Wish me luck...

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wish me luck...

well it's

[Zerberus]

Re: Wish me luck...

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wish me luck...

The more I see your posts, the more I WANT to become a guitar tech/luthier, the more I realize I screwed up my life by studying something way too remote from it, and it's too late now

Keep on making me dream

I just noticed this Pierre. I made my first guitar when i was 19; most people start much later than that, some earlier, but at nineteen it's definitely not too late, but you have an advantage if you have another means of earning a living because as a guitar tech you usually just scrape by and never have any spare financial capacity. My "luthierie" has usually been subsidised by other skills; mainly as a sculptor/pattern maker/jewellery designer and occasionally as a writer (erotic fiction, but let's not go there, OK?). Many of the other luthiers i know have done the same. Hugh Manson was a goldsmith, Rod was a truck driver for a few years and has lived off the land, Dave is one of the few who has consistently worked in the business for various distributors, Bernard is, of course, a university Lecturer and researcher and my erstwhile opposite number in Edinburgh, before Rod took over the workshop, was a qualified wolf tracker I'm told, but is also lucky enough to be the guitar tech with Texas and Eels.

If you do get to set up your import/export company you may get the opportunity that i did to practice your skills on loads of cheap crappy guitars and bury your mistakes... (I was the guitar tech with Hohner UK for 6 years)

[Pierre]

Re: Wish me luck...

well it's

Dude when I build my first guitar, I think I'll let you chose a decal

And Eltham yes, it's the plan so far. Finish up uni, get some money, a flat with space or the possibility to rent tools, and get started. Right now, no can do but read, read, read, etc...

Though the erotic fiction bit could be fun
In all seriousness though... I don't think I'd make a living out of it. I'm the kind of person who can't do repetitive things. I'd probably make a couple of a year if I ever get the tools and space and give them out to friends or for myself.

Have you heard of Bailey guitars in Ayrshire? I'm saving up to take their 5 days building course.

If I may ask... how did you start on the business? As a luthier and tech... I want to find a master builder so I can be his apprentice (seems it's a commom practice) but around here there's nothing...

[ErikH]

Re: Wish me luck...

Once again, great work. The decal looks great. I like your little change to it.... Hilarious! That's an image worth keeping.

[JeffB]

Re: Wish me luck...

Very cool thread..def vault worthy. You do fantastic work

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wish me luck...

Have you heard of Bailey guitars in Ayrshire? I'm saving up to take their 5 days building course.

I've not heard of them but we've got a couple of guys in Bristol called Bailey who are very good. They're brothers.

If I may ask... how did you start on the business? As a luthier and tech... I want to find a master builder so I can be his apprentice (seems it's a common practice) but around here there's nothing...

It was what Jung would have called synchronicity.I'd always been interested in making a lute and when i had to leave University prematurely (family/financial reasons) i went to my local library to see what alternatives there were as i needed to find an alternative. I found that courses in guitar making had just started at my local college. As i needed to earn money rather than join the course from day one I was offered a job as a technician on a scheme based at the college which involved cataloguing and repairing historical instruments gathered from around the area. It was proposed that i learn "on the job" and study guitar making at evening classes three nights a week. i did this for a year and then transferred to the second year of the course by which had also established myself as a commercial sculptor and model maker - I used to make stuff like this -

At the end of the course i carried on doing that until losing almost everything in a business venture in 1981, following which I lay fallow until I got the chance to join Hohner. I fell out with them after six years following a change of management but moved into the retail side of repair when said former management bought one of the oldest names in UK music retail.

And thus it went until the present day.

I think that the problem with finding an apprenticeship is that, traditionally, apprentices paid the craftsman to teach them. These days most apprentices would expect to be paid, and most independent repairers can only just about pay themselves...

Also the routine of a repairer is very haphazard, unlike making which is structured and ordered. With repairs, nearly everyone wants their guitar back ASAP and every one can present a different set of problems and challenges so you are often working on half a dozen different things simultaneously. As you have seen in this thread, there is a lot of spontaneous thinking on-the-fly and assistants and apprentices are often more of a hindrance than a help, so most repairers are solitary figures.

Today's update:

The proof shot offered up to the headstock looks pretty good; bang on and in register.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Wish me luck...

All I can say is . . . Wow. This is just amazing work.

The patience alone is beyond what I can imagine.

[Diaspora]

Re: Wish me luck...

Great work!

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wish me luck...

All I can say is . . . Wow. This is just amazing work.

Thanks Artie, coming from you this is very high praise

The patience alone is beyond what I can imagine.

Yes; the itch to see things progress rapidly is a hard one not to scratch. Increasingly we are schooled to expect instant results and often forget that some things set their own pace and it is for us to work with that than attempt to force it.

With my Zen style of thinking this is not a problem but it does lead me into conflict with customers who don't understand why it's taken me eighteen months to finish their guitar.

Here's a classic; a guy brings a guitar in to me on Friday afternoon a few weeks back. It needs a fret dress, probably a few frets replaced, a full set up, there are screws missing from the saddles and the fingerboard has a hairline crack at the nut, which is a cheap plastic one he's replaced himself (badly).

"are you in a rush to have it back?" I say, thinking about the thirty or so guitars that are ahead of it in the queue.

"Not, particularly" he replied, with a totally straight face, "I can come back for it Tuesday morning."

Yeah, no pressure then...

[Pierre]

Re: Wish me luck...

Damn and I thought I was a tech's worst nightmare
I'm guessing it always seems worse than we think though...30 guitars to take care of? Wow...
As for the apprentice thing, I sure didn't expect to be paid. But if I have to pay, that's another problem...
What college did you go to that offered classes in lutherie? I checked the UCAS website and couldn't find courses...

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wish me luck...

It was called the Welsh School of Stringed Instrument Making. It also did piano tuning. My friend Tim, more widely known as Spiritualised's keyboard man and sometime Julian Cope collaborator, Thighpaulsandra also studied piano tuning and repair there. i did hear that Martin Seeliger of Lakewood guitars studied there as well. Certainly we had a lot of Europeans there.

Unfortunately it's gone now, as the people who ran it didn't want it there any longer. It's an old people's home now or something.

I believe that the London College of Furniture still do courses, as do Newark College/Uni, but Newark have always concentrated on violins while LCF are Ancient and Mediaeval oriented, althoughI believe LCF have expandedtheir operation to include electric instruments and Sound Production now.

Why don't you drop my friend Allan a line? He taught me nearly everything I know and he's currently looking for a sales and marketing coordinator for his harp-making venture. You'd get on like a house on fire he's always had apprentices from all over europe, Germany, France, Belgium...

He's doing something now with a school in West Wales.

http://www.telynauteifi.co.uk/about_us.shtml

[Pierre]

Re: Wish me luck...

Mhmm I don't think I qualify for the position, not until I get my diploma, and the application closing date is passed...Though I'll give it in, the prospect of working a year as a marketing guy for a music company is basically what I had in mind as far as professional life goes...
For another summer it could sure be sweet! Harps are amazing sounding instruments and anything with strings, I can dig (come on, who will do the first joke now..?). As soon as I save up some money and can go elsewhere for a couple of months I'll be looking into this. Thanks!

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wish me luck...

I live my life by a few simple rules; one of these is "if you find a formula that works, don't change it"

So why, on this occasion, did I choose to experiment? And with my last piece of decal paper?

The stuff I've been using is called "Experts Choice" and it's the only stuff i've found on which Lexmark inks print perfectly every time. There are other inkjet decal papers but they don't seem to work as well.

Anyway, I thought that to produce a smoother metallic finish I'd use a different binder. This was obviously some kind of oil based varnish, probably a polyurethane. I'd printed off two masks, but, probably under the influence of some malevolent demon of luthierie, since that's the only thing I could think of that would make me so reckless and stupid, I chose to use it on both.

This was the result...



The solvent in the acrylic lacquer used as a carrier film caused the binder in the metallic paint to wrinkle.

It was only after i did this i found out that I didn't have enough clear decal paper to do another mask.

And then I found out that it's no longer available in the UK except from one importer, who has monopolised it's distribution.

And I hate them because they are rude, patronising profiteers.

But they are my only source in this country.

And they didn't have any...

Well I've got some more now so there should be some more progress in the next few weeks.

A propos of the whole Gibson headstock refinishing thing however, some information has come my way which is going to have a significant impact on the business of repairers in the UK.

From next year, it will be illegal to sell nitro-cellulose lacquer in the UK.

From 2008 it will even be illegal to use it in a professional capacity.

As far as i am aware, this applies even to brushing cellulose, not just spraying it...

This is going to make refinishing vintage Gibsons, Martins and Guilds virtually impossible without resorting to the use of inappropriate (and more hazardous to the user) synthetics.

The european nanny state at its most ridiculous.

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wish me luck...

Well i finally got around to making the new transfer.

Saturated with water, the design shows through quite clearly. Along with the registration lines on the paper backing this allows me to align it with the headstock shape.



The paper eventually loosens and can be slid off the decal leaving it in place. I've used nitro-cellulose as the carrier film which remains very flexible for a few days but is compatible with the lacquer substrate.



The completed design needs some work to tidy it up, but hopefully the margins of the decal will be invisible once it has been coated with a few layers of lacquer.