Official Luthiers Forum!

Well it is 11pm and I am just finishing up in Ervin's class for the day.    To
say the least this has been an eye opening experience. Clearly worth the
trip and expense. My approach will NEVER EVER be the same after this
class is over.

Ervin has told me that I can tell alll of you what ever I want, but all I can
say is that you need to experience the complete package. As a respect
for all of his experience, I certainly don't feel comfortable explaining his
methods. Personally I don't quite understand them yet. This will take
time to digest. He actually doesn't tell you specific ways to build, but he
changes your thinking so you can figure out the problems yourself!!!!
Also, I still have several days left.
I will try to attach some picts

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Here is Steve S. playing my parlor in Ervins shop



Here is the master himself joining a top

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

sorry about the pict size, but I am having a problem with photobucket and
the thread won't let me edit

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

No prob with big pics here. :-)

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks, Andy! Sounds like big fun!

Andy - werent you telling me a while back, that you were going to have mabye a
"brace/tonebar - shaving/adjustment"
discussion with Ervin?
Did you have time for that to come up while you were there?
How did it go if you did discuss it, and mabye you can share some of his thoughts on that matter?
Cheers
Charliewood

Not to seem like a wise*** or answer for Andy, but that is kind of the point of the whole class.

Not only do you have a brace SHAVING discussion, but you have entire brace placement discussions.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Well I spoke to Andy a little while ago in PM's
about a particular guitar that Andy was taking to the course with him, that he planned to have Ervin inspect and possibly adjust,
if I remember correctly the Macassar Ebony travel guitar {which I happen to Loooooooooove}
I was inquiring as to whether that particular instrument was inspected, and potentially and adjusted....
So I guess I could have phrased it better Brock, but thats what I was refering to,
in particular.
Cheers
Charliewood

Charliewood.
Hard to descirbe, but the guitar was evaluated.   Nothing was adjusted. But
related to my other thread, it was built in the flat world. If I built it in the
"round" world, it would be much different.

I cannot reveal a lot of details because it would fill the entire forum and the
course is only worthwhile in its entirely.
Clearly it is overbuilt

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

[QUOTE=azimmer1]
Clearly it is overbuilt [/QUOTE]

Weren't they all?

_________________
tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Could you give day by day overview of what happens in the class? I am really intersted in taking the class, but I can't seem to find "real" details of the class (I've read all the threads in this forum, watched the 5 videos from Ervin. I've exchanged some light emails with Ervin regarding the class, and etc.)

For example, would I be able to do the following afther the class?
- I want more treble, or more bass, or more mid on my guitar
- I want more even response
- I want to make it more punchy
- I want to make it more mellow

Do you talk about
- body shapes and its affect on voicing
- back tunning with the top

I am hoping that the class will teach me a systematic way to get the voicing result I want, rather than radnom-trial-and-error-unitl-I-get-the-voicing-I-want route.

Yeah, it covers all of that and more.

One of the experiements you do is he gives you a tracing of a guitar shape and a set of instructions and you have to lay out the entire guitar and draw it to scale.

Mine was a tracing of a small dread and the player wanted a 10 string guitar that had lots of mids and trebles and be easy to play by someone with small hands.

It was a pretty simple matter of applying the info we used in the class to come up with a solution that would meet that criteria.

Before that class I really would have had no clue. I certainly would have had a couple of educated guesses, but nothing I felt exceptionally confident in.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Microsurf
As Brock said it includes all you mentioned and a ton more. As he stated in
another thread, you start from the wood structure in the tree and go from
there.
My example in class was a 24inch scale OM that was "loud as hell with a ton
of projection." Ervin teaches an entire new language. You just have to
experience it.

For a summary of what we did each day, there was a 4-5 article in
Guitarmaker Magazine a few months back. Ervin wrote a summary of the
entire course.

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com