BENCH NOTES June 2011

My 15 minutes...

As you can see, the folks at the Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA) had thepoor judgement to put me on the cover of the Spring issue of Guitarmaker Magazine. Guitarmaker is the quarterly publication of ASIA and generally includes all sorts of articles on repair, building, tools, design, marketing and business issues of interest to luthiers. The photo that appears on the cover was taken by John Kitchen during a workshop that I gave on neck resetting at the 2009 ASIA Symposium. The Symposium is a bi-annual gathering of ASIA members that offers workshops (both lecture style and hands-on) on all sorts of topics of interest to hobby and professional guitarmakers alike. This year the Symposium is scheduled for June 8th-June 12th in East Stroudsburg, PA. I will be involved in a workshop presentation again at this year's event, demonstrating traditional side bending technique using a hot pipe. For more info on the ASIA Symposium check out their web site. Thanks to Alton "Bear" Acker for chosing to put me on the cover. Additional thanks go out to Mr. Nichols (pronounced Nich-'ol-ass), Mr. Hall, Mr. LaPlante and other colleagues for the heaps of abuse that they have offered up since my visage appeared on the cover of this most revered publication.

Three 45s, all at once...

This winter I had the rare experience of having had three style 45 guitars (all late 20s) in the shop at once, an 0, a 00 and a 000 (all 12 frets, of course). It isn't that often that one style 45 guitar comes in, let alone multiples at the same time. The first of the three is a 1927 0-45 which I have purchased for my own collection. The second was a 1927 00-45 (only 300 away from the 0-45 by serial number) owned by a customer, a guitar that came in for a neck reset and bridge replacement. The third, another customer guitar, was a 1926 000-45 that needed some 'correction' due to some work that was poorly done in the past. The work on the 00-45 is the subject of an upcoming article for the site, which I hope to have written sometime over the summer. The work on the 000-45 also will be written up for the 'articles' section of the website, look for that one this summer as well. You can view all 3 guitars on the Gallery pages >>HERE<<...

Summer activities...

As noted earlier, I will be presenting a workshop (with John Hall of Blues Creek Guitars) at this year's ASIA Symposium in June. The workshop will be on side bending with John Hall demonstrating machine bending and I will be demonstrating traditional hand bending over a hot pipe. I will also be set up as a vendor again this summer at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival at Oak Hill, NY, July 12-17. Just like last year I will have vintage guitars for sale and I will be doing on-site evaluation and repairs for festival goers. If you've not been to Grey Fox it is worth checking out, it attracts a large audience and has a great slate of performers. There's tons of informal picking that goes on all over the grounds day and night, and Grey Fox was the 2009 pick for IBMA Event of the Year. Find more information at www.greyfoxbluegrass.com. If you come to the festival make sure you drop by my tent, say "hello" and try out a few of the vintage instruments being offered.