Official Luthiers Forum!

Ok, here's the blurb from the convention literature:

"You may photograph, audiotape, and videotape as long as it is for your own personal use. Also, please be courteous to the speakers as well as other audience members. Try not to block anyone's view or set off flashes in anyone's face. We develop American Luterie articles from these lectures and workshops. The Guild reserves exclusive rights to publish the content of the events. None of the material may be published elsewhere, including web pages without specific arrangement with the Guild. Yes you can post snapshots that you take at the convention on your web page, but not the informational content of the presentations."

So there you have their policy statement. Obviously the wordsmithing leaves something to be desired..."None of the material may be published elsewhere, incuding web pages" yet you can "post snapshots...on your web page" Huh?

I would love to post some pics here of Charles Fox's new C-frame side bender. What do you think?

Doug

Thanks Doug!

My read of this statement is that they do not want the material published, including web pages, for commercial purposes. In my view this does not include posting pictures that you took on a discussion forum unless, of course, your flash was in someone's face and you didn't correct the red eye.....

In this case, the poster, say it's you Doug, has no commercial gain from doing so.

I am very big on protecting the IP of others and providing proper attribution. If Charles had his new bender on display and permitted photos I can't imagine that he would not want anyone to see them.......

I also can't imagine that GAL wants to be in the business of creating clubs - the club those who participate in the organization and have access to the information and the second club of everyone else.

I would love to see the photos and can't imagine that anyone is going to get their panties in a ruffle over it.

I read the statement from GAL the way Doug O read it, and I doubt Tom or even Tim Olsen would have a problem with what was posted. However, in order to keep my urine out of other's cereal (p**s in someones Cheerios). I'll use the cone of silence.

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Matt Jacobs

"Don't tase me bro"

I read the statement from GAL the way Doug O read it, and I doubt Tom or even Tim Olsen would have a problem with what was posted. However, in order to keep my urine out of other's cereal (p**s in someones Cheerios). I'll use the cone of silence.

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Matt Jacobs

"Don't tase me bro"

I'm sure as the others have said, that the intent is to prevent folks from turning presentations in to a book, article, video, etc., without the original author's consent. I doubt they are truly wishing to seal peoples lips, and discussion among peers is unlikely to ruffle any feathers.

I'm not an attorney, but "publishing on a web page" means publishing on a web page. To me that means taking someone's lecture and posting it (video, pictures, transcript) as a tutorial on a business web page.

This is a public discussion, summary of highlights, photos, etc. I don't see it as anywhere near rubbing against the terms they list. Don't worry about it.

When people start holding tidbits of information gathered at seminars, symposiums, lectures, etc., as proprietary or copyrighted, well......

I have a good catalog of trade secrets, sources, techniques, that have been shared with me in confidentiality, and I have always honored that. Of all the symposiums, seminars, and trade shows that I've attended, I've never felt that confidence was expected or requested. Courtesy, yes - don't post someone else's lecture on your web site or make a book from it. I've freely shared things learned from those meetings on forums like this though, and don't feel that anyone's confidence has ever been betrayed in doing so.

Take me to your special trout hole, and I'll take the secret with me to my grave. A fishin hole that I got to with a group of 40 that was booked by my travel agent, ehh, methinks I don't feel too pressured to keep it a secret.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Since I haven't quite figured out how to post pics in the new software... if it doesn't work I'll try again.

Thanks Doug!

It's pretty much the same setup I used to use, with the exception of the open face design. That's a very nice touch!

Approximately how long did it take him to bend a side from start to finish?

When I was building the process was - soak it with a spritzer, wipe it off, slip the side, heater, and shim stock in to the bender, turn it on, let it heat about 30 seconds, crank it down, pull the ends down, give the center a final twist, done. The heater would run a total of about 4 minutes, with another minute of setup time, then pull it out when it's cool enough to handle. Maybe 3 minutes total hands on time, and we never had any problems with cracking or the sides holding shape.

Actually I should say though that there was certainly some springback, but we would shape the molds through trial and error so that the end shape after springback would consistently fit the mold when done. Just curious as to his approach. Since the mold doesn't look terribly over-compensated I'm wondering if he favors the longer process.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Charles did his demo with an original style bender because the new one isn't quite finished yet, meaning it wasn't set up for the cutaway attachment and he wanted to demonstrate a cutaway bend at the workshop. Charles' method on the original bender is pretty typical of what most everyone is doing. Todd's demo on You-Tube is great.

For the new bender, Charles uses a flat press assembly to pre-heat the steel slat/blanket/wood sandwich prior to loading into the bender. One of the primary reasons for the open sided bender is so that he can more efficiently pre-heat the wood and then slide the whole (hot) assembly into the bender.

There was SO much great information at the convention! Like I said in a previous post, the only negative (other than the on-campus food) was having to choose which workshop to attend when they ran simultaneously.

Doug

Like I said, it was a great time. Todd Rose wins the "coolest hat" award, and I wished that I could have swapped more jokes with Evan.
One of the pleasures for me was getting to play all those guitars at the Listening Session. Jeffery Yong's Harp Guitar was awesome, and it was really cool playing one of those for the very first time in my life in front of all those other builders was indescribable. Steve Kinnard's guitar was one of the best I played that day, (along with MINE, of course ) Really, there were some outstanding guitars. And instruments that I didn't think were so hot apparently sounded great out front- THAT was educational.
Getting to host that open mic was great too. Mike Doolin and his wife Nancy played, and the Columbian Bandola Quartet also came down, and other good players too.

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Let me add my pictures of Charles Fox's new bending machine from his GAL Convention talk also:







Click on the pictures to see the full resolution versions (warning, they are 3MB to 4MB files!).

I plan to have a go at a version of this sometime real soon.

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

I was at the back of the room when Mark was playing the acoustic guitars. Kudos to him for doing a great job (although he needs to work on his alternatively tuned instrument and harp guitar playing abilities - just kidding ya Mark ). He picked two simple/short pieces of music that demonstrated struming and finger picking, and pretty much all the various sound aspects of each guitar, and played them remarkably evenly so we could judge the relative sound differences between them all.

Anyhow, the stand out guitar for us at the back of the room was a small all-spruce guitar (yep, back, sides, top, bracing, even the neck IIRC - all spruce!) - it was the loudest instrument of them all, and had fantastic balanced tone, with a full bass and a clean mids and treble - very nice! (Sorry, but I forget who made it now.....). When I talked to Mark later about it, he said from the player's perspecitve it was not an outstanding guitar at all. How about that?!

Oh, I got a (not very good) photo of the all-spruce guitar later in the day at the exhibition - it's the one on the left:



Click on the picture to see the high res version.

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Wasn't it Duane Heilman that built the all-spruce guitar?

SK

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

The Guild is certainly not about being exclusive or secretive. Quite the contrary. Let's keep cool heads, here, and not go planting seeds of distorted reality about the Guild. No organization could be more friendly, welcoming, open, and supportive of us and our craft. To suggest otherwise about the Guild is doing a great disservice to a great organization that everyone here could benefit from participating in.

I never meant to suggest that people shouldn't discuss what they saw and learned at the convention on this forum, and I'm sure the Guild wouldn't object to such discussion. On the other hand, I think the Guild's policy on publishing rights of the content of presentations is sensible and reasonable, and my interpretation is that the photos of Tom's and Charles' jigs posted here are in violation of that. Maybe my interpretation is incorrect, or maybe yours is... all it would take is an email or phone call to Tim at the Guild to find out.

In any case, all of the informational content is being made available by the Guild, via attendance at the convention, and via publication in American Lutherie. There is no secrecy or exclusivity. It's all about information sharing. Join the Guild, and you're golden. All are welcome, and membership costs about the same as one good Sitka top.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I've sent Tim an email asking him to have a look at this discussion and comment if he wants to.
I also found this link on Harmony Central- http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2012952

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Todd, I'm not going to let you foil my plans to take over the world. It's a grass roots movement - planting seeds of discontent starting in the smaller groups like GAL, then maybe moving on to susceptible larger targets like Microsoft, maybe Quebec - before you know it I'll have society primed to accept me to step in as their saviour. Revolution will be mine. I still have a few goals and details to work out, but I have to start somewhere.....

Two things for the record. First, I've not been a member of either the GAL or ASIA for at least 10 years, as at that point I didn't have motivation to buy a stamp and lick an envelope for either. ASIA is certainly coming back and reorganized from the mess it was in back then, and as I edge back in to building I'll probably rejoin both them and the GAL at some point soon.

Second, I have a tendency to present some arguments in near satirical extremes (see "suck my bone nuts" posting), because I find it a more enjoyable way to make a point. I wouldn't try to publish a paper in that spirit, but most folks here know that I'm wise-ass. In reality, I think this whole argument is a non-issue. No one is going to have problems with discussions and postings like this.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

David can I be your Minister of Spruce or Kommisar of Rosewood in your new world order
Best, Evan

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http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

Gotta like this guy!

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Absolutely!

Meet Darth David...........

Any more room on the Death Star?

I think I've finally found my avatar!!

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Indeed - I resized and cropped it for you and it is avatar-ready if you just want to save it to your desk top and then upload it as your avatar.....

Before this thread fades away, I wanted to pass along to everyone that I asked Tim Olsen, the head honcho of the GAL, to look in here with his opinion and help us clear up anything that needed clearing up. Here is what he said:


See how easy that was? Thanks to Tim!

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Alright, let's open this puppy back up! I want a full-on tutorial on building a Cone of Silence!

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com