One maker. One bench. Ten years.
Handpans hammered by hand in Portugal, since 2015.
The short version
I've been building handpans in Portugal since 2015. A decade of hammering, listening, and refining. I don't release an instrument until it's one I'd keep. I research and develop continuously, and every advance ends up in the handpans I release through monthly drops. I also service what I build — and what others build: my workshop retunes and repairs handpans of any brand, any steel.
How it started
I struck the first hammer blows in late 2015, in my friend João Santos's metalwork workshop — he gave me the space to take the first steps when I had none. There was no handpan maker in Portugal then, and no one to learn from within a thousand kilometres, so those first years were steel, mistakes, and stubbornness. That's still the foundation of the work today: everything I understand about how a handpan holds its structure, I learned by getting it wrong first.
The workshop has carried three names — Amor Handpans, then Alma, and today Dugimago. Same hands, same pursuit, a name that finally fit.
Vision
The quiet years, and the new chapter
For two years I went quiet and stayed in the workshop. Part of it was needing to fall back in love with the craft. Part of it was watching the handpan world change — including the copyright rulings that are now reshaping which designs can even be built and sold.
That time wasn't wasted. Three things came out of it.
A redesigned range. Every new Dugimago is built around design elements — offset dings, second dings, bottom notes — that stand clearly apart from the contested classic layout. If you've followed the PANArt case, you know why that matters for anyone buying a handpan today.
A new scale. The Authentic Celtic — a tuning I built because the scale the handpan world calls "Celtic" can't actually play Celtic music.
A new way of selling. No more waiting lists with promised dates. I build each instrument at the pace it deserves and release small monthly drops: every instrument filmed individually, and the one you hear in the video is the exact one that arrives at your door. I'd rather build slowly and sell honestly than promise dates I can't keep.
How I build
The steel. Every Dugimago is built in Ember — a stainless-family steel with a mellow voice and long sustain. I think of it as a midpoint between nitrided and AISI 430 stainless, both in sound and in how the metal answers the hammer. It gives a solid foundation for structure and character.
The range - E2 to D6. For years I've been shaping the far ends of the handpan: the very low notes and the very high ones. Not long ago both were treated as out of bounds — most makers and players stayed in the safe middle. Exploring those limits was a personal obsession before it was common. By 2018 I was testing double-octave layouts up to C6, D6, E6, F6, G6, A6; in early 2019 I built my first F2.
The process. It begins with a blank shell. I place the layout for the most balanced sound possible — the right spacings, the right orientation — then shape the dings, the dimples, and the first tonefield shoulders. The tonefields are formed and isolated with an air hammer; the body is smoothed and stretched as needed; then heat treatment, and tuning — with stability rebalancing between passes. Glue, grinding, and a final stage where every fine detail is set.
Continuous R&D. Research and development is the part that excites me most, and it's woven into the work now. I learn by building handpans and by retuning and repairing other makers' instruments — everything that teaches me goes back into the next Dugimago.
The pace. Roughly one instrument a week. By choice.
What you can count on
what you hear is what you get · retunable for life · any brand serviced.
"Dugimago is one of the best handpan makers in the world.
Duarte is an exceptionally skilled maker, and you can hear it in the outstanding sound quality of their instruments.
They are also incredibly responsive and truly care about keeping their customers happy and satisfied.
I’m extremely happy to have my handpans crafted by this amazing team 🛸" - Rodrigo Serra