There's been a lot going on in the shop over the summer and all of the events that I wrote were "upcoming" in the last Bench Notes entry have now passed.  The ASIA symposium was a great time as always.  I attended many informative and useful workshops and spent many hours talking shop with colleagues, many of whom I only see at this event.  The side bending workshop that I gave with John Hall went well and was well-attended.  The vendor expo was excellent this year with many different wood dealers, several tool and jig dealers and lots of member instruments on display.  The benefit auction, which is always one of the high points of the weekend, was very successful and cleared nearly $12,000 for the organization. 

ASIA, for those who may not know, is the Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans and is a resource organization for stringed instrument makers.  While the majority of members are guitarmakers the organization includes many banjo, mandolin and uke builders as well as a few violin family artisans.  The organization publishes a quarterly magazine with content contributed by the members.  Articles on shop tips, special projects, tool and instructional material reviews, relevant events coverage and other items of interest to luthiers are in every issue.  Articles run the gamut from novice to expert, hobby to pro.  There's something for everyone no matter how long you've been in the craft or what level of involvement you pursue.   As a 20 year member and newly-appointed member of the ASIA board of directors, I can't recommend membership highly enough.  Yearly membership is $55, and new memberships include a year subscription to Acoustic Guitar magazine as well as Guitarmaker.  Find more information on ASIA at http://asiartisans.org/content/ or www.guitarmaker.org. 

Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival was great fun and very successful for the shop.  Like last year, I did many on-site repairs and sold some guitars, got to hear a ton of great music both on the various stages and right in my own booth.  In fact, I've put together a little video on my visit to Grey Fox that you can see here:   Chris Thile and Michael Daves turned in the hottest set of the weekend on Thursday night at the main stage, much of the set has turned up on Youtube.  I had the pleasure of being able to host Jim Gaudet and the Railroad Boys in my booth on Saturday afternoon for a mini-set of their tunes as well.  Jim and his band are local to the Albany, NY area, playing country and bluegrass influenced roots music and have been clients of my shop for some time.  Check out their website here:  http://www.jimgaudet.com/, and make sure to listen to "Calling My Name" from their album "So Far So Good."   I also had the good fortune of being called upon to repair the Gilchrist Mandolin that Ronny McCoury tours with when the headstock was damaged back stage on Friday night.  I will be writing an article on my GFBF experience for an upcoming issue of Guitarmaker Magazine, most likely appearing in the winter 2011 issue.

One event that didn't make it into the "summer preview" bench notes column was the first ever Martin Warranty Service Provider Repair Summit that was held at the Martin factory on August 1st and 2nd.  Martin organized this event and extended an open invitation to certified warranty repair techs to attend.  The event included tours of the factory and museum but more importantly the opportunity to hang around the repair department for 2 days and watch the Martin repair staff at work.  There were 57 Martin warranty techs in attendance from all over the US and two or three from Canada.  We were broken up into small groups to rotate through various repair stations and points of interest.  Most useful was the opportunity to ask questions of the repair staff relating to common repairs and also to see some of the tools that Martin has developed in-house to assist in certain repairs.  Equally valuable was the after-hours shop talk that took place over meals and at the hotel lounge and pub.  Most of the repair techs at the event had decades of experience, so the collective pool of knowledge and experience at this event was impressive and very useful.  Many thanks to CFM & Co. for organizing this event and the repair department staff for putting up with a bunch of people peering over your shoulders for 2 days.  And thanks a lot to Mr. Hall for the "coverboy" T-shirt and the "Group E" miscreants (Nichols, Hall, Sapleton, Lipton, Smith et. al) for a fun time.

For pics from this event click here: REPAIR SUMMIT PHOTOS

Until next time, back to work!
SK