Sweetharp

[Peg OMeara]

[nancy-glickman]

i think i have the EVE, the gothic style, i got it off of Ebay when this man had bought it and just didn’t have time to practice. i did call the store to ask them about trading it up and they were very helpful. i do agree about chris, he just can’t handle all the orders, but other luthiers will tell you on their site that the wait time is lengthly, they are upfront so you know what you are getting into. i will just have to keep waiting since i can’t get my money or the harp from him right now.

[Peg OMeara]

[nancy-glickman]

I totally agree with the way he should handle things. I too have come across luthiers who will tell you they cannot tell how long you will have to wait, but you will have to wait, one site says the waiting time is 5 years! But at least you know. I have only gotten occasional emails and not all from Chris. I think what got me frustrated is when i read he has been out and about doing concerts and having his harps for sale and I have been patiently waiting and still have nothing.

[Maria Myers]

That’s what I don’t understand.

[Peg OMeara]

[aaron-walden]

It really is “A New Paradigm” isn’t it? A hundred years ago he wouldn’t have had a Web site, but he might have taken out magazine ads displaying his great new instrument design with the nice price. Orders might have rolled in by mail from across North America and even Europe. He might have run into trouble meeting demand. That part isn’t new. What is new is how easy it is to publicize complaints all around the world, to people we have never even met. I doubt it really helps a maker’s mental health to be facing all this. If it were me, I’d be overwhelmed. The more public pressure, the more the nerves would hinder production.

I’ve ordered one, myself, and from all that others have faced, waiting for theirs, I hope it comes through, but if only some of

[Peg OMeara]

Hi Aaron-

[mary-albers]

The discussion re: the problems related to the sweetharp delivery and the issue of poor communication by Chris Caswell was tabled by the moderator of the virtual harp circle. Laurie Riley offered to mediate between customers and Chris. The VHC will only post info on this subject through Laurie. Chris has been in contact with her. I have no idea what “mediate” means in this situation I have emailed and stated I expect the full amount due me. If you are interested in pursuing this avenue you can email Laurie at.laurie.riley689@gmail.com.

Laurie is well respected as a teacher and performer. She has known Chris apparently for years. You will have to reach your own conclusions as to objectivity and personal bias. This is posted as an FYI to keep everyone up to date on the issues related to the sweetharp. .

[aaron-walden]

Better mediation than remediation… I uh… I think… 🙂

[Angela Biggs]

I received a mass letter a few days ago. I was told it had been “sent” to Harp Column, but it isn’t showing up in the forums yet, so I’ve asked for permission to post it. If I get the okay I’ll put it up.

Thanks for that information, Mary (post 98). Based on the last letter I’ve strongly encouraged my student to withdraw her order, but I haven’t heard her decision yet, so I’m guessing she’s having a rough time with it. Now I can offer her another option, though we’ll have to wait and see to find out what good it might do. Thank you. 🙂

[Angela Biggs]

Whoops, Mary’s post was number 99. Sorry. 🙂

[Angela Biggs]

Hi again folks,

I received permission from Beverly at Caswell Harps to post the following mass letter from Chris. I received the letter on September 11, and asked for and received permission to post it here on September 13. I hope some of you will find it helpful. To be clear, I’ve simply done a copy-and-paste, and I spent a couple of minutes taking care of some formatting issues created by the “paste”.

Hello All,

This is Chris Caswell (the now infamous). Please take a moment to read the following. I’m sorry that it’s a bit long.

First let me say that I am in deep sympathy with everyone’s

frustrations, and am in the shop nearly every day trying to catch up. I feel extremely frustrated for every harp I deliver late, and for every time I have to put someone off due to the situation here. The expansion of my sales over the last year due to the SweetHarp, coupled with production issues I could in no way have foreseen, and now with a health situation, have thrust my weaknesses and blind spots to the foreground. It overwhelmed my ability as a small shop to keep up.

As soon as I identified one of these problem areas, however, I have taken the steps I could to organize around my own limitations. I have been blessed to be able to add a professional bookkeeper, and a person to make sure I stay in touch with those who are waiting or have questions. I also have new help in the shop (the goal has always been to largely extricate myself from the process, both for stability, and since only I can do the larger harps).

Have we caught all the problems? No. Some issues have still slipped between the cracks. But we’ve done a lot to make sure that folks who are waiting have the most honest appraisal we can give them of the situation, and that harps continue to get out the door.

Let me give you a summary of this “perfect storm” which has gotten me where I am right now. (Some have labeled my attempts at explaining what’s been going on as “excuses,” implying that I’m trying to “get away” with something. From my point of view that’s a bit like saying your car’s transmission went out on the way to work and that’s your “excuse” for being late. These are events of life that happen and we deal with them as best we can. (Some I’ve obviously dealt with better than others.)

Part 1, the production issues:

About a year and a half ago I released the SweetHarp after having done two prototype runs to make sure I had my production ducks in a row. The SweetHarp is a distillation of my nearly 40 years making and playing harp, designed to be light, strong, good sounding, good to play; offering a harp I thought was a real step up in the growing “less expensive” harp market. It is designed as a production

instrument using some very sophisticated woodworking technology. It was in this cutting-edge technology that I hit my first landmine.

The harp is made nearly entirely from parts that are cut in batches by computer-controlled machines. (It was my reticence to explain this clearly earlier which, I think, caused some of my explanations to sound a bit disingenuous, but I consider the process proprietary.) The parts are then gone over in the shop – sanded, etc. – and assembled. The assembly is designed to be very quick (one of the key ideas in making a sophisticated harp affordable).

As soon as I released the harp, one of my main parts suppliers simply disappeared. I then put the drawings out to bid again and got several inquiries. The most promising seemed a shop in Des Plaines, Il.

Now, every time I establish a new supplier it means sending them the drawings. They enter this into their machines, cut a test batch of parts which are sent to me for approval. We fix any discrepancies, and then can start a production run. This process can take several months.

The folks in Des Planes were hit by flooding that summer, which closed them down for a while. After that, we spent several months trying to get successful parts. They finally had to admit that they didn’t have the expertise for my kind of job. By now I had a trickle of parts from my original supplier, but they were less than perfect in terms of the “snap together” aspect of the design, and were taking a lot of time to make work. And the sales were starting to come in. The backlog was increasing.

So I started developing a relationship with another supplier in Florida. They had a very sophisticated German machine which promised to be able to do my parts no problem. But after a hurricane and nearly six months of trying to get parts from them, they also decided they couldn’t do it. Remember – this is after I’ve had several batches done by other folks, so knew it was possible. What I came to see was that, even though these companies had the hot-shot machines, they didn’t have the expertise to really get the most out of them.

By now it’s Winter. At our local Christmas Fair I start talking with a very talented younger man whom I have been acquainted with for years, and who has been wanting to do something similar to my approach but with other instruments. He teaches how to use these machines at a local co-op tech shop, and is very excited to take my drawings to the next level, allowing for an unprecedented level of precision and ease of cutting.

We have been vetting the parts since about March and should be in full swing in about a month, and finally, my dream of a quickly-made great little harp should be n full swing. Meanwhile I have that trickle of parts from the first supplier, but they are slow going through the shop. (The upside to this wretched little history is that I have continued to refine and improve the SweetHarp. Each time I’ve sent my drawings off to a potential supplier, I’ve been able to incorporate these improvements. So the harp folks will be receiving has matured a lot.)

Part 2: My Health

As you who have read some of my Facebook postings, or elsewhere, you will know that I went through a health crisis back in 2006-2008. I had rectal cancer. It responded very well to treatment and was gone for several years. During those years, my insurance company decided that my group plan (of which I was the only member) was invalid, and offered to convert it to a personal plan – at over $900/mo. Since I couldn’t do that, I had to let my insurance go.

Last Thanksgiving, as I was setting up for the Dickens Christmas Fair, I came down with a bad cough. A number of folks at the fair had something similar – either a bug going around, or a mold issue, or who knows? Anyway, mine persisted throughout December and into January.

Eventually it seemed to knock some ribs out so I went to a

chiropractor who said that yes, a cough could actually break a rib. And that coughs were very fatiguing to the body. That helped explain that symptom. I was also, by this time, in pretty severe pain shooting up the right side of my back from hip to shoulder, seeming randomly.

I could only sit at a computer for a few minutes at a time, and when I was at the shop (even answering emails was an ordeal), I was only doing a fraction of what I could usually do. The pain was often triggered by standing. So I could only stand for a few minutes, then find something to do sitting down. At the end of a day, all I could do was come home and lie on the floor. My productivity plummeted.

But after four decades of working in a shop, my mental model of what could get done didn’t adjust quickly to the new situation. This didn’t help me when I would give clients what turned out to be overly- optimistic delivery estimates. But, in my ignorance, all was done in good faith from my end. And I continued to go to the shop nearly every day to do whatever I could.

What I noticed as the winter wore on was that in addition to fatigue, I was losing weight. Finally I went to a respected elderly Chinese doctor near me. He pointed out a swelling in my liver, and ascribed my pain as being the result of pressure on a nerve (he pinpointed all the spots in question). He also said that, though all my symptoms were consistent with a slowly-evolving liver condition, that it could also be cancer.

For those who don’t know, folks with pre-existing conditions have to wait about two years between being insured to be available for some of the alternative plans. However, none of those plans were available to me until just recently. California has a new, affordable “Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan” (PCIP) which I am now enrolled in. I get my first major tests next week.

The good news is that since seeing my Chinese doctor, the swelling has decreased and softened, and the nerve pain is greatly reduced. My vitality has increased. And though I still have some low energy days, in general my hours in the shop are longer and more productive than they have been in many months.

Throughout this whole period I have remained dedicated to building SweetHarps. Since harps have been slow to get out the door, you can imagine how my cash flow has been. But I’ve found a way of persisting, even though some things have not been handled as nearly as quickly as I would like, and for that I apologize. For me, the only way is through. Get harps out the door, no matter what difficulties arise.

I have dedicated my life to the harp and it is very sad to me that now, after four decades, I should have put myself in this position.I accept responsibility for it, and have only the kindest thoughts for those who are affected by my situation. I know I will get through this. At what cost to my reputation, God knows. But I am doing my best.

For those of you that are still reading this, may I ask something? This is something I’ve never asked before: Maybe occasionally you could play a tune on your harps for me and send me a little well-wishing.

I heard a wise man say once, “When your load gets heavy, don’t ask for a lighter load. Ask for stronger legs.”

All best wishes,

Chris

[aaron-walden]

So, the supplier difficulties have been a matter of getting customized parts. I wonder what sort of parts it could be. I assume the wood is procured locally, so maybe the metal parts, like nuts, bolts, hitch pins, or tuning gears?

The use of automated production does sound promising, with regard to being able to ultimately catch up and stay on top of things, but I get the feeling he is stabbing in the dark as to time-frames.

[Angela Biggs]

Actually, I think it’s the wooden parts that are machine-made, customized to Chris’ specifications. That should be even more promising as to catching up – if there isn’t some disaster with the new supplier. I got the same impression about the time frames as you did, though.

[Author]

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