The first time I ever held a guitar was when I was 9 years old, at my uncle’s place. Three years later my brother walked in with a guitar and for me that was love at first sight; from then on I spent all of my time playing and practising, which quickly resulted in performances in a variety of bands.
I later read an article about Anno Galama, it was during this period that I started customizing and repairing guitars myself. Work orders kept coming in and this eventually led to the completion of my first guitar in about 1980.I worked for Anno for several years and the quality of my work improved.
I was doing a lot of experimenting with hollow body’s and at some point I realized that I was searching for more resonance than a hollowed-out slab of wood could give me, so I decided to start building acoustic guitars.

To make this switch possible I needed a more professional workspace, so in 2007 we bought our house with workshop here in the center of Heerenveen.