The First Week

The first week has come and gone... What can I say?, more than anything I miss my Wife, dog ,

family and friends.,I slept late today Sunday as it is the day of rest and I need to keep up with my Studies.

Life here with Rosie is great, she makes me feel very comfortable, she is a great person and is very understanding and sweet. I could be partying it up with a bunch of 18 year old's in some run down apartment with a beer keg, I am in a beautiful, comfortable home with a surrogate dog Cody, a sweet and very old Yellow Lab that seems to be glad I am here.

I am forever grateful to Rose.

IT'S HOT, VERY HOT, DID I SAY VERY VERY? Not a day under a hundred with equal humidity, forget what they say about a dry heat. I just try to stay out of the direct sunlight and near a fan. but when we all get together in the lecture room, a lot of hot sweaty men (& two girls) well that's just plain nasty.

Lets get caught up, Monday, first day was spent getting aquainted with the different types of large woodworking machines, routers, sanders table and radial saws, thickness sanders, planers drill presses and band saws all of which could rip you to shreds, there is literally one band saw called "THE BUTCHER BOY" named by the company who made it for butchering cattle, literally a flesh an bone cutting saw! So I just keep repeating,"You are a guitar player"

I move slowly and carefully and use push sticks whenever I can. We learned how to "end match"

wood so that when you glue two pieces together, the grain at the end of final piece will be equal and opposite. (see first Photo), Templates are then traced on the to the centerline, and cut out with a bandsaw (not butcher boy), oscillating drum sanders and disk sanders do the rough sanding to get the high spots off from the bandsaw, then a a router is used to cut out the neck pocket, pick-up and controls cavitiies. Orbital Sanders take care of the front and back flat sides and then alot of hand sanding of the sides, all around till it is smooth enough to do a"round-over" on the back with a router and bit. The top is not rounded over to accommodate "binding," yet another process not addressed yet. Then more hand sanding until it "feels" right.

I will only use first name as to not incriminate, Chris ,Mat, Troy, Bob and John are the instructors so far. Very knowledgeable and very strict about saftey and proper tool use. I feel confident they will keep us all safe and help us to build great guitars.

There will be tons more sanding before we finish. We also thickness sanded our ebony fretboards, the thickness sanders spin very fast and are long steel rods wrapped with sandpaper, the idea is to run the fretboard blank through over and over while lowering the roller by small increments until the board is at a specified thickness. Everyone was cover with black Ebony dust, mixed with sweat, not pretty. An education in different type of wood preparing us for wood selection for our acoustic guitar builds, their musical properties, cost, availability and reactions to other woods on an acoustic level. We have the choice of building a Martin style OM (orchestra model) or a Dreadnaught style. I have opted to build an OM with a Western Red Cedar top and either Honduran Mahogany or Bubinga Back and sides set with a Mahogany neck. Based on my bluesy playing style I thought the warmth of the Cedar top would match well with the harder, tighter back and sides to give a good "overall" sound with the ability to be punchy when necessary. Also, I don't own an OM. We will also be designing all of own soundhole rosettes, headstock plates, fretboard inlays and binding. The electric I will build will be of the Fender-ish Telecaster type with a slab-board neck and Mahogany body. with I think, a Mahogany or Koa top plate or cap with tortoise shell binding and maybe a Bigsby tremolo, maybe not, maybe a standard Tele bridge that accommodates a humbucker in the bridge position and a mini-humbucker in the neck position. The Tele body we built during the first 3 days has an option of a 'Baritone" neck, which will essentially render it a six string bass, that plays just like a guitar with string gauges to keep it guitar-like playing.

So that is the first week. It has been as I said very hot, humid and intense. I am drawing up some headstock designs and the body shape for my electric.

BONUS! Josh and "Sleep for Sleepers" came through late last night and I got to spend an hour or so with the guys. They got a good meal, but no rest they went right on to San Diego!

Make sure to go to their Myspace and follow their progress, videos, etc.

Thanks again to all my friends back home keeping a eye on Michele-

BTW if you want to contact me by email-great, I check it about every other day, so any messages you send via Facebook will only be checked on the weekends.

This is still pretty, different, but with the undying support of God, my Rock,

Michele, my wonderful wife, my kids, Heather and Josh, all of you, my wonderful friends. I will remain headstrong in my goal. Please pray that I leave all my human ego behind, and that I stay low in the boat, listen, learn and concentrate on nothing but my studies. Thanks in advance.

Well that's it for now, off to do homework, and laundry-

God Bless you all

I miss everyone very much.

BTW the first friday I did a sit-in gig! I don't think I will have any trouble finding place to play on a limited level of course! PEACE!