Luckily my father passed on some of his slick mechanical skills, and as soon as I got my first acoustic guitar in the late ’70’s, I quickly realized the cheap plastic parts could be improved. I’m not sure who first told me “put a bone saddle in it,” but that’s exactly what I did and it was pretty obvious what a significant difference it made, so my next acoustic got one …and the one after that…..and then my friends’ guitars. During my Naval career navigating nuclear submarines, I still took the time to make these as well as repair guitars here and there and have the honor of being one of the only guitar players to make a new saddle and set up an acoustic guitar under the Atlantic Ocean. EVERYONE who heard one of my guitars with one of these installed either wanted me to make one, or wanted to know where they could buy one. The unintended consequence was developing a pretty large array of factory saddle templates and gaining a significant working knowledge of guitar repair, both electric and acoustic. Nearing my retirement from the USN and with the advent of the internet, I realized there was literally no one out there who specialized in making these and the parts that were available were mass-produced junk, leaving only skilled luthiers as an outlet to obtain a quality, hand-made saddle or nut. At the end of 2003, on a whim, I offered to make a saddle for someone in an online group and within 24 hours, I was ordering piles of bone saddle blanks for the rest of the folks that heard about it. The proverbial light bulb above my head did indeed go off. Although I was hired for a great job post-Navy, I decided to pursue this instead. The job where I got to be the boss, stay at home and spend quality time with my guitars (and cats) seemed like a better option. …and the rest is history.
The bottom line is this: I really love what I do and get an enormous amount of satisfaction when someone is simply happier with their instrument because of something I did to it or made for it.
I’ve been playing over 40 years and have played in metal bands, jazz bands, done solo work, acoustic duos and have been involved with recording, producing, live sound and nearly every other aspect of the performing industry. My 15 minutes of fame was opening for James Montgomery and The New Riders of the Purple Sage playing blistering rock and wearing spandex pants. Hey, it was the ’80s and I was very thin. Nowadays, instead of being on stage with famous guitar players, I just sell them guitar parts. I do play out occasionally, but spend the majority of my time making guitar parts and running a private repair operation for a handful of local guitar players. I operate this business out of my home so I’m open every day. Feel free to call any time. If I hear the phone, that means I’m open.
…so that’s how I got here. …and it would not have been the incredible success without musicians like you, guitar players just trying to improve their instruments and teaming up with me in some small part to make it happen.
