Ragamuffin Studios — McCoysville, Pennsylvania
Technical design and fabrication for the arts, education, and entertainment — designed and built from the ground up in Central Pennsylvania.
About the Studio
Ragamuffin Studios operates out of McCoysville, Pennsylvania — deep in the traditions of people who build things by hand and build them to last. We use the latest technology to model, validate, and refine our designs before anything touches a machine. But technology is a tool here, never a substitute for craft or creativity. The work itself is made by craftsmen.
Technology compresses the distance between idea and object. Traditional fabrication skills ensure the object is worth making. We bring 30 years of interactive development together with hands-on CNC fabrication, embedded systems design, and a working music venue — Ragamuffin Hall — as our proving ground.
When a project requires physical production, our manufacturing arm Ragamuffin Workshop carries it out. The Studios designs. The Workshop builds. From the design model to the hand-finished object — that's the through-line.
What We Do
Custom HTML5 interactives, accessible e-learning platforms, and entertainment and education tools built to do what off-the-shelf authoring tools cannot. WCAG 2.1 compliant. xAPI and LRS integrated. Designed by someone who has spent decades understanding how people actually learn.
Sensor-driven LED installations, embedded interactive panels, and microcontroller-based display systems for museums, science centers, venues, and entertainment and education facilities. The kind of work that makes a room come alive. Ragamuffin Hall's lighting system is a working prototype of exactly what we build for clients.
CNC-machined components, custom metalwork, and precision-built hardware. From guitar bodies and brass hardware to knife cases and custom MIDI controllers — if it requires both design thinking and a machine shop, we can build it. Joseph runs our CNC. Caleb handles the forge.
Lighting design, AV systems, and control infrastructure for performance spaces, entertainment venues, and educational facilities. We design, build, and install. Ragamuffin Hall — a converted church in McCoysville, PA — is our ongoing demonstration of what this looks like at full scale.
Selected Work
Design → Fabrication → Production
The Plaincaster is the clearest example of how Ragamuffin Studios works. We designed the instrument — geometry, hardware, electronics, finish — from first principles, by a designer with nearly 50 years of playing experience. That design process included prototyping, CNC toolpath development, and hands-on fabrication at every stage.
Production is carried out by Ragamuffin Workshop, our manufacturing arm. Workshop runs the CNC, handles body routing and finishing, and builds each guitar to the specifications Studios developed. The result is an instrument that sounds and feels unlike anything off a factory floor — because every decision was made by someone who plays.
The first two Plaincasters were built from oak planks salvaged from Ragamuffin Hall. Brass hardware at string termination points for mass and sustain. Custom pickups wound by Jim Grandon. Hand-filed brass nut slots. Available by commission through Ragamuffin Workshop.
The Team
Every Ragamuffin Studios project is team-built — a genuine collaboration, not a solo operation with helpers. Three people, three disciplines, one commitment: everything we make is functional art.
30 years building interactive entertainment and education systems for NASA, the Smithsonian, NCTM, and the Department of Defense. Lifelong guitarist with nearly 50 years behind the instrument. The driving force behind the studio's functional art philosophy — the idea that everything we build should perform as beautifully as it looks. Primary designer across the product line — but every project is three minds working together from concept through completion.
Expert carpenter and fabricator who can model anything in 3D and manifest it in wood or metal on the CNC. Joseph uses the latest modeling tools to validate every cut before it's made, then executes with the hand skills of a traditional craftsman. That intersection — modern technology and human craft — is what makes the work possible. Like Conrad, Joseph's plain background meant the functional art philosophy was second nature.
Award-winning songwriter and expert craftsman. Conrad runs the CNC at Ragamuffin Hall and rebuilt the stage from the original church altar platform. Builds many of his own instruments from raw materials and contributed significantly to the design of the Plaincaster line. Manages the Hall day-to-day — bookings, artist relations, and operations — and took naturally to the studio's functional art philosophy — his plain background made that an easy fit.
Active Projects
Get In Touch
Whether you're commissioning a guitar, developing an interactive exhibit, or looking for an experienced learning experience engineer — we're interested in the right work.