I literally look at every string under a magnifying glass,” he said. “I want to make sure that what we ship out there is really, really high quality.” There is a market out there, he added, since many guitar players change their strings every few months. “The demand just throughout our country has already kind of exceeded what our production capacity is,” Henry said. “So it’s just building up that capacity, hiring people, getting more machines to try and be able to make enough strings.”
