By David MacDonald A fter moving to Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1998, Jennings was disappointed to discover that the tops of two of his most valuable guitars had developed cracks. He knew humidity was something he had to take seriously in his new home. Years later, while sitting in his music room jamming with his brother-in-law, the topic of humidification came up during a break. “At the time, I used a room humidifier that got the humidity to an adequate level,” he explains, “but it was going through about three gallons of water a day. I thought about plumbing it into the water line, but when you put humidity into a dry room, you end up with a lot of it going into the walls and insulation where it can cause problems with mold. I looked at a rack of guitars in the corner and said, “You know, we really just need to humidify where the guitars are,” and my brother-in-law, co-founder Roger Horneff – who’d been in the furniture business for many years – said “we can do that.” So we started looking into what products were in the market. There were a few, but they either looked too commercial, or didn’t have active humidification. We decided to build something that a guitar collector and musician would want. I did what no product manager is ever supposed to do: I built what I wanted. As we spent time trying to come up with a
humidified cabinet for me, we started thinking that maybe people would want to buy these.”
And want them they do. American Music Furniture has over 32,000 Facebook likes. Their first project in 2013 – a proto- type cabinet designed for display at The Great American Guitar Show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – was so popular that it generated cash offers right there on the exhibition floor. “People who invest in vintage, or new luthier-made instruments, appreciate what we do. We’ve delivered cabinets and watched as close to a million dollars in instru- ments went in. I always love seeing them filled,” Jennings says. When these instruments finally fill the cabinets, they are in the protection of a powerful humidifier, and an optional patent pending dehumidifier. This device is derived from an ionic membrane technology that’s primarily used to dehu- midify security camera housings. It breaks down H2O into its separate elements and pumps the hydrogen out of the cabinet. “We discovered the technology early on and did a lot of testing with membranes we imported from the United Kingdom. We’re the only ones offering anything like it. It dehumidifies without generating heat or requiring the user to empty a water tank,” Jennings details.
“Making guitar collectors aware that such a product exists
80
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • NOVEMBER 2018
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog