Hi,Charlie here.
I remember when I was young, my brothers and I would make our own toys. We loved to build things out of what ever materials we could find. We built go carts, boats, tree houses. You name it we built it or at least we tried to. We loved to make things with our hands. My brother David became a carpenter. My brother Henry became a hydraulics specialist and I became a welder.
I remember in grammar school they taught us about the different inventors. How they came up with ideas that no one had ever thought about and had them patented. I wanted to be an inventor.
In 1983 I bought myself a Dobro because I loved the sound of it. It was invented by the Dopyera brothers about 1927 and they got it patented.
I soon decided I needed a capo so I bought one. Well it sounded good at home but in a loud jam I could not hear myself playing. No matter how hard I played, it would not get any louder so I bought myself another one. That one sounded better but was harder to put on. So you guessed it, I bought me another one but it was so complicated that I gave up trying to make it work. There had to be a better way.
One day at work, an idea came to me so I made a capo and tried it. Wala! It worked and with one hand. So at the jam I put it on but guess what. It worked good but I still could not hear myself playing.
Remember I am a welder and I had been working with metal for 45 years and I knew if you took a hammer and hit a thin piece of metal it would go bing but if you hit a thick piece of metal it would go bong. So I made the capo wider which made it thicker. When I got home I put it on my dobro and struck the strings. I could not believe my ears. The volume went sky high. The tone and sustain was fantastic. At 70 years old I had invented something. Two years later I got my patent.
For many of those years I had been asking God to give me an idea for something that I could build to supplement my social security when I got to retirement age and he did it.
The bible says that God will give you the desires of your heart and he has surely done that for me. The bible also says, as a good father gives good gifts to his children so does your heavenly father. If you know what your hearts desire is by all means pursue it. If you don’t, remember, it will not be found in your head. It will only be found in your heart. What you really really really want to be. Gods gift to you.
My brother David has now invented a fantastic capo for banjo and guitar. His link is on my Home page.