(206) 634-1656

(206) 634-1656

PLEASE READ - our COVID-19 status

To our Dusty Strings community,

Following ten weeks of working as best we could from home, we have been back in the workshop now since June, and are relieved to be doing what we love, which is building instruments! We have really appreciated everyone's patience so far, and we hope you'll continue to be patient with us. Our first priority has to be the health of our employees and our community, and we are carefully following all of the safety practices recommended and required by the state of Washington. Within those limitations, we are doing the best we can to answer the phones and to respond to orders and emails as quickly as possible, and we're grateful for your understanding if it takes us longer than usual to get back to you!

String & Accessory Orders

We should be able to fill most orders for strings and accessories within a few days. At this point, we don't expect any significant delays, but we will let you know if we think it will be more than a week before your order ships.

Mail Service Disruptions

The mail service has been slower and more irregular than usual in recent months, and we are seeing huge variations in how long it takes a package to arrive, and even how long it sits at the post office before it is scanned into their tracking system. If your package is delayed on our end, we will let you know. Unfortunately, once we have handed it off to USPS, there is nothing we can do to investigate the status beyond what the tracking information shows. Packages are reliably being delivered, just not always in the normal amount of time.

If you are trying to place an order through our website for shipping outside of the US and you receive a "no shipping options available" message, that means that the United States Postal Service is not currently accepting mail for delivery to your country. We are sorry that we do not have any way to get around this, and we hope you can wait until the situation improves!

Instrument Orders

We have resumed building and shipping instruments and would love to answer questions or talk with you about placing an order! If your dream instrument is not in stock, we can make an educated guess about how long it will take us to build it, but please allow some extra time for surprises. We are still adjusting to our limited capacity and safety restrictions.

We sincerely appreciate your support during these uncertain times. It is hard to be a small business in the best of times, and this is a challenge on a scale we haven't faced in our 40 years, so we want you to know that both your continuing interest and your words of encouragement mean a lot to us!

Interlocking Celtic knot design inlaid in colorful, sparkly abalone on a harp

Decorative Inlay

Dress up your harp with a delicate inlaid-wood design or the colorful sparkle of abalone shell, which we carefully inlay by hand between delicate strips of multi-layered veneer called purfling. Inlay is available on the FH34, FH36H and FH36S models as an abalone strip around the edge of the soundboard, a graceful celtic knot in abalone on the front of the pillar, or a cherry blossom design inlaid in wood on the front of the pillar. This is a custom option, and it can take about 6 to 8 weeks for us to build a harp with abalone inlay, but it is well worth the wait!

Abalone Celtic Knot

This elegant Celtic knot knot was designed by a former Dusty Strings employee specifically for our harps, and adds just the right amount of tasteful sparkle to the front of the pillar.

Price: $675 (Available for models FH34, FH36H & FH36S)

Click photos to enlarge.

FH36S in bubinga

FH34 in curly maple

FH34 in sapele

FH36S with black finish

Celtic knot inlaid by hand

A cherry harp neck with Celtic knot is sanded

Cherry Blossom

This delicate branch with full and partially-opened cherry blossoms is inlaid using contrasting wood veneers and looks gorgeous on any of our FH wood choices. It is pictured below on a bubinga harp (left) and a cherry harp (right).

Price: $675 (Available for models FH34, FH36H & FH36S)

Click photos to enlarge.

Soundboard Inlay

Our abalone soundboard inlay outlines the entire perimeter of the soundboard.

Price: $1000 (Available for models FH34, FH36H & FH36S)

Click photos to enlarge.

Abalone outlines the entire soundboard

Soundboard inlay with standard curly maple soundboard

On a walnut harp with cherry soundboard veneer

Soundboard inlay with custom bird's eye maple soundboard