Alec Anness Restoration and instrument maker

Instrument maker and furniture restorer

Quality Restoration & Bespoke Handmade Furniture.
Based in the Cambridgeshire Fens, I design & make furniture to your specification and I am skilled in the restoration of antique furniture.

As well as all the traditional furniture making skills I can provide veneering, marquetry, woodturning and carving to a high standard. I am an experienced French Polisher and a maker and supplier of fitted furniture.

I also make Autoharps, Hammered Dulcimers and Banjos. Use the links below to view examples of my work.

High Quality English Diatonic and Chromatic Autoharps.

I've played the Auto harp since the age of seventeen. In the mid 1960 s little was known about the instrument in this country or how to play it. My first influence as I recall was probably Bill Clifton, Mike Seeger, Tom Paley & of course The Carter Family.

Specification All my harps are made from the finest quarter saw tone-woods. Soundboards are made in quarter sawn Sitka Spruce or Mahogany. The one piece tuning pin blocks are also made of quarter sawn laminated Beech or Maple.
My harps are much lighter in weight than most being built today. This is due to my specially designed frame & strutting. The harp body is jig built with a backward bend to compensate for string tension.This makes for a very stable harp & gives the soundboard down bearing.
Fine tuners: Fitted as standard. A must have these days, made by a local precision engineer.
Chord-bars are now made from an aluminium channel ( for added stability ) infilled with a hardwood T section core , then veneered with a decorative wood such as Birds- eye- Maple or Fiddle-back Mahogany. The entire chord-bar unit is now positioned to block out as many harmonics & overtones as possible.
Bridges are made from Beech & Maple & on top of the range custom built models Rosewood or Paduk.
The custom made strings on my harps are also made in the U K to my specification.
I offer a good selection of inlay banding's & boxwood stringing for mid range & Custom Builds.
Please consider my Autoharps if you are thinking of owning a quality handmade instrument.

Standard Models

The Griffin Autoharp: £ 1350-00 Chromatic or Diatonic. No inlay or turned sound-hole ring

The Raven Autoharp: £1750-00 Chromatic or Diatonic.

Top of the range custom built autoharps: £1850-00 - £2200-00

The Resonator Autoharp is fitted with a quarter sawn soundboard in place of the normal back and an extra resonator back.
This instrument in either the Griffin or Raven style, without inlay costs an additional £220-00. With inlay and the edges bound in Boxwood the additional cost is £290-00.

New Model. Grand Concert Harp: Same high specification but with refinements to the internal strutting & the jig built frame to allow for a larger soundboard area. The overall depth of the body is 2 inches, giving a larger internal volume to the sound-box. Can be built as a chromatic, diatonic or with an extended bass range. £2200-00

Hard Flight Standard Cases: Constructed from extruded aluminium & 7 m m honeycomb board. All cases are padded out with high density foam & covered with crushed velvet. £360-00

Auto harps can be made with an extended bass range The number of extra strings will be governed by the chord schedule chosen by the client / musician.
All my harps are completely hand finished in either satin or gloss French Polish.
If you have an instrument with loose tuning pins these can now be replaced with a larger sized pin
.

Please do refer to the testimonials page to see what people say about my instruments.

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