Official Luthiers Forum!

Looks like I may have threaded the needle of bureaucracy and the educational system in Tasmania in order to legally teach my "Build a Mando or Uke in Four Days" course in Tasmania...the Hobart area, to be exact. The right people have approved me on the educational front; the right folks are willing to sponsor my educational or business visa; and it looks like we already have some students ready to sign up for the first offering which will (hopefully) be in late March/early April to be held on two subsequent weekends.

Of course my visa could be denied by Immigration, but the "right folks" have already expressed that they know that I'm not offering this in competition with any Aussie luthiers and that I'm "uniquely qualified" to do this, and it may just help some up and coming Aussie luthiers to earn a living.    

Fingers still crossed, but the tough qualifiers seem to be taken care of.   

The eventual goal is to teach this using as much Tassie timber as possible...given that I rough machine the neck blanks here in my shop, and I'll eventually be doing that on my CNC machine.

There will be more news over the weekend...

Cool.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Way Cool!

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Rick, it would be fabulous to have you come over and teach in the UK (we discussed possibilities some time back), but the college I'm working at is running into some financial difficulties due to countrywide problems in a low take up in Adult Education.

BTW all the best with your endeavours to teach Down Under...

Sam, the one good thing about this is that I'm forced to figure out how to do this on an even lower tech level...simpler tooling, etc....and I think I can do it. My lady friend has a nice small shop area in her garage where I can make the work boards for the class and eventually also make the bending forms. I can reduce the number of clamps required by using long rubber bands to glue the backs on, and I can make spool clamps just about anywhere with some wooden closet pole, all thread, wing nuts, and a drill press.   

We're still jumping through hoops to find the right visa for which to apply; I simply fall through the cracks on some very bureaucratic levels, as it were. I'm not going to take the chance of doing this on the sly; a) it's not my style, and b) Louise will not allow me to take the chance of being banned from Australia, and bless her for that!

But I do now have a very good handle on taking this whole trip on the road...

Hey Rick,

Not sure if it is all official or not but David Freeman heads to Taz once every year or two to teach during our winter. He may know all of the what fors about it. His email is david at timelessinstruments dot com I think (going from memory is dangerous) otherwise seek him out with google Timeless Instruments. He runs a school in Sask up here in the great white north!

Good luck

Shane

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Canada

Thanks, Shane. David's booth was right next to mine at Healdsburg.   

It may be different for him as Canada and Australia are still rather connected through the tatters of the British Empire. The Queen is still featured rather fetchingly on the bank notes, and all that.

We think we've found just the right visa, and I'll find out tomorrow how things went at the annual Tasmanian Folk Federation meeting.

If I could turn the clock back about 150 years and break the law in England, I could get free transport and permanent residence there in Tasmania.   Living conditions wouldn't be too nice, though!   There were actually cases of prisoners making deals with their best friends...one would kill the other and then be hanged, both then escaping the mistreatment they were suffering under the prison system of the mid-1800s in Tasmania or mainland Australia.   That a little tidbit picked up in a museum exhibition in Hobart...

What a great opportunity and I hope you stay in touch here because I ,for
one, really appreciate what you have to say here. Good luck and have fun!

[QUOTE=Shane Neifer] Hey Rick,

Not sure if it is all official or not but David Freeman heads to Taz once
every year or two to teach during our winter. He may know all of the
what fors about it. His email is david at timelessinstruments dot com I
think (going from memory is dangerous) otherwise seek him out with
google Timeless Instruments. He runs a school in Sask up here in the
great white north!

Good luck

Shane
[/QUOTE]

Shane, I didnt know Dave was teaching in Tasmania. he heads to
Wellington, New Zealand every couple of years to teach a 3 week guitar
building course along with Paddy Burgin. He had planned to pop in and
visit me on the way home from this years course but he didnt make it.

There you go Martin,

I think you are indeed correct, soory 'bout that!

Shane

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Canada

Called the Aussie Embassy in Washington, DC again, and I got an incredibly helpful woman who guided me to an even more perfect visa for which to apply.   Then I got a report from the annual meeting of the Folk Federation of Tasmania...and not only were they fully supportive, but three of the attendees want to take the course, so it looks like I'm now just two shy of a full class of seven, and we haven't officially announced anything yet anywhere. I'm going back down in February to visit and set up a little shop at Louise's place to do some prep work...make "soleras" and benders.

I'm teaching also at the end of this month up in Oakland at the Crucible...another seven students, so I'm going to make a few changes in the construction system and see if I can streamline things one more notch.   The idea is really to have the complete build done at the end of the third day so day four can be all about setup and tips on doing at-home finishing...Tru-oil or rattle-can style.

[QUOTE=Rick Turner]

Of course my visa could be denied by Immigration, but the "right folks"
have already expressed that they know that I'm not offering this in
competition with any Aussie luthiers and that I'm "uniquely qualified" to
do this, and it may just help some up and coming Aussie luthiers to earn
a living.    


[/QUOTE]

Rick, I dont think you have anything to worry about unless youve got a
dozen live snakes in your bag. Its the people who dont bother to read
their entry card who get a hard time from Customs and Immigration.

Cheers Martin

Aside...All the snakes in Tasmania are poisonous...

All's well with Tasmania and myself. This is going to be good for everyone concerned, I think. I'm looking at going for about 33 to 36 days a year split up into three chunks.