He didn't want to keep being a restaurant manager, either. So, in 1977 he, his now-wife Sue and a roommate started trying to make dulcimers in their basement. Since then Dusty Strings has grown to encompass two locations in Fremont and Interbay.
By 1982, the basement workshop had become too cramped, and the dulcimer strings were getting pretty dusty. So the trio rented an extensive below-ground-level space on Fremont Avenue North, a half-block north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, for retail and manufacturing.
Maybe you've heard the folk or Celtic music as you've walked by the long flight of stairs descending into Dusty Strings' Fremont location. Or made the trip down into the store, filled with acoustic, stringed folk instruments, music books, CDs and even a kazoo or two.
Or maybe you've attended music events there. On the weekend of Nov. 8-10, the first Seattle Folk Harp Symposium gathered together some of the Mooers' oldest musical friends, glittering stars and seminal influences of the folk harp world. Among them were Patrick Ball, bard; Ann and Charlie Heymann, historical wire harp researchers and re-creators; Kim Robertson, contemporary harper; Capitol Hill's Harper Tasche, one of the world's few cross-strung harpers; and Sylvia Woods, whose book, "Teach Yourself to Play the Folk Harp," has sold 50,000 copies worldwide.
Dusty Strings grew until it filled the entire lower level of the building in Fremont.
By 1983, with enough staff and room to handle dulcimer production, which sometimes has climbed to 900 a year, Mooers started thinking about a new instrument to build.
What the dealers who bought his dulcimers had been asking about was harps.
Learning to
build harps
Mooers had taken some lessons from North Seattleite Patricia Jaeger on a fiberglass harp. He'd amassed a file of pictures and gathered technical articles from the Folk Harp Journal on glues, tensions and string plans.
Together with craftsman Robert Korrow, Mooers figured out how to make a 22-string lap harp. Mooers' second try still exists today, owned by Seattle Celtic harper Peter Berry.
The team tried building a harp with 25 strings, then 26. After four or five experiments, they found a size and style they felt could go into production and took it to the National Association of Music Merchants trade show.
Dusty Strings immediately got orders. A suggestion from Los Angeles folk-harp guru Sylvia Woods led the team to learn how to make their own wound strings for better tension in the lower range. Someone was located to make padded cases, and they were in the harp business.
Exacting standards
Six thousand two hundred harps later, Dusty Strings is a leader in folk harp-making. It becomes clear why when you talk to Mooers, who leaves nothing to chance.
When Dusty Strings makes a new prototype size or tries out a new wood, they call in local harp players (there are around 500 in Seattle) for a play-off and listen carefully to the comments. Players pushed for 36 strings, and now the FH36 is the standard model.
When parts are being assembled, craftspeople measure by the millimeter to be sure that the result will be strong and true. The slightest imperfection can relegate a harp to the seconds room.
Mooers is equally exacting in providing his staff with the right work environment. The proof is Dusty Strings' new manufacturing center at 3450 16th Avenue West in Interbay, where the first day of the Folk Harp Symposium took place.
Staying in Seattle
The search for a new space had been underway for several years. With many valued employees who bike, bus or walk to work, Mooers felt he had a substantial investment in keeping the company in Seattle.
A sharp-eyed real estate agent spotted the Interbay lot for sale. Today, the lot holds a three-story building with 34,000 square feet of space, of which half is used by Dusty Strings and half is available for rent.
Moving day was the July Fourth weekend, so the instrument makers are feeling at home by now. No more dark warren of basement rooms for them. Long windows allow in natural light, and areas are commodious, high-ceilinged.
My recent tour started in a large foyer on the second floor displaying harps and dulcimers.
Bubinga and abalone
Dusty Strings doesn't actually log the walnut, maple or bubinga (African rosewood) trees from which the harps are made, but otherwise they're in total control of their production. Taking unfinished slices of premium grade lumber, they cut and glue, drill and shape, inlay and sand, lacquer and string.
Frank Posenke has glued a harp neck to a pillar, and a cheek to the neck. The glue will cure for 24 hours. Later, he might decorate the soundboard with tiny strips of abalone shell, an exacting job.
Emily Peterson is fitting a neck to a harp body. Since the neck must be in precisely the proper position to make the strings the correct length, she repeatedly inserts, checks, removes, sands for a second or two, reinserts, checks again.
Bret Rassat is gluing together the angles of a stave-back harp, using a clamping fixture invented in the shop.
Invention has solved many problems. Beneath several machines are the bases for dentists' chairs (Mooers' father was a dentist), whose raising and lowering mechanisms prevented aching backs in the taller craftsmen. Then there's the sandpaper-roll holder fashioned from sewer pipe and a VW's disc brakes - and another dentist's pedal.
String-making
Further on is a string-winding machine, another homemade affair built in 1985. Mooers buys clear Dupont nylon filaments, dyes some of them red or blue for the C and F notes, then pre-stretches them for quicker tuning when installed. Bronze wire also gets wrapped here for the bass strings.
There are huge fans in the lacquer spray room, and an enormous exterior dust collector that draws sawdust-laden air through 150 cloth filter bags.
For all its size, a friendly atmosphere permeates the premises. Sue Mooers genially heads the office staff. John Peekstok is the general manager, allowing Ray to direct the manufacturing and keep an eye on the industry, studying new instruments and models, sharing information with other makers.
The Dusty Strings crew is pleased that their harps have ended up all over the world: Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Iceland and England. Many go to U.S. shops first, so it's difficult to keep track of the eventual homes unless the warranty cards come back.
Meanwhile, over in Fremont, the old manufacturing rooms are being converted into a teaching, retail and concert space. And the tunes still waft up to the sidewalk, tempting you into the world of fiddles, dulcimers and harps.
Freelance writer Joyce Rice is a longtime Queen Anne resident who recently moved to Oregon.
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