Beginnings

PELLWOOD was founded in 1990 by my father Ivan Pelíšek. He was in touch with drumsticks ever since when he was fifteen years old. As it happened, my father started to take lessons from his neighbour, Professor Krčma, the percussionist in the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

When my father was just beginning his cabinet-maker apprenticeship, the Professor asked him to extend his favourite drums sticks for him. He had been using the sticks, made of ebony, for ten years! This job, well done, put an idea in my father’s head: Why not make a pair of drumsticks for myself? In the communist Czechoslovakia, there were only two models of drumsticks on the market, and of poor quality. So, in his apartment’s veranda, he used an old washing machine engine to construct his own lathe, the other parts were made of wood. He had never seen a real lathe before but somehow managed to make it work.

A year passed, and his mother's English friends sent him a Black&Decker electric drill combined with a lathe and a small disc saw. What a beauty! At the workshop where he was doing his apprenticeship he discovered some hornbeam logs that were meant to be burnt in the stove. So, occasionally, he would pinch a piece of hornbeam and even got hold of some ebony or jacaranda the workshop used for making parquetry in the Prague Castle. And of this material he made drumsticks for himself and the other guys who were taking lessons from the same teacher.

After the Czech Velvet Revolution of 1989, my father Ivan Pelíšek immediately started his own company, PELLWOOD, and launched professional production of 15 types hornbeam drumsticks. At present, PELLWOOD uses two sorts of wood to produce 33 types of drumsticks and brushes. The products are exported to 29 countries.

The PELLWOOD builds on the experience my father acquired as a professional cabinet-maker and, from 1977, as a professional drummer on the Czech rock music scene.

Myself, his son, have been surrounded by drumstick production ever since my childhood. On top of that, I also play drums.

My background is engineering. I studied at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. After obtaining my Master of Science degree, I worked for two German companies based in the south of the Czech Republic. I started at Robert Bosch, Budweis, at the position of Project Manager in the Acquisition Department and, subsequently, I worked at Rohde & Schwarz, Vimperk, as a head buyer.

When my father retired in 2017, it came only natural to me to resume where he left off and carry on the family tradition. Apart from being a drummer and thus a competent and strict tester of our drumsticks, my contribution for PELLWOOD is my mechanical engineering and business expertise acquired at the University as well as at the German engineering companies I have worked for.

Vojtěch Pelíšek