Official Luthiers Forum!

Great stuff David and many thanks for all that you do my friend!!!

Two additional things in addition to requests for those attending to let us know in this thread please.

First - we are working to get some donations from sponsors for prizes to be raffled off at the gathering.

Second - an idea has been offered in which a sponsor would appoint someone to be their rep at the event and the sponsor would provide a stack of wood that members would be able to go through and select anything that they are interested in. Would the folks planning on attending appreciate the opportunity to hand select say tops and probably other things too? Please let us know if this is of interest to you.

Thanks!

Man am I glad I decided to check in today! After frequenting this joint almost obsessively since I joined three years ago, I've been sort of on a hiatus for the last three months. Anyway, yeeeesssssssssss!!!!!! Count me in, for real this time. Hesh, David....you guys ROCK!!!

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DES - Shepherd, MI

Please put me on the "maybe" list. I`ll try to see if I can take that weekend off. I haven`t had a real weekend in three years, so what better reason to tell the boss I won`t be at work.
Coe Franklin

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

Darin and Coe it would be great if you guys came come to the gathering!!!!

Keep an eye out here on the OLF for more details.

Just to reiterate, I WILL BE THERE!!

Vince

hey my flight arrives at the airport 3:45 a.m. on the 26 th ! who is picking me up at the airport? Jody

Don't laugh - the way this event is looking we will have a number of frequent fliers in attendance. It's a great time to use up your FF miles and enjoy the oh-so-pleasant airline experience............ these days.........

Alright, Black Elks Lodge, September 27th, we're on the calendar.

THIS WEEKEND, I seriously want to get some realistic estimates of a total number of attendees, including members here, guests they may be bringing, and whatever else we may attract.

I also want to figure out some times. 12-6 seems a good guess, but I'm not sure how long people will want to sit around and play. I could actually arrange a real show/concert with a lot of great guest musicians if enough people are interested in going long in to the night. Of course it's just a stone's throw from my place, and you all are the ones that have to worry about driving home. Hotels are probably booking up quick as well, being a big game weekend.

If it looks more likely that we will be tapering off by 6 or so, I need to know so that they can leave the evening open for other bookings. They rent to everything from family parties, to DJ's to some really killer jazz sessions. If we want it, we can take it, but I need to know this weekend. It's a great meeting spot, and the huge wraparound porch is one of the best views in the whole city in my opinion. Plenty of room, a bar, I'll have to talk to them about price, but we may also be able to work in dinner there as well (and I mean gooooood dinner - need a towel for a napkin kind of good).

I'm going to talk to the man in charge at the Lodge on monday night, and would like to have as many details as possible together. Primarily, attendance and time though. I'll go back through this discussion and see if I can get a real tally so far, though if anyone else gets to it first, feel free.

Thoughts and desires are welcome.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

The Black Elks lodge sounds like a very cool venue David!! I'll be there.....

It's likely that not everyone who weighed-in so far will be available and see this thread this weekend. I know that JJ often does not check in on the OLF on weekends. Perhaps we just go with the tally that we have now, pad it a bit, and make it so.

I found this description of the BEL and it sounds great!!

The "yes, barring emergencies I will be there" category as of yet. Let's anticipate 80%-90% attendance off this list.

David Collins
Hesh Breakstone
Jim Howell
Brock Poling
Vince (vinman)
Peter J
Bob Conner
Andy Birko
Kirt Myers
Lance Kragenbrink
Max Bishop
JJ Donohue
John Ressier
Mark Swanson (+1 or 2)
Darin Spayd
Joe White?

Let's call that 18 at 85%, or 15
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The "I would like to and will most likely try" category. Say, maybe 50%-%60 attendance from this number.

David White
Brad Way
Lars Stahl
James W B
Fred Tellier
Jim Warwick
Rob Eckert
Coe Franklin

8 @ 50%, or 4
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Other luthiers I know or ones on the forum that I think would like to come. Maybe a 60% probability.

Devin Zimmer
Mick (the Australian - Hesh, do you remember his last name or know how to get in touch with him?)
Jotham Tausig
Rick Jones
Mickey Richard
Stephan (Ziegenfuss)
Clinton (crich)
Mike Franks
John Sargent
Brian Delaney

10 @ 60% = 6
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Then the list of other strangers of interest, and friends who may be a bit far for the drive. I'll say 20% odds.

Bryan Galloup (+1 or 2)
Karl Freye
Jake Robinson
Gary Tope
John Knopf
John Kingslight
John Dajos
Tom Pellerito
Gary Zimnicki
Mike Koontz
Wade (Motor City Pickups)
Dave Budzinski
Roger Hayes
David Alex
Mark Conley
Tom Doerr
Ron Luczak

18 @ 20% we'll call 4
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That comes to 29. So if my Fermi-style reasoning is good and I've overestimated by an amount similar to any attendants I've not yet thought of, we're looking at a range of 25-35. Sound reasonable?

Next question, without any intention of making this a guitar show, I would love to invite some local musicians that I respect as well - maybe after a certain hour when it becomes more of a jam session. The catch is, those musicians can often bring an audience with them. If it were to come to that and enough here were interested, I may just decide to book the Elks for an evening show as well, totally separate from the OLF meeting if need be, and those who want to stay can. It wouldn't be a problem to get some really good bass players, dobro, mandolin, fiddle, etc., to fill things out. I'm not sure if I want to manage two shows on the same day, so that's iffy. Still, I have a feeling a number of folks may enjoy this, so it's something to consider.

Plus we have to face it - guitar builders aren't guitar players. We'll spend a half hour saying "I dunno, whudda you wanna play?", then go back to talking about dipoles or something.

I know some may prefer to keep it closed, but others I know would love this, so there's a possibility of having separate and consecutive gathering and jam session. Or we just keep it closed and split off at six. That may be the easiest route, and the few stragglers who want to jam can go find a hole in the wall or hotel room to keep going later on. Ideas, ideas.

Then there's the question of content - I say for a six hour meeting it would be nice to schedule 2-3 hours of presentation or lecture. I would rather have 6 hours of presentation, then take small talk to the bar after the meeting. I know others want more to socialize though, so 2-3 hours seems like a good compromise still leaving ample time to network and hobnob. So for now think of what you want, or maybe what you have to offer that others would benefit from. We can work on that part of scheduling later on.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Sorry to chime in so late but I will definitely be there and possibly a builder from our area that JJ and I know.

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jw ( o)===:::

Are we gonna need name tags???

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

As much as I hate those things, it may be necessary. How about t-shirts that have the name on the front to the left and "OLF member since _________" on the back. For the guests/non-members just put 9-27-08!

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DES - Shepherd, MI

I don't know Darin, once you start printing stuff like that on the back I think you either have to be in a pit crew or a bowling league.

Next issue - A favor please?

I have to search the web for instructions on how to make even the simplest of spreadsheets. I have Excel, but I'm just not fluent with setting things up.

Can anyone easily format a spreadsheet for the following to be neatly databased.

Name
Email
Phone # (entirely voluntary and private, not to be given to anyone not in the group, no pressure to submit it)
Address (again, we don't really need it, but might as well be a box available on the spreadsheet in case we do newsletters or anything - I have ideas for potential use of this guild)
Web Site

Then for the purpose of this meeting, have boxes that can be checked for meeting attendance-
Yes
Maybe
No
No contact/reply yet

And it would be great if those boxes could have a tally at the top or bottom of the page, but not necessary.

I just feel it's time to get a bit more organized. If this is a hard spreadsheet to make, I'll probably go back to pencil and paper (I still do an awful lot of work that way).

Thanks

Edit: Never mind. I mentioned it to my wife, and she made it in about 30 seconds. Man, I've gotta learn how to use computers.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

David,
I would be glad to put a spreadsheet together. Oppss...I see you got it done.

Brad

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Brad
Avon, OH

Thanks Brad,

Man I feel like a dork not knowing how to run simple programs. Seriously, it took my wife 30 seconds and it was done.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I'm definitely in David.

Paid for the flight on Friday, arriving in New York on the 19th.

It'll be great to catch up with you blokes and put some faces to names.


Cheers

Bob

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Bob Connor
Geelong, Australia

David or others...

How many folks are flying in from out of town either Domestic or International?

Brad

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Brad
Avon, OH

Brad buddy right now it's Bob Connor from OZ and possibly Lars from Sweden.

Having never been to one of these I don't really know how they work so I have a question about appropriate gathering content.

As I mentioned in my introduction, I build banduras and use a lot of guitar techniques. That being said, I'd really like to have a good acoustic guit so I'm planning on building a stew-mac OOO and perhaps one more kit after that to "get it right". I also think that by building a guitar I might accelerate my learning curve on the whole acoustic aspect of instrument building since a lot more is known about how guits work vs. banduras.

So, would it be appropriate for me to say bring a braced top, back and a few chisels & finger planes with me for critique and perhaps some "pro" top tuning with discussion etc?

(I'd bring my latest bandura too of course)

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Others may chime in but this sounds like a great idea to me.

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Brad
Avon, OH

Put me down under the "I would like to and will most likely try" category.

Paul

Andy you are very welcome my friend.

I agree with Paul and you can bring anything that you want. There will be no shortage of opinions available regarding your bracing since with guitar builders opinions are like......... bandsaws....everyone has one...... and some members have two......

I would be a little concerned about taking your plates that are not joined to a rim out in uncontrolled RH though. They could potato chip on ya and that is not a good thing.

Paul you are very welcome too - it would be great to meet ya!!!

Hi everyone.

I just found out about this thread (thanks Brad).

Put me in the 80-90% "sure I'll be there" group please.

This sounds like a great time!

Anthony

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Anthony J. Lembo
Lembo Custom Guitars - www.Lemboguitars.com

Very cool Anthony - it will be great to meet you.

David I can't find Mick's number - do you have it, he does not do email and his guitars were very cool with the butterfly head stocks. I think that he is from OZ too so Bob will have some one who speaks the same language......