Like most everyone else I watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and thought they were the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to play the drums, but that didn’t work out so I switched to guitar. I had some brushes with mandolins & banjos and around 1983 I met Don Brown, (a local mandolin hero)and he got me interested in bluegrass music and the mandolin in particular.

I started playing more and wanted a good mandolin like a Flatiron A-jr but was unable to pay the going rate of $800.00. Chris Hutchins, a friend and local guitar repairman encouraged me to try building a mandolin. I did...and it turned out pretty well for being built with a Dremel tool on my Mom’s dining room table! One thing led to another and soon I was hot rodding my instruments and doing repairs for friends. I wanted to learn more and expand my skills and in 1993 I was able to attend the luthier program at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas.

It was quite an experience, and jumped my learning curve up by many years. Harry Miller and Chris Vandertuin were the instructors, and Mike Stevens (Fender Custom Shop) was on the board of directors. I followed these guys around like a neglected puppy and soaked up everything they said like a sponge. We built guitars and focused on the basics of repair work: set-ups, fretwork, nuts & saddles, bridge replacement, neck resets, etc.

I got home and was ready to take the lutherie world by storm...and after waiting a while for the storm to hit, Mike Fazio of Fazio’s Frets & Friends called with a banjo restoration job and I was off and running! Since then, Mike has become a friend and a great customer. Every time I go back to the store there are more instruments to repair.

Two years ago I completed my first acoustic guitar, an OM model of black walnut, spruce & mahogany. Joe Carr called about the time I was finishing my guitar and asked if I would reshape the neck of an octave mandolin. When I returned it to him he asked about having me build an octave mandolin for him. We talked it over and worked out the details. Joe told me what he was looking for and was very generous about letting me design it. This first Octave Mandolin turned out very well...(and it's the one you're looking at in these photos!)

I'm thankful to all the builders who've been so helpful with ideas and suggestions (and even measurements!). Peter Sawchyn, Michael Lewis and Chris Baird have all been very generous in helping me get this project launched. And, I'm very grateful to my wife Mary, who tolerates my obsession with fretted instruments, even though she doesn’t understand it.