I have been a Master Craftsman for over fifty years and had a fine woodworking and design business in Maui, Hawaii for thirty of those years. In 1990 I was fortunate enough to meet the prominent luthier Steve Grimes in Kula as I sold him the finest in Hawaiian hardwoods for his guitars. He helped me complete my first guitar and encouraged my love for building fine instruments. My second build was made with my son Jake in mind – called the ”Tiny Grimes” it became the guitar he used for his lessons with guitarist Tommy Conway. I continued building guitars whenever I could and it was always a nice side project for me. After selling my Maui business I moved back to Sisters, Oregon, and wanted to commit most of my woodworking time to guitars. I was very lucky to meet up with master luthier Butch Boswell who was instrumental in helping me hone my skills and take things to another level.

Every one of my guitars is a unique design and hand-built to extract the most aesthetically and sonically pleasing guitar that I can from each precious piece of hand-selected timber. Sound becomes the most important piece in the collaboration since it brings forth all the relationships between the player and the guitar and eventually onto the audience. My long-term goal is to pursue a deep understanding of the physics of the acoustic guitar, whilst striving to master the craft of guitar building. As a custom builder, each instrument is approached as unique, and no two are exactly alike. I find tremendous satisfaction in the challenge of designing an instrument that meets the needs and desires of each customer. My philosophy revolves around an emphasis on simplicity and how it can be applied to creating the complexity of sound and music through a wooden musical instrument. My aesthetic attention to detail is clean and understated. I prefer to showcase the beauty of the wood and materials and let them speak for themselves. Central Oregon is incredibly inspirational and the climate is moderate and dry which makes Sisters a fine place to build instruments. I currently build a small handful of guitars per year, focusing on custom build quality rather than producing a large number of guitars.