The wood for the instruments was obtained from antique hardwood furniture as well as premium-grade Tyrolean spruce, and featured Williamson's artistic embellishments in silver and mother of pearl.
The Corries' album, Strings and Things (1970), was specifically designed to showcase the new instruments and featured detailed descriptions of them on the rear sleeve.
Usually the combolins were played to accompany long ballads such as The Silkie of Sule Skerry and The Gartan Mother's Lullaby, as well as a number of the compositions of Peebles baker George Weir & Alister Rae, including Lord Yester and Weep ye Weel by Atholl[citation needed].
During her lifetime, Roy's late daughter, Karen Williamson, would have arguments with her sister Sheena as to who would inherit which of the Combolins when The Corries retired.
Apparently, the sisters had decided that the soundholes on the instruments gave one of them a 'sad' look, and the other 'angry', and, as Karen recounted in her biography of Roy, 'Flower of Scotland', hers was to have been the 'sad' one, and the 'angry' one was to have been Sheena's.