In the summer of 2012, a percussion university student spent all his money on dowels ... 

... Of course, they weren't just any dowels: in the attic there are still some of these beautiful, straight, smooth-surfaced pine sticks, which were intended as an arrow for their original purpose. Since they could only be obtained in large quantities, I spent a full month's salary on them, but I knew that if the dowels work, I would be able to make my best marimba mallets to date.

Of course, they didn't work.

I had to invest another full year of experimentation in finding the right materials.

The simpe dowel was replaced by the mountain maple, and we made our first "Ashkatan Kipchak F86." It's gone through a lot of changes since then, but it's still available and still one of our most popular mallets.

How next? It took about five more years for our international website to be completed. I didn't believe my eyes when the first American order came in - but that's another story;)