NEW YORK — Bill Collings liked to build things. And while he was blessed with good engineering genes, nobody would have guessed just what he would wind up building: a guitar.

His grandfather’s uncle was a pioneering automaker. His grandfather was the innovative president of Dow Corning, the manufacturer of silicone products. His father was an engineer. His parents hoped he would become a doctor, but he dropped out of a pre-med program at college.

“I liked the science part of that,’’ he once recalled, “but I like the science of manufacturing or making things more.’’

He built hot rods, mostly as a hobby. But after working for five years in an Ohio machine shop, he finally found his true calling when he was about 30.

He began a quest to perfect the kind of fretted musical instrument he had dabbled with since he was 13, in his case a C-1 model Gibson, like the one Elvis Presley played on “The Ed Sullivan Show.’’

Self-taught and by then living in Houston, he learned on the job largely by fixing other people’s instruments before venturing to build acoustic guitars on his own in his two-bedroom apartment.

Mr. Collings, who died July 14 at 68 at his home in suburban Austin, Texas, became one of America’s pre-eminent luthiers, as string instrument makers are called. His company, Collings Guitars, said the cause of death was bile duct cancer.

Beginning in 1979, Mr. Collings’ company produced some 20,000 guitars for many of the world’s most accomplished rock, country, jazz and folk musicians, including Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Joni Mitchell, Eddie Van Halen, Paul Simon, and Bill Frisell.

His company later branched out into mandolins, electric guitars, and ukuleles.