Guitar History 101

Well quite a week has unfolded. The good news is I think I have finally done fairly well on the math portion of our second quiz, although I am embracing it I am afraid math is not by best subject. We have very full plates and work is piling up, yet I am managing to stay current with our projects. I'll get straight through to the explanation of Guitar History 101-As we were having our morning break,enjoying a delicious "Roach Coach" snack, an elderly gentleman rounded the corner of the building asking to see someone in charge. I immediately recognized him as Richard "R.C." Allen, one of the last remaining luthiers from the golden age of guitar building in the late 40's and 50's, co-designer and artist of the original Paul Bigsby "Merle Travis" guitars and cohorts of famed builders Leo Fender, Doc Kaufmann, George Fullerton and many other notably historic guitar builders and early celebrities of guitar. His brother John Paul Allen accompanied him, as per usual, and filters questions from the masses. He had dropped by,Roberto-Venn on his way to Mesa, AZ on a family vacation, and as we would soon find out would be a "surprise" guest lecturer. He brought with him many of his archtop guitars and the venerable "Paul Bigsby" model (which I got to play!-see photos) which was made by from the original templates made by himself and Paul Bigsby in the late forties. He also brought with him an original fretboard template made by the original Dopera brothers whom founded the famous Dobro Model Resonator guitars. Most of our class was really too young to appreciate that this guy was the "REAL DEAL" a man who holds a place in guitar making history. Those of us who did know, where all excited and goose-pimply and hung on every word. Once they all realized how important a figure he is, they all sat, spellbound, in a hot sticky lecture room listening intently to all the famous storys of who did what when and where, as if they were there. As i said a few of us got to play his archtops and the Paul Bigsby guitar as well as the new Model "Uncle Chester" model which he was given the blessing by Gretsch guitars to use that name, of course named for Chet Atkins. R.C. Allen is building "molded" archtops in a process that he came up with and built a machine to produce them using hardwood plywoods, that he makes, no one else has this hame process although on a grand production, hardwood ply guitars are made, just not in his manner, which he explained the process in great detail to us, almost to sort of, "pass the torch" to younger builders. Making sure me knew, "there is always a new way to accomplish and old task." The instructors and staff at R-V were all especially buzzed about Mr Allens' visit and we all continue to recount the stories he told. A fairly big event for all of us. Mr Allen is 85 years young and is still taking orders for guitars. The "Uncle Chester" is surprisingly affordable, and I would think, highly collectable. If I can find a way to order one, I will, and try very hard, I will. I would suggest to anyone that just because what and who he is, the last of the breed, it would be money well spent. As for me and school I will be brief, Mr Allen's visit was the highlight of the week, let's see we are designing our rosettes for our acoustics (soundhole ornamentation) which is very laborious in that it requires hand cutting, with a jewelers saw pieces of ebony, abalone, mother of pearl, etc. to a tolerance of about .065 thick by .032 wide. we have also glued our electric guitar tops to the bodies and have cut them to shape, rough sawn our acoustic necks and will glue thos up next week, chose our pick-ups and binding materials for the electrics and installed the back braces into our acoustic guitar backs. The process of making braces and rounding off the backs to a 15 foot radius is all done by hand in hollow for sanding decks that are precision made and have 80 grit sandpaper glued into them. I will post as many pics as I can tonight and post the rest on my "Mobile Me' .mac gallery later. I am very happy and grateful to have this opportunity in life, not many people get to chase a dream. The love and support of my wife, Michele, is paramount. as well as the support I get from my Kids, family and friends. I am truly blessed with the best of all the aforementioned. I am homesick. I will look forward to seeing a few of you, in October as I will come home for a weekend visit for a couple important weddings and my special daughter's birthday. I f I don't get to see you, It doesn't mean I don't love you, it is just a quick, furlough. Again, thank you all for your prayers, support and confidence. I will do the best I can. Blessings and Peace.

Short Week, Long Days

Even though we had a short week after the Labor Day weekend, We were hit with a ton of information and projects to do.
As I said- The math is a real problem for me, I am trying to embrace it, but I just do not have a head for numbers.
I am sorry there oar no pictures this week, I just didn't have the time to do any. We are into many projects in order to get our guitars done-we have thickness sanded the sides of our acoustics-book matched the scraps from the sides in order to use that for the headstock head cap, (re-designing headstocks for approval this weekend.) although I have not done all of this we have cut out the backs of our acoustics, and will be preparing an inside center seam with a wood strip that runs in opposite wood grain directions so that when the wood "changes" with cold, heat, humidity or dryness, the back seam where the wood is book matched will not separate. This process of gluing the center strip is don with "go sticks" I will try to do a pick of mine when I do it next week. We have also begun to learn the art of inlaying, mother of pearl, abalone, wood marquetry, almost anything that can be sanded flat enough to inlay can be. I think I undertook a little too much for my first inlay when I began cutting out J.D. Casey, in a script kind of font. It is all dine with a jewelers saw-very fine blades that break easily! And a little bench mounted sawing jig
called a birds eye that is nothing mire than a small piece of flat scrap wood that has a small slot and a small hole that looks a little like a birds eye. The material you are sawing has the design drawing glued to it, and then it just a matter of cutting it out slowly and carefully. The dust is not very good to breathe, actually a little poisonous, so breathing protection is worn. It was a struggle- and lots of broken blades but I did it! Hot water takes the design paper off and then all the rough edges are sanded smooth with needle files. An arduous task but hopefully it will be worth the trouble. I think carving necks for both of our guitars is in the near future-as well as starting to cut out the electric guitar bodies and putting on the decorative tops.
I was prepared for a lot of hard work and learning, it has become increasingly more intensive as far as workload and the knowledge and information that must be assimilated. I hope this old body of mine will be able to keep up with the youngsters!
I sure do miss everyone and I am looking forward to a brief visit in October. Thanks, as always for your continued prayer and support. More pics next time- I promise!
I put a couple pics of some of the design work drawings- Headstock and inlay design and the small mushroom shaped dealies are the neck fret position markers, ( re-thinking that design!)
Love you all!

OK Two in one day! SELF TUNING GUITAR

Don't forget to look at the one below-cuz I am posting two in one day!
The reason is, I forgot some stuff! The lectures and Demos are one of the most important parts of the class-although it is hot and sticky,YUCK!- we have had some very interesting lectures on many different subjects regarding building processes, wood selection, inlay, rosette design and on this day, the Director, Bill Eaton gave a lecture on the "temperament" of guitars or how and why the fret board is laid out the way it is. We were also lucky to get a demo of one of his most recent builds. A double neck, one acoustic, One electric, and a harp course. The electric aspect of this beautiful instrument has an on-board computer that actually will self tune to over 200 different tunings with the push of a button within about 2 seconds. It all runs on servo motors that remember tunings that you load in. It also employs a synthesizer hex-pickup configuration for triggering midi synth modules for some really crazy effects, all the while being able to "mix in" the acoustic sounds of the actual instrument-CRAZY! Jon and I actually saw the tuning module demo'd at the NAMM SHOW on year when it first came out.
This particular lecture also dealt with scale lengths string tension and intonation. There is a certain amount of science and mathematics that have come way before me-thousands of years ago, some one figured this stuff out and it has been in a constant state of improvement ever since. I will post a picture of Mr Eaton as soon as I get permission from him and also a link to his website that details his work with other great artists such as Carlos Nakai, the great Native American Fluteist.
I will also ask Mr Eaton about recent CD's he has available-a gentleman and very inventive individual!
I also have been going to the Sail Inn on Sunday eves at 4pm to see "The Noodles" - a better than the Dead, Grateful Dead tribute band complete with the reproduction "Jerry Garcia" Guitars built by another instructor, Jon Reuter He also plays "Jerry"
in the band and I was very impressed with them and what great crowd of 'DEAD HEADS" complete with tye dye and spinning hippies! SO FUN! NOT TO BE MISSED! ANYONE COMING TO AZ NEEDS TO SEE THIS BAND! I will see if I can get permission to post a link to his website and Guitars. Ok Thats it!
Be sure to watch for the pix next week!

CRAZY WEEK!

I apologize in advance for not being able to update the blog more often, things are happening so fast! There will be much I cannot even post photos for because I haven't taken those photos!

What's happening? Well, lets see, this last week we obtained the stock,(wood) of African Ebony,

a very hard black wood to use for both our acoustic and electric fret / fingerboards we thickness sanded them to .0285 (less than 1/4 of an inch) and with special jigs- we cut the fret slots. next week we will contour them to fit the shapes of our necks, add a compound radius to the top of them, (curved over for a more comfortable playing position.) and I am sure we will fret them as well. You will see the "Blueprint" for my electric build, for the sake of getting too wanky, I used the best contours of some of my favorite guitars, The top of a Telecaster the offset waist of a Jazzmaster and the cutaway of my Bluesbird. All the while considering the issues of playing comfort balance access to the upper frets and sitting position. I like it, I hope you do. Also a template was made from that blueprint for cutting out the body shape. (see pics)

we also chose all the woods for the acoustic, Top, back and sides. I chose a Red Western Cedar top for my OM style guitar and absolutely stunning Bubinga (African Mahogany) for the backs and sides. I also chose Bubinga for the Top of my electric, ( not as psychedelic of figuring) but quite flamey and figured with a Honduran Mahogany body. The acoustic top, back, and sides as well as the electric top have been bookmatched, handsanded with straightedges to a achieve a center seam with equal and opposite grain patterns. The back of my acoustic has asmall amount of "Sapwood" showing in the center (highly desirable) whisch is the outer edge of the tree that is the "alive" part of the tree that carries sap from the roots to the top of the canopy. SEE PIX!

Neck Blocks and tail blocks have been made and we are beginning to design our inlay patterns.

I think I have a good Idea of some of these designs and will post sketches as I make them.

The lectures and demos happen throughout the day, usually about 3 of them and then we are set into work, some time in teams as some of the processes require two sets of hands. like thickness sanding the sides of the guitar, which are about 3 feet long 6-7 inches wide and must be sanded to within .085 which is pretty thin! A very dusty process especially when doing the ebony as it is pure black and there is a cloud of dust coming from the work areas. We wear masks and hearing protection, but even with that we have some pretty black boogers.

Luthiers are allowed and encouraged to pick their noses, and their friends, but not their friends noses. Alas, you cannot wipe your friends on the sofa!

The pace is fast and furious, 8am to 6pm, very hot, very sweaty, I am staying hydrated, about 4-5 quarts of water a day. Very dirty, I must shower morning and night. There is no such thing as cold water in Arizona-So there is no way to cool off with a cold shower even.

Again I must express my gratitude to you all for your interest and support and encouragement, and to Rosie for taking me in. She is a very sweet lady with a great group of friends that are making me feel welcome. Carol, her sister took me to Scottsdale Christian Church this past Sunday, I was very small, but very warm and welcoming with great music and an even greater message about grace. I even have a surrogate dog, Codi, who seem to be happy I am here, she follows me everywhere! But I sure do miss my Big Dand Dog Jake. Oh, I miss all of you too...

But sure do miss that dog! I have been in contact with Heather and her Beau, Geoff, the math professor, who has been kind enough to give me some phone tutoring. Heather is hard at work in college for Art School, and Josh is still out on tour, They came through AZ and I was able to see him briefly and get them a decent meal. I will try to get an update up during the week, but as it is I am too pooped at night! I can't decide whether to continue with The J.D. Casey Custom Brand Guitars or switch over to SD Jeffers Customs, This would be the time to do it. Or JD Casey, built by Scott D. Jeffers.!?? What do you all think?

Please pray for everyones safety, take care of each other, oh and pray for Tim and Carol-

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, and I keep you all in my heart.

THANKS- PEACE OUT!

Love!

Pics below are Bubinga sides- Bubinga Back, Wait to you see these with laquor! Two fretboards, Template for electric and Codi, my Arizona dog friend!