It was 2015 and Lucho was having a hard time getting a washboard for a gig. With just a broken washboard frame on hand, Lucho turned to his cousin Rodri, an engineer, who helped him hack together a ribbed metal panel to get by for the gig. It worked like a charm!

Lucho and Rodri were tinkerers by nature, so they went back to the drawing board, and designed a washboard from the ground up. They based their design off of the old one they had hacked together, but free from the constraints of a "restoration".

From the very beginning, their intention was clear: To build an appealing washboard built for musicians, using sustainably sourced materials. For the main ingredient (wood), they chose Paulownia: a rapidly-growing hardwood planted for re-forestation in Northern Argentina and all over the world. Fast growth means it pulls carbon out of the air quickly as it grows, and it’s a remarkably lightweight wood — exactly what a washboard you carry to gigs needs.

A few iterations later, in 2016, they launched the first ever washboard made especially for music. It quickly ran out of stock in the first week, and they’ve been pushing out washboards ever since.

It's been incredibly exciting and humbling to see how musicians from so many different genres have adopted a Cincinnati washboard into their music including Silvina Moreno (ARG); Ed Sheeran (UK); Washboard Chaz (US); Jack Amblin (UK); Adán Jodorowsky (FR); Defne Dizzy Incirlioglu (US); Marcelo Woloski (AR); Vince Giordano (US); Pablo Leites (UY); Fantastic Negrito (US); Mon Laferte (CH); Santiago Vázquez (AR).