Not too many years down the road music became full time with my own band, and I got my first taste of lutherie refurbishing band member’s guitars. Eventually traveling and the nightlife began to conflict with family life, and woodworking became once again a full time venture.

It was Polly, my wife, who encouraged me to begin building instruments such as dulcimers and celtic harps, and after wrestling her Oscar Schmidt autoharp from her arms to learn to play, I knew it was time to design a better autoharp. I’ve been designing and inventing things for as long as I can remember, a rocket ship at six, a carpenter’s pencil sharpener at eleven, a submarine at twelve. I knew that designing a better autoharp was a destiny. I began to devour every morsel of information available on instrument building, and I especially picked the brains of everyone who knew anything about autoharps. Still working full time, it took at least a dozen years before I had an instrument ready for public display.