Finding something personal is very hard. From new shoes to new clothes, inevitably someone somewhere will have the same thing the next day.

At Guitar Mill, a custom guitar shop located at 407 Lytle St., one can have a personalized guitar body made out of ash, alder, mahogany or pine, that probably no one will ever have a duplicate of.

“It’s more exciting than the ones you buy out of a store,” said Guitar Mill owner Mario Martin.

Martin is a certified acoustic guitar technician who learned his basics at Gibson Guitar Factory in Nashville. He later went to Fender Custom Shop in Nashville, where he worked with a master luthier, one who makes stringed instruments.

For about a year, Mario made wooden bat houses, putting a Batman symbol on them and selling them on eBay. He said he couldn’t keep up with the sales so his friends helped him direct his attention elsewhere.

“My friends said that making guitars was easier,” Martin said.

He started his business in his two-car garage and a spare bedroom. He said he didn’t like it, however, because he was always at work when he was at home.

While working at home, he developed a website, guitarmill.com, where almost all sales come from. Much of Guitar Mill’s business comes from Australia and Europe, especially Great Britain, said Mario, who considers the online portion of his business vital to his success. Martin said without the Internet, the business couldn’t exist 10 or 15 years ago.

“The days of waiting for somebody to drive by are over,” he said.

Last May, Mario and wife, Shannon, decided to move the business to the Lytle Street building. Shannon runs the front office by preparing shipping and making sales. They do a lot of one-to-one customer service, said Mario, adding, “Our customers know what they want.”

He said people value a custom-made guitar more than one from a factory and usually spend more time with them.

The 1952 Fender Telecaster, which Martin refers to as the “T-Style,” is the most popular body shape Guitar Mill produces.

When it comes to creating a guitar, Mario said it takes at least four hours to complete an instrument’s unfinished work-such as shaping and sanding the wood, and eight hours to undertake finish work, such as customized painting. Prices range from $400 to $2,000 for a custom-built finished body.

Last year, Mario said he produced more than 500 guitar bodies and now the shop does all finishing and neck work in house.

Guitar Mill is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each Monday through Friday. For more information, call the shop at (615) 849-5800.