Luthier Bios

Dan Albright

I had been interested in moving to Montana since I took a hunting trip to Wyoming in 1989.  In the summer of 1995 I visited Montana and interviewed with C Sharps Gun Company, who make a replica Buffalo Rifle.  I got the job and moved to Montana the following Christmas.  After this I worked making decorative duck decoys, and then on to Weber, January 21, 2002.  Altogether I have about 17 years of hands on, woodworking experience.

The move to Montana was not only for my love of fly fishing, but I have been involved with photography for the last 19 years, and semi-professionally for the past 10 years and there is so much good material here.  Along with shooting Weber Instruments for various ads and articles and most of the photographs used on the new website, I have a portrait and product photography studio called  Cherokee & Dutch.  My work is also shown and marketed in the stock photo agency, Wild West Photos.  This agency specializes in outdoor adventure, wildlife and scenic photography.  

Currently at Weber I build fretboards and ribs, and do neck fit, however I spent 4 years detailing instruments before this.  Recently I finished building my first complete personal instrument; a Gallatin Arch Top Guitar.

I like building and feel our instruments are of superior quality and attention to detail.  I personally treat each one as if I would be buying it.  Added benefits are that everyone is amiable, with easy going personalities and you can be your own boss.  The hours are versatile which is great for me as it leaves time to fish and travel for photography.  

In the future I think STE will be able to keep adapting to the ever changing economy and roll with whatever is thrown at us. We have the ability and people with knowledge and experience to withstand any downfalls that may occur.  Overall, I can also say that I am happy with life, and do quite well as long as I can keep fishing, taking photos, and living in Montana.

Note: Most, if not all, of the instrument pictures (and they are not photoshopped!) on this website and many others were taken by Dan.

Vern Brekke

I started with Gibson/Flatiron in 1994 as the Design Engineer for the Belgrade plant. I was responsible for programming the CNC machines and maintaining the plants tools and equipment. At that time, most of the design work was converting standard Gibson designs from hand tool processes to CNC machining. The most interesting project was the design and tooling for a new line of ukuleles. We had just completed the prototypes when the plant was moved to Nashville.

After the Flatiron plant was moved, I was transferred to the acoustic guitar division in Bozeman. I worked with Ren Ferguson on several projects and continued to program the CNC machine that had moved there from the Belgrade plant.

When Bruce was starting Sound To Earth, he did not have the resources to hire an engineer or purchase a CNC machine. There was a company in Bozeman that helped me find a couple of used milling machines that could be converted to CNC machines. I bought both machines and traded one for the CNC upgrade on the other. Using this machine, which was in a corner of my garage, and and inexpensive CAD/CAM program, I was able to do the initial design work for Bruce and STE in the evenings as an independent contractor. In 1998, Bruce was able to hire me and buy the CNC manchine. We are still using that machine for cutting shell and I am also still using an upgraded version of the BobCad program that got us started.

At Sound To Earth, I program and maintain the CNC machines; develop new designs and fixtures; make the armrests; make and install the pickguards; and wire the Mavericks. As a designer, I have always appreciated working with experienced luthiers like Bruce and Helen and musicians like John Lowell, Brett, Marty and Tony who have such a vast range of knowledge about building and playing instruments. They are the ones with the experience to determine if a new design will be useful and if it will work the way that it is intended for our customers. In the future, we hope to have a new 3-point design, and improved tailpiece and another solid body electric.

After work, I like to spend time with my wife and kids and tinker with new designs. My son and I camp, golf, ski and do archery. My daughter is a horse girl (you're not a horse girl in Montana until you have hit the ground and gotten back on three times) and I am learning to ride with her. My wife and I also like to camp, ski and play tile rummy (on those cold winter nights with a nice warm snifter of Grand Marnier).  Bozeman is perfect for us.

Kathy Joyner

I was the Gibson/Flatiron Division Controller from 1994 until 1997 when the Division moved to Nashville.  In September of 2000, I started with Sound To Earth at the Belgrade shop location.  My title at STE is Accounts Manager, however that not only includes all of the accounting side, but also Human Resources, purchasing, and safety.  A bonus has been building long-term relationships with our dealers and vendors.

I enjoy working with Bruce and other good friends.  It being a small shop, I know and like everybody and am amazed at their talents.  My part is to buy the chunks of wood that they turn into a beautiful acoustic piece of art. However, sometimes they do 'suddenly' run out of strings or something...: )

NOTE: Our kind and steady hand in a sometimes chaotic world.

Bruce D. Weber

Mandolin Man
By Mary Weber

For Weber Fine Acoustic Instrument's 10^th Anniversary, in 2007, I thought I would write a profile on Bruce (a few updates added for 2009 website).  I had begun a similar project earlier, but Bruce was convinced that nobody would be interested in reading about him.  This may be true, however after deciding to write from the perspective of the elements that brought him to building instruments and starting his own business, the job became a little easier.  Because I am his wife of many years, it is no secret that I think he's interesting and that this article is prejudiced in his favor.  Perhaps this liability will be offset by a few stories that may never have been told.

Ancient History

All of Bruce's grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany as small children with their families about 90 years ago.  They settled in Minnesota and North Dakota as farmers and were very, profoundly hard working, as were his own parents.  Bruce is the oldest of four brothers and grew up in northern Minnesota.  From a young age he was active in fishing, hunting, horses, and these activities were fitted into a rigorous family work schedule.  However, there was a lot of fun when the extended Minnesota families got together.  We both agree that Garrison Keilor's radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, has it nailed down- Dontcha know, you betcha.

Pre-Mandolin

Bruce's first personal wood project (besides building the family garage) began like many of yours- in shop class where he built a recurve bow that he still has today.  During high school he became quite involved with photography and while they have a 70's flair an interest in the artistic or creative has begun while the technical processes of the camera, developing, etc. intrigued him.  The circumstances of his life and the continuing love of outdoor activities lead to ownership of a sporting goods store at a young age.  Retail work in sporting goods continued through his immigration to Montana in the early eighties.

Once in Kalispell, Montana, making wheel thrown pottery entered his life.  In many ways it was a perfect fit with an emphasis on Form and Function.  As he progressed, much to my surprise, he didn't make me matching dish sets or casseroles but he came to love the beauty and the wild quality of Raku firing.  His pots often had sculptures attached, with the texture and color as important as the form. Bruce dug and mixed his own clay to try his hand at the burnished black, dung-fired pots similarly done in the Santa Clara style.

Musically Bruce started as a percussionist in the high school band with marching band being his favorite, and soon after began playing the guitar.  His first guitar was a blue Guild.   After all there was plenty of great acoustic music in the seventies just starting the list with James Taylor, Jim Croce, and John Denver.  He is self taught and enjoyed playing by himself, but also joining in with friends.  After listening to a lot of Grisman and Sam Bush, he bought his first mandolin, a Flatiron 2M, in Kalispell right before moving to the Bozeman area in 1985.

 Flatiron, 1986

Eventually needing to change the strings on his mandolin he went to the Back Porch Pick'n Parlor in Bozeman. They were out of strings at the time and sent him to a little red shop hidden away by the railroad tracks.  He found the strings, Flatiron Mandolin and Banjo Co., Steve Carlson, and a crossroads in his life.

I was looking for work at this time and Bruce told me that they were hiring at Flatiron.  Later in an interview Steve questioned me saying things the nature of, "When you make a mistake while sewing, do you rip it out and start again?"  The answer was an honest "NO" for me, but I recognized who this did describe.  While Bruce is relaxed and very slow to upset, he likes things done the right way but with room for individuality, and makes it look easy.  For instance we totally remodeled the house we bought in the Bozeman area and Bruce did most of the building, plumbing, electrical, tiling, fencing- you name it- along with my slave labor.  I asked him how he knew how to do all of this and his reply was "German practicality, a father with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and family experience".  He just figured out what needed to be done and if he had a special problem he would research.  He also has a very good eye for balance and symmetry.  Not only was this quality exhibited in his pottery, one day I was watching while he installed railroad ties to be the base of our hot tub. He dug the trenches and would eye them, taking off a little bit of dirt here and there until the ties went in.  Laying the level on top of the ties, the bubble was perfectly centered and Bruce said with satisfaction, "My grandfather could do that."  These are small instances and may seem a long way from building acoustic instruments, but do show his love for what he and I call "projects".  He goes at them with enormous energy, patience for detail and setbacks while figuring out how and why things work, and a great determination to finish any set goal.   In fact, one project is never enough and he is most happy with at least four going on simultaneously.

Flatiron did hire me for shipping and customer service, which left the original position of Detailer still open.  Bruce was getting hooked by this shop and took the step of changing his career focus by applying for the position.  However Steve, at that time, had the idea that women were better at detailing acoustic instruments.  In fact, Helen Beausoleil, who worked with us through out the years and is with us now, first trained Bruce after he had convinced Steve to hire him.  Gibson bought Flatiron soon after Bruce started in 1987. One of Bruce's first jobs was making F-5L mandolin pickguards and to this day he really dislikes making them although he has made many more over the years.  Pickguards are usually bound which launched him into his main niche.  Bruce does most of the custom body binding today, and his son Bruce Jr., does the rest.  I have a great urge to launch into a detailed description of the way Weber binds instruments, but suffice it to say we feel that perfectly hand executed binding/purfling is important on all of our instruments.

Bruce immediately dug into all elements of building mandolin family instruments by volunteering to tool up new models and hours and hours of overtime to learn as much as possible to improve his knowledge and luthery skills.  He also volunteered me to work on repairs on the weekends.  His own music was spent playing the kids, and usually himself, to sleep at night.  I think a major element for Bruce in playing music is to just relax, and let go for awhile.

Gibson Montana Division-1991

Things really started heating up at the little red shop when Steve Carlson got the go ahead to start building the Gibson acoustic guitars, and to build a factory to house both them and the mandolins in Bozeman.  With Flatiron's small crew, and before we moved out of the red shop, we were building and shipping about 14 guitars per day, along with the mandolins.  The new factory was built with the idea of reissuing the Gibson acoustic guitar models and Steve was excellent at this (as shown by the Gibson mandolin reissues) while also incorporating improvements of the day.  At the new factory Bruce continued working on mandolins and managing their production, but at the same time he oversaw the machine shop where he did the tooling for the reissue of the Advanced Jumbo and J180 guitars.

While it was a busy time there was an area not fairing so well- the mandolins.  The production of the acoustic guitars was a much larger operation, therefore more profitable, thus naturally more attention was paid to them by management and builders.  Add to this the fact that carved instruments are more labor intensive, take longer and are much harder to build than flat instruments.  The two pursuits in one factory just didn't seem to be working.  The final straw for Bruce and Steve was that during a fire in the spray booth all of the guitars were taken off of the moving line, but mandolins were left on to continue circling through the fire area!  Obviously they weren't seen as important enough to take the time to move them out of harm's way.  The conspiracy began by Bruce and Steve meeting at MacDonalds to discuss how they could move the Flatiron and Gibson mandolins out of the guitar factory.  Little did they know that the current Gibson Montana Division General Manager was sitting in a booth right around the corner and heard every word of the meeting- it is a small town.  Luckily this GM was a mandolin lover at heart and after some fireworks agreed that a separate division would be a good idea.  Soon after, Steve's contract with Gibson was up, and Gibson Flatiron Division was created and relocated back to the little red shop.

Gibson Flatiron Division, 1993

Not long after, along with the current GM of the Flatiron Division, Bruce relocated the shop to a larger facility in neighboring Belgrade MT. where his only desire was to be in the custom shop designing and building custom mandolin family instruments, and he did have a lot fun with projects.  He built his own F-style just the way he wanted it, built many other fine instruments, and met many great people and performers.  Also, a highlight was when Bill Monroe visited in honor of the Limited Bill Monroe model mandolin, with the design approved and the labels signed by Bill himself.  Bruce had been at the Opry when Bill was playing a few years earlier.  He came off stage, shoved his mandolin in Bruce's hands, and said, "Here, take care of this damn thing." Bill wasn't feeling well and was having problems with the fret board, and Bruce having no tools with him, just stood there and examined it until Bill went on again.  During Bill's visit to Montana, he asked Bruce to refret it before he played later that day.  The thought was nerve wracking enough but when he started the job the fingerboard was so dry it started crumbling away, sometimes in pieces the size of his thumbnail.  Bruce was really sweating by then, and had to lock the door of the room he was working in because everyone was coming in to touch it while he was trying to get the work done.  The fret and sweat job was accomplished, and you guessed it- Bruce kept the frets that Bill had played for so long.  Everyone was very happy when Bill, at the end of the visit and a trip to Yellowstone National Park, finally named his mandolin "Old Faithful".

General Managers came and went and Bruce spent more and more of his time supervising general production.  Bruce, out of necessity, finally gave in and answered the call to become General Manager entering the corporate world from a different perspective.  His main goal was to not compromise quality and craftsmanship for numbers, and to train luthiers not production workers. A class was set up in the evenings to train employees to build their own mandolin, which also enabled him to start instituting some ideas he'd had for a long time.  He set up cells of 3-6 builders who built certain models of instruments from start to finish instead of each person having a particular area of expertise.  There wasn't an opportunity to really get a feel for how this was working before Gibson Flatiron was shut down in 1996 and moved to Nashville to create the OMI division combining Mandolins with Dobros and Banjos. 

Bruce's thought was that the Gibson line would consist of the traditional models, and he got started by introducing the F5G (a more affordable Gibson F) and continuing the line in a reissue of the H5 F style mandola and adding the M5 A style mandola.  The Flatiron instruments would be more experimental and innovative. He had built prototypes of some of them including precursors of our Gallatin and Hyalite mandolins, however the folks in Nashville weren't interested in continuing this concept once everything was moved.  "Experts" commented that nobody would buy those 'new kind' of instruments.  While mandolin players can be very traditional, there are all kinds of players and many different kinds of music.  Also, many times musicians can't afford the very instruments they need and these instruments can be the same reliable traditional design- only stripped down of expensive ornamentation.   The Gallatin, Bitterroot and Hyalite have been some of Weber's hits over the last 10 years for these very reasons.

One of Bruce's personal long term dreams was to build full families of different models with each including a mandolin, mandola, octave and mandocello.  Unknown to him at that time, these goals and dreams would not be realized under the Gibson banner, but his own company.

Good News

A profile or biography isn't complete if it only describes the material and quantitative aspects of a person's life and not the spiritual and qualitative also.  Everyone has a world view, life philosophy, or religion that informs their actions.  And I put this section here because it was about this time Bruce accepted Christ as his Savior.  You can always skip this part if you like, but we hope you won't.

Bruce tries to be a servant to his employees, customers and anyone he deals with, viewing everyone as an individual who has intrinsic worth whether they are useful, productive, loveable or not, because all are made in God's image and are loved by Him.  This is a uniquely Christian belief and one that is unacceptable to totalitarian regimes and others, but is really the basis for the meaning of life.  Like most of us, he scores somewhere in between Mother Theresa and Stalin on the 'goodness scale', and isn't perfect.  Also many people don't realize that the Ten Commandments, while they do represent the natural moral law, were intended by God to show that no one can obey them perfectly- that we always fall short.  The motivation of why people try to be 'good' is what really differentiates.  A Christian doesn't work to be 'good' to earn their way into heaven or because it just makes the world a better place (which are both centered on the self), but to please God.  Of course the very definition of what it means to be a Christian is that "all have sinned (missed the mark) and fallen short of the Lord".  The "wages of sin is death" or justice will be done.  God's remedy for this is 'For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."  Jesus Christ was the only perfectly good man, who to be perfect must also be God (not just a good moral teacher).  Thus only He could be the sacrifice that paid the penalty for sin that justice requires.  The good news to us is He raised Himself from the dead and we are offered this gift of eternal life with Him in heaven instead of meeting justice in hell.  We don't have to pay for it in any way- it is just free with faith and is called Grace.

What this means for Bruce is that he is free.  Free of guilt because his sins are forgiven, he knows God is in control of not only his life but everything, so he doesn't need to worry or stress out, and finally he is free from the fear of death. It's not that Bruce never worries, however it is not how he feels at a certain moment but that he knows the truth, and the truth is Jesus Himself.  Belief in Jesus has set Bruce free whether he chooses to feel or act like it- or not. 

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."      Luke 4:18-19

Sound To Earth, Ltd., and Weber Mandolins  1997
The Beginning Year

Bruce and I did have a five year personal goal of starting our own company that was, by now, stretching into ten years.  The basic thought was involving pottery, building and repairing instruments, and perhaps other art projects that Bruce had in mind.  We had even thought of the name sitting in the hot tub- Sound To Earth (meaning instruments to pottery).  However, Bruce had not been working on his pottery for awhile as time was at a premium and the combination of building and pottery was taking a toll on his arms, hands and wrists.  Extra projects did not stop during this time and Bruce found the new tool and medium of welding.  He built rolling carts, fixed office chairs but also made us a wrought iron fence and started an iron tree sculpture.   Bruce stayed on with Gibson because he loved the instruments and felt like the goals he had were good.  However it is also hard to actually take the step out of the safe zone, and Gibson had been good to us in terms of helping to train Bruce originally and always paid well.  When they offered him the move to Nashville we did think about it for the above reasons, and in fact, we do like Nashville quite a bit.  I realize that many people reading this have faced similar decisions and the need to think through all aspects of a change.  We decided we really wanted to live in Montana and be independent, but what to do next?

Dealers were already talking to Bruce and Paula Lewis to see if they could buy instruments from him, while Bob McMurray, Joe Schneider and Steve Burtch, all unemployed after the Gibson move and all experienced luthiers in their own right, were willing to take the plunge.  It turned out that Gibson did not resume building for a couple of years which, we believe, was beneficial to the mandolin world.  Many small and individual builders had a chance to be seen and heard which leads to the corresponding benefit of more choice for players.

Thus the decision was made in March of 1997 to 'go for it' and now the little problem of capital had to be solved.  With orders in hand for instruments that hadn't been created yet, from dealers that always supported Bruce, and a few meetings with our local bank and City development council, we were off.  Our bank was willing to accept the instruments that Bruce had made, bought and collected over the years and our home as collateral.  They actually held the instruments, but this had the added advantage of them being stored in a humidity controlled vault.  The home shop needed to be finished, so the guys set to work converting our pole barn into a working luthery starting by tearing animal stalls out and pouring a radiant heated floor, insulation and ceiling then adding benches, a spray booth and tools.  They weren't lonely at this work as our three goats, two horses, one cat and two dogs kept them company.  Paula Lewis was working from home calling dealers and nailing down orders as all the construction was going on. 

These guys had a lot of fun starting from scratch by being able to try new things, scrapping some of the old. The sky was the limit concerning different models, sounds, colors and inlay. The Aspen, Alder and Sage were our first mandolin, mandola and octave instruments followed by the Hyalite A and Gallatin F.  We shipped our first instruments in July of 1997. 

Paula moved the office into one of our bedrooms and our good friends Vern Brekke working with an old retrofit mill in his garage and Helen Beausoleil joined the crew.  It was soon realized things were getting a little tight at the Weber's House.

Belgrade Years , 1998

After a year or so we moved the shop into a leased space in Belgrade, which just so happened to be in the same building that housed Gibson Flatiron.  It wasn't fancy but had room for a few more people, re-saw equipment, and eventually a CNC machine.  Bruce, along with most crafts people, loves all tools but believes that taking the luthiers out of luthery just creates cookie cutter instruments with no uniqueness, life or personality.

During our time at the Belgrade shop, Bruce was able to accomplish his dream of designing and building mandolin families of instruments.  This was a process and didn't happen all at once, of course.  However, suddenly everyone's bench and bench pads were too short and the lights were too low (longer necks), when the first Mandocello came through. 

These were intense and very busy years so there weren't any vacations and few fishing trips to the local rivers.  Vern Brekke our engineer and also a sixth degree Black Belt in Dan Zan Ru Ju Jitsu started a club in Bozeman.  Bruce began this new sport and went at it with his usual determination and now has a Black Belt.  It has kept him in shape, helps relieve stress, and has added agility.  He can actually do hand stands, flips and can defend himself from his son and younger brothers not to mention the four granddaughters and two grandsons. 

Life and business were so successful we thought it was beginning to be time for another move.  This shop was once again getting crowded, we wanted to separate the machines from the people and have a few windows (which were completely lacking in our current location).   In fact, August 2001 was our biggest month ever which lasted until 9/11/2001.  Not living on the east coast it took a few hours to really digest what happened and how big and far reaching a tragedy it really was.  The affect, just in terms of the shop, was that the saying that most small businesses are 2-3 months away from going under is true.  People just quit buying for awhile.  Luckily Bruce liked to have 3-6 years of wood drying and had built up a good stock.  We kept building, used up this wood and ironically it was the introduction of the little Sweet Pea traveling mandolin that pulled us through.

Weber Fine Acoustic Instruments, 2004

Bruce and I started looking around for a new shop and remembered the old Logan schoolhouse 25 miles west of Bozeman, which was built in 1922.  We fell in love with its wooden floors, huge windows and country location.   It didn't hurt that it was one huge project for Bruce to work on, too.  We brought everyone from the shop to take a look, and asked them if they were willing to commute the 25 miles from Bozeman.  How could they resist having windows?  The building was bought in 2002, however we weren't able to begin work on it for a full year, and then it took almost a year to get it ready.  The move date was set on a weekend of February 2004 and while we thought it would take at least three days to accomplish, everyone was so ready to move we got about 75% of it done on Friday and were ready to work the following Monday.

For history buffs, the little town of Logan was actually the site of the First Official School District of the State of Montana, most probably because it was a major train station to the west, and about 400 people lived there compared to 50 now.  However, the school district was soon moved to Gallatin City, as Bozeman was called then.  Considering that the Lewis and Clark party went through here in 1804-06 everything was still pretty wild in those days.  Logan was named for Mrs. Logan whose husband died in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Other items of interest we found out after moving were that Logan had been destroyed by two floods, one fire and was located six miles from the epicenter of a 7.0 earthquake in 1925 (part of the school tumbled).  We are assuring ourselves that all of the disasters must be over by now.

We have settled into the new building and one of the great joys of everyone who builds here are customized instruments. Bruce loves to build instruments for players and tries to get them to use their imaginations when ordering their dream.  He says as long as it doesn't compromise the structural integrity of the instrument or his, he'll do just about anything.  We follow the instruments through the shop just waiting to see how they will look and sound and almost always knows who the instruments are for, even if it's just a name, we know somebody has invested a lot with us and is excited about their instrument.  That's why our Player's Page is so important- we've put the face with the name and instrument.

Along these lines I have had a hard time getting Bruce to open up about what he is doing behind the scenes.  I get hints here and there for instance that he has followed the life of certain instruments that he has made changes on, however I don't know necessarily what the changes were and how he managed to follow them.  Also, somebody in the shop will mention the possibility doing a 3-point and he will bring out an old drawing that he had done years ago.  He hardly uttered a word about the arch top and shallow carved guitars for seven years (just that I knew he'd was planning them) and managed to all of a sudden build the three prototypes by working day and night for three months- and there they were.  For us this was a great landmark, along with the mandolin families, and we were overjoyed that these two dreams were given to Bruce.

The 15 inch arch top guitars led into carved guitar bodies with octave and mandocello necks and tuning and six string guitars on F style Mandocello bodies, and he has always planned to build them with not only the 15 inch bodies but also 16 and 18 inch bodies.  I admit that sometimes my perspective has sometimes been the thought of how are we ever going to find cases for all of these odd instruments.

Bruce's latest introduction to the Weber Line has been resonator, or resophonic, guitars.  We have been building up the line for a few years now and have five models with a square neck, round neck and biscuit cone in each of these models (which can, of course, be customized).  I asked Bruce why he started building them.  And he just replied, " I have always wanted to build one, and my friend Richie Owens said he would give me any help/feed back I needed."   The shop has had fun with the new project and have once again blending the traditional with innovation.

He asked me to please note that he has no intention of ever building banjos.

Besides overall management of the shop Bruce regularly does the custom binding, picks wood, graduates and tunes the tops and backs of all of the carved instruments, builds the guitar bodies, and plans, directs and most of the time, builds any prototype instruments.

Bruce likes to keep the number of our crew around 10-15 luthiers (we've had up to 24, and are at about 8 at this time), with around 4 people (including me) in the office. Bruce can, and has often, filled in for any of the jobs of course. This can be a good thing as he can help people make their work run more smoothly, or catch problems in the making.  It is often a shock to the other builders when he has filled in for them that he usually gets any job done at least two thirds faster than usual.  As I write this he is also building necks and doing inlay.

Bruce is almost always working in the shop and available for questions all of the time.  At this size we find it's not necessary to have supervisors or managers.  This requires everyone to communicate with each other about the instruments, work hours can be more fluid and it's just a more relaxed atmosphere without sacrificing quality.  Bruce is self-motivating and tries to hire people that are this way too- craftspeople do tend to be.  We try to pay a wage that people can actually live on, and more awarded with the more you know about building, plus reliability.  Difficulties can be seen earlier and worked out on a personal basis.

The Future

One thing that is not being planned is retirement from luthery.  Whether one at a time, or several with a crew, what could be better than building instruments?  Bruce feels so very blessed that God has given him this profession and will continue working at it unless he is shown something else.  We do have plans to slow down in the future as we all must.  We personally moved to the shop location a few years ago and this has meant Bruce can be home and work on instruments or the school with his own timing.  The pottery equipment is in storage and I know he would like the opportunity to work with clay again and he has had other creative projects in mind that there hasn't been time for.  Recently we opened the "Otter Creek Custom Shop" in a rented log cabin on a ranch way out in the country where we are trying to spend at least one week out of the month.  Having set up a small shop he can get more hands-on work done without so many administrative pressures.  While he is in Otter, Bruce Jr. takes care of the day-to-day operations at the main shop.  Also, this is the perfect atmosphere to start work on new instruments that have been on the drawing board.  At the ranch Bruce can take a break and ride his horses while sometimes helping the rancher out with the cows.  Last winter the area received a lot of snow and we could bring my sled dogs and take off right from the house.  He has even had time to sit on the porch and play his Big Horn mandolin.

Bruce's only complaint is there are so many new instruments he'd like to build there just doesn't seem to be enough time.

Conclusion

I know Bruce deeply appreciates the opportunity he has to do what he loves and thanks each dealer and person that buys one of our instruments.  I'll never forget the time we sat on the living room floor and filed the first warranty cards- we were in awe.

Lastly please keep in mind the moral of this story.  I am sure it's one all reading this can understand.

You just never know what's going to happen when you go out to buy a set of strings.