In the late 1940s, the seeds for Celestial Diamond™ Guitars were planted in the rich fertile soils of Iowa. Its' founder David Wetzel, was raised in an environment permeated with music.  Not only music generated by the talents of man, from classical to contemporary "Pop" by way of radio, TV, school band and choir, but also those created by the hand of God.  From the resounding chirping of the lowly cricket, the deafening drone of the sekada, the gentle rustle of fall leaves to the foundation shaking grumble of the tornado.

As a teen, uprooted and transplanted on the sandy coast of Southern California a new and enchanting concert was being played, from the whir of the wings of the Humming Bird to the thunderous crashing of surf echoing through the canyons, to the canyons themselves rumbling as the earth would shake and quake.

Playing in the school band, singing in choir, studying physics, and building all sorts of wonderful things in wood shop, all the while musing to every form of euphonic concerto, the groundwork for Celestial Diamond™ Guitars was being laid.

Being a bass player at heart and prodigious inventor, prohibited by a ultra-conservative father from owning or playing an instrument of such dubious repute, only fomented his hunger to pursue my dreams. Driven onward to the objective of learning to play bass guitar, Wetzel purchased and restrung a ukulele to learn fingering and bass lines.

Wetzels' dear grand mother, his conservative fathers mother, learned of the predicament and presented to the founder to-be, of Celestial Diamond™ Guitars with a genuine $25. Tijuana special guitar birthday present, that sounded surprisingly good.  It became inseparable from its new owner.  However, after a few months it  started to come unglued because of the humidity of the coastal environment.  Wetzel found that his wood working skills and background in physics to be very handy in renovating the guitar.

The experience was instrumental in Wetzels' understanding  of how an acoustic guitar works and "sound propagation" theory, that upon completion with only a small modification to the instrument, the sound quality of the instrument was enhanced from surprisingly good to superlative.  Numerous offers in trade have been tendered for the guitar, including Martin, Gretch, and Gibson guitars.  Dave's response? Thanks, but No Thanks!

During  a time, "while traveling lite", in the evenings Dave with a number a group of other musicians would be having a great time jamming and singing in the balmy night air, but there was always missing the bass range that is so important to achieving a rich, full sound.  The consideration of an electric bass and amp in the "outback" proved cumbersome and impractical, compelling the search for a source of an acoustic bass guitar.

In my research, only one mfg. was found who had just curtailed production of the Earthwood™ line acoustic basses.  (A year later MTV began its' Unplugged performances).  However, Wetzel was able to find an experimental DoBro bass guitar available. Though the resophonic cone had  been deformed and needed replacement, as part of the purchase a new cone would be included.  Wetzel purchased it and replaced the cone only to find that because of the mechanics of the DoBro and the excursion required for bass strings, the travel on the new resonator cone caused it to immediately deform as well.

Further, because Wetzel was able to explore the innards and found that the mechanics of a DoBro are relatively inefficient, (hence the great projection of the treble end and the nearly non-existent low end) this experience was very instrumental in the development of  a new more efficient design, the Dynamo™ and Dual-Dynamo lines of guitars and bass guitars, the precursor to Celestial Diamond™ .  Wetzel had hoped to present his new design to DoBro for a new line of resophonics but Original Musical Instruments owners, Chet and Betty Lizak had just begun negotiating the sale of OMI.

Though the Dynamo line is very efficient and produces a much larger volume and full range sound than the competition, it was said to be "a bit too revolutionary" by a major distributor.  One said, "The world isn't quite ready for this, make it look more like a regular guitar and we're on."

This also proved to be a blessing, because over the next year Wetzel was able to refine the design to a minimum of components and further enhance the efficiency  to the extend that it can easily drive a 5th low "B" string, and manufacturing process of the instrument, making the Celestial Diamond™ the best acoustic bass guitars available at any price.