Harmos Guitars were designed and made by T. Sage Harmos and James Baecker.  T. Sage Harmos (born 1961) was a steel guitar player and over a period of ten years he refined his design for a structural space frame lap steel guitar. This instrument has a structure made of wooden spheres connected by carbon fiber rods - inspired by the work of Buckminster Fuller. His aim was to use a combination of the latest carbon fiber materials and structural design geometry to build easy to play, light weight, affordable instruments with transparent tone and ultra-long sustain. The first prototype (completed in 1998) weighed two and a half pounds. In 2001 he started getting  The Harmos Space Frame lap steel guitar into the hands of lap steel players. As well as the lap steel there was also a conventional guitar - the Harmos Matrax.

Source: Harmos Guitars website (archived 2003)

Source: Harmos Steel Guitar patent - July 6 2001