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I liked it. I thought it was a good article.

I think that he is right, with or without the technology and jigs that infiltrate our shop, I think we should all seek to improve our hand work.

I didn't get a technology = bad, hand work = good flair from the article that I initially assumed it was going to make. I think he just raised a level of awareness of something he perceives to be a negative.

and honestly... I really wasn't understanding the point he was trying to make about the religious stuff... so I just ignored that line of thought.

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

Thanks Todd and great guidance for a discussion here.

I read it last week and was again very impressed with Ervin. Rarely have I read an article that provides as unpretentious view into one's mind as this one.

Regarding the loss of hand skills (hand tools) this really bothers Ervin and he indicates that he cannot consider being a craftsman without these skills. He goes on to call those lacking here technicians regardless of how "impressive" or "flashy" they may be.

Also of great interest to me was how he relates his experiences in teaching various groups of individuals from all walks of life. He talks about demographics to some extent and notably goes out of his way at the end of the piece to further define that he intended no harm or malice in what may appear to be stereotyping people for what ever reason.

Most of all this article, and how it is written, strikes me as very conversational in as much as Ervin is openly sharing his personal observations on guitar making, the industry, the individuals who participate, and the future. All the while, and always the gentleman, Ervin seems to be in some awe of his own journey and where it has led and even more awe of what the future will bring.

This was the best read for me from GuitarMaker ever.

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Hesh
Ann Arbor, MI USA
http://www.heshtone.com

since I haven't read this, I can only speculate...I bet his 'religious' comments were directed at a state of mind that can be achieved by meditation and such...wouldn't matter if you were a Buddhist chanting mantras or a Catholic saying Hail Mary's...perhaps thinking of the subject as a desired state of mind where one becomes one and harmonious with the piece of wood you are working on, which certainly CANNOT happen if you are using a CNC mill to do the work

I thought this was the best edition of the magazine that I have ever recieved. Ervin's comments werent taken in the negative here, even the religious overtoned ones.

The whole issue was right down my alley with helpful tips and tricks, good advice from masters of the trade, and loads of good pictures to anchor the stories. This definitely was a change from the older editions.

GREAT Job!!

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Reguards,

Ken H

I agree with you Michael that there is definately something I would consider spiritual about working with wood.I haven`t read the article,but I feel that true craftsmanship should never be lost.
SKIN

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

I read it too, and I too thought it was a very good article. He is a good writer, and as Hesh pointed out, he writes like one might speak, which makes for fairly easy reading. I wasn't sure about the religious thing either. It seemed a little digressive, relative to the rest of the article. I sort of saw it as a bit of a lament over the loss of hand tool skills in the guitar marketplace. One that he finds himself caught up in, and wishes he was not. Someone on another forum, said something similar today. It was something like a lot of people can buy big power tools and work the wood, but how many can hear and understand the wood. The wood comes from many places and speaks many languages. Only a master can understand them all. This from a person who started as an apprentice with his father, who was, apparently a pretty tough task master.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I agree Todd! I have a shop overflowing with power tools, but more and more I am reaching for the hand tools to do jobs because I either dont trust the power tools or because I can do it better with hand tools.

I think Ervin may have been pointing his fingers towards companies like Taylor, who use robots for everything they can. I can see his point, but you have to admit that Taylor makes some pretty good guitars with their robots.

For me, I'll stick to the hand tools and hand operated power tools. Yeah, I own a CNC machine too, but the best it does is make bridges for me. I could probably do it faster by hand, but I like watching it work.

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Reguards,

Ken H

It's a fallacy that helpful knowledge of the material is strictly correlated to the tools used to work it. Someone using a CNC mill is just as capable of tapping, flexing, feeling and looking at the work as someone using manual tools. And there are plenty of people using traditional building methods and building exactly to a plan, not taking any variance in materials into account.

I love working with manual tools, and greatly enjoy any project where that's the best way to go (best, in my case as a professional, meaning fastest while providing sufficient quality). There are lots of things companies like Taylor aren't doing that could improve their guitars (tuning tops would be the big one in my mind), but it has nothing to do with their use of machinery.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Amen Bob!

I haven't seen the article so I can't comment on its specific content, but in regards to technician vs craftsman, how about just luthier? It should be the prerogative of the customer/player and instrument maker to decide what is and isn't a true mark of craftsmanship.

Where is the line drawn between modern technology and traditional methods? Where was it drawn 10, 25, 50 or 100 years ago?

Shouldn't we all just concentrate on pushing our own boundaries in terms of building better looking, better sounding, better playing (etc. etc.) instruments via whatever means we choose to use? It would be a downright shame to see the skills of old disappear but I don't think the influx of affordable technology that makes our lives easier will have an impact on the basic hand skills necessarily; the two don't go hand in hand to me.

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Richard
http://www.guitarmaker.com

I have read the article and I liked it very much. To me it showed a glimpse into the mind of one of our elder members of the luthier craft. Ervin, like a handful of other luthiers today is a true craftsman in that he had to establish good skills with the hand tools to perform his tasks. Not that there weren't power tools when he was starting (I don't think he's over 70 is he? And this doesn't indicate the introduction of power tools either) but most likely power tools were not obtainable for the small shop luthier (ie; not cost effective). So to me much of Ervin's article has to do with a lament of sorts from where he's come from and where the craft and maybe woodworking in general is going. He says several times in the article that these changes aren't necessarily bad or good, but they are what they are.

This may sound disrespectful but I assure you it is not meant to be disrespectful at all. I think my generation and the coming generations have lost an awful lot of knowledge and skills to our new technology. The older generation has a lot of wisdom and knowledge to give but with things like the internet, written instruction, video and other forms of media, their knowledge and wisdom is not being tapped into as it use to be in generations before them. The skilled craftsman use to apprentice the younger generations and that's where the knowledge and skill set was handed down. Hardly seems to work that way anymore. This is what I call the transfer of ownership from one generation to the next, and this transfer is not generally done face to face these days.

As far as the hand tool/power tool debate goes. I have to agree with Ervin, there is a rather large shift now a day to the use of power tools and for the elder craftsman I can see where this shift would be a hard one to digest. It is vital IMO to understand where we've come from (in all aspects of life, though those origins most certainly are debatable) and woodworking is no exception. Ever since man cut down a tree with some sharp piece of stone we've been trying to figure out a faster, more precise way of doing it. Everything evolves and my bet is that the elder generations of Ervin's age lamented the "new" technology to some point as well.

Think about this for a minute though. What does it take to be proficient at using and maintaining the tools we have today? Look at hand tools for a moment. The skilled user must be able to sharpen his blades (think saw blades as well as slicing type blades), ensure his plane beds are flat and true and his measuring tools are accurate. I'm sure I'm missing some aspects of hand tool use and maintenance (shows my limited knowledge and understanding of hand tools, I'm a proponent of the new technology). Now look at the power tools for a moment. The skilled user must be a millwright to some degree if they want to maintain their own power tools. First they may need to have some basic electrical skill, say a motor needs to be changed on your table saw. How many of you have set up a table saw? Measured the run out of the arbor or adjusted the table to ensure the miter slot runners are parallel with the blade? We are now measuring in the thousandths of an inch to make sure it's as accurate a tool as possible. It takes skill to set up and use this new technology. I can only imagine what it takes to ensure all the blades on the new spiral head jointers and planer are aligned properly.

It's just different is all. Both are valuable in their own right. I don't ever want to loose sight of where I've come from but I also don't want to miss the possibilities that new technology can bring either. I think this might be something along the lines of Ervin's thinking as well.

I have some thoughts on some other folk’s posts as well,

Mike you're right in you speculation regarding Ervin's article and the religious comments. I have to respectfully disagree with your closing comment though. The mind most certainly becomes stimulated and CAN be moved to some spiritual or religious euphoria when working with a CNC mill. The ability for someone like Bob to work a machine to produce something like this



blows me away. I bet he gets pretty jazzed about being able to do this, he may even be moved to some higher level of consciousness by working his brain to master his tools to bring this type of outcome (or maybe it's just pizza). If the idea is a desired state of mind, what's it really matter what the media is?


I'm saddened for you Ken. I love my power tools and with the knowledge of how to use them property and to maximize their potential (I'm not saying you don't here), I believe I have the ability to create more accurate and repeatable, quicker work over hand tools any day. How do you cut your fret board slots? All my guitar to date I cut the fret board slots by hand. I used a vernier caliper (I have access to a 24" caliper) and a razor blade to layout the locations and than cut them with a fret saw. This took me a very long time to do and although I enjoyed it, It didn't make me overly happy either. This is one of, if not the most precise layouts we have in guitar making and it must be right. I just finished making a dead accurate crosscut sled for my 45 year old Delta Uni-saw which is also set up nearly perfectly in order to cut my fret board slots quicker and more accurate. After truing up one edge of the fret board, it took less than 2 mins to cut all 20 slots and the nut end. Try laying out and cutting in less than 2 mins with your hand tools. It can't be done. I trust my power tools because I know together we can do it better, faster and more accurate than I can with my hand tools. Now, I'm not saying every job is or should be done this way, I'm just wanting to show some sort of balance is all.

You must be very very quick or have a really slow CNC machine to be able to layout, profile, drill and cut your bridges by hand

The world has evolved. I'm really glad for people like Galileo who studies kinematics, invented a better telescope, studied and defined science and mathematics. Without him, I wouldn't be able to watch my daughter's eyes light up as she gets pulled behind the ski boat in the summer or ride up the chair lift to go skiing in the winter or for us to be able to look up into the heavens through an affordable telescope and see the craters on the moon and wonder if that's the spot that Neil Armstrong trod. We always stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before us and we are all standing very tall because of our forefathers.

Everything changes, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad, but there's no stopping the change. We just need to embrace it, not abandoning our past at all but remembering where we've come from all the while propelling ourselves into the future. Balance is really the key though. Balance between the established and the new will take us further faster and we may just be moved to some sort of euphoria by it all.

How exciting eh?

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

It was a good article. I read it through a couple of times to try to get everything out of it and understand exactly what he was trying to say. I agree that there are probably many who don't possess great hand tool skills, and we can certainly always use some practice in the basics. My dad had me swinging a hammer and working with him in the shop when I was in elementary school, and he was an amazing craftsman. I think it's just a different world that we live in today. My wife says that her second graders are learning Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Publisher. How many of us had that kind of class when were were in elementary school? Yep. A different world entirely. With every generation we move farther from one skill set and closer to another.
I found it interesting that he created a whole subdivision of religious folk who build guitars. It was almost as if he studies them with the same care as a psychology student has for their lab rats or something. He seemed to be psychoanalyzing their behavior, attempting to explain why religious people build guitars, as if they are motivated to build guitars by something entirely different then others, which seems like putting the cart before the horse to me. I don't know...it might have seemed a somewhat condescending viewpoint. I think it's entirely reasonable it is mere coincidence that some people who love guitars and want to build them are religious. I'm still trying to figure out where he was coming from on that. It certainly was a unique look into his mind, that's for sure.

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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."

Rod,

I'm looking forward to seeing your guitars come of the production line twice as fast as Hesh's now

I haven't read Irvin's article but would love to. The thing that worries me most about future generations is their inter-personal skills. I know things change and evolve but the thought of a society where little to no communication takes place face to face and using vocal chords and your main interactions are with machines scares me - just shows what a sad old fart I am.

In someways the internet is a blessing and you can learn a huge amount about using hand-tools (and power tools) if you want too. It just helps if you have a relative or mentor that can add the "personal" touch.

By the way, I thought guitar making was a religion

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

I haven't read the article yet, but I get caught up in this discussion a lot. We teach traditional hand tool skills at the woodworking school, and also the safe use of power tools and correct jigs to make production work faster. I compare what we teach there to production methods used in todays woodworking industry and they seem archaic at times, and also invaluable at times.

I believe there is no substitute for knowing how and why wood acts the way it does, and how to design and create effective joinery to match the material you are using. I believe that one needs to have a deep understanding of what they are building, and why it's made that way. I also believe that once someone is in a production mode, they need to be able to do all of the above at a rate (velocity as well as monetary) that allows them to make a living.

I love a nice, snug fitting M&T joint, and well designed and cut dovetails as much as the next guy. If I have 100 of them to do, I reach for my Festool Domino or my Leigh Jig...is that bad? I don't think so...I have a Lie Neilsen #4 smoother - and love it...and I WANT a shopbot...

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Mitch

I took this part of the article far differently Don my friend. In the footnotes he writes about discussing this matter with an academic friend who in turn conveyed to Ervin that for religious people guitar making may be an expression of their religious impulse. Another way to say this is through the act of guitar making some individuals may feel closer to God. His friend or Ervin, not clear here, goes on to say that it must feel very comforting to feel connected to God. This statement does not at all sound like any kind of disrespect to me.

Remember too that Ervin is probably in his 70's now? And seniors do wonder about such things often and I have witnessed this first hand and personally.

Then Ervin goes on to say that he wonders what the rest of us (perhaps he means not religious people) feel connected to when engaging in creative acts.

Again I took this entire discussion by Ervin as an open wondering, including acceptance of those not like him, about the universe. Very interesting and again something that seniors often are known to do. The older we get the more we accept that perhaps we know even less. It takes a very secure and honest guy to wonder about things out loud and for all to see and read.

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Hesh
Ann Arbor, MI USA
http://www.heshtone.com

With regards to Ervin's comment's about hand tool prowess...One of the things I lament is never having a mentor to teach me about carpentry in general and using hand tools. One the other hand, learning how to use them has been one of the coolest parts about learning to build instruments. I can't afford to buy a ton of power tools, nor do I have the space for them. I too thought the article was very good. In fact, the last two Guitar Maker issues were excellent reads and provided me with a lot of meat to chew on.

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Yeah, you may be right. Like I said, I was trying to figure where he was coming from. I found it interesting that he singled out the BAC folk, as opposed to some other demographic. I mean, why not the demographic of luthiers of Italian descent? I mean heck, you almost have to have a name that ends in a vowel to build great archtops, don't you? <joke>
It was hard to figure out where he was coming from...especially when reading the footnotes...one minute praising them for their hard work and ingenuity, and another describing Bob Taylor in the light that almost seems to take away Bob's humanity, - mechanized and efficient - as if the BAC's are somewhat akin to Borgs or Terminators. (take that statement with a grain of salt....it was purely for effect)
I will admit to a certain tendancy to read a lot of things into people's words, and that comment combined with the assumed political affiliation seemed to be a major sterotyping in a perhaps not-so-positive light. Perhaps it was a purely non-biased comment.
I actually find the whole thing amusing - and I personally am not offended by any of his words in the article or footnotes. As I said...a good article, from a Master builder and educator. I really do appreciate his analytical approach, and his scientific methods. He makes me think...and I can't offer higher praise than that.

Man, I LOVE having the Edit button....

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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."

I really don't see it being mutually exclusive -- and I didn't think it was his point.

You can continue to develop your hand skills and continue to use technology and new tooling.

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

I think you all are right in some ways. I felt that it was from a perspective of:

1. We seem to be skipping the hand-tool learning portion of the education. Rick T., in a recent post about necks, I think, said that everyone should learn to make a neck by hand, then when something breaks, or goes wacky, then they are not stopped in their tracks because they can't get it fixed, or get a part. Just reach for the hand tools and whack out a neck in 30 minutes. Is this not true of most of the parts we have to use, maybe with the exception of hardware? I guess there's always tuning pegs.

2. I think the religious side, was relative to the calling of those people to be driven by that calling to excel at their craft, not driven by the craft itself.

3. I got the impression that it saddened him a bit that he was, somewhat, caught up in all of this technology advancement in what was a last frontier of highly developed hand building skills.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I thought it was a great article. I could really identify with Ervin’s observations. His feelings on the evolution of guitar making is almost an exact parallel to my experience as an Orthopaedic surgeon. I trained in the late sixties and early seventies. Back then it was almost all hand tools and the Mark I eyeball.
When I started practice in the seventies all of our equipment including total joint and trauma systems would fit in three small cabinets.
When I retired 28 years later our equipment storage area was the size of a small house!
The quality of our work became much more consistent with the evolution of better jigs, devices, and power tools. It was a very positive evolution. The old skills were invaluable however when things didn’t go quite right or the technology failed. Just gave us a few more clubs in the bag. The jigs don’t always tell the truth!
Luckily we have a choice in what skills we wish to employ in our craft. There’s no law that says we must build guitars by certain rules. The quality and consistency of the end result and our enjoyment getting to that result is what’s important.


Terry

I read it and mostly agree with Ervin. The religious part I couldn't get hold of though. The conversational tone does indeed make for easy reading. And it's refreshing. He's certainly not on a high horse here. This article has reinforced my determination to take his class. I want Ervin to be my teacher.

The hand work and machine work, I think, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I think the closer you are to the wood physically, using a plane instead of a jointer or planer for example, the more you get a tactile sense of how wood behaves through sensing how it feels. Nothing like comparing how lauan "mahogany" carves compared to the real stuff. That's what I like about using hand tools. But if you've gotten a sense of that, and what the work is supposed to accomplish, like getting a surface flat, then why not use the power tool if you have it? I don't have a lot of power tools, but if I did, I'd make good use of them, especially if they do the job more quickly and accurately, which they often do. But I think it is important to learn to do at least some of the work by hand before relying on machines to do it. Sort of like making sure my kids can do arithmetic before they get calculators. I just don't have a good feeling about blind reliance on machines without any knowledge of what the machine is really doing. Perhaps that's what is distressing about today's young generation (I can't believe I wrote that- makes me feel old!). The college students I see every day would be lost without a computer to write a simple paper. "FOOTNOTES!?!? BY HAND!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING?!??!" or "I CAN'T TURN THIS IN YET...MY SPELLCHECKER ISN"T WORKING!!!"

We do in fact have a wonderful resource in the internet, but I think we need to remember that its real value lies in answering questions and providing information. You could carry around all the information you could possibly need in some external thing, like a computer or encyclopedia. But wisdom comes from internalizing what you learn, with a lot of thought, analysis and organization of that information, and I think that's what a good teacher can help us do. You can't get wisdom from a computer screen.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I too thought the article to well worth the read. For those of you that had a hard time figuring out which side of the fence he is on now. Well I think that was his whole point of the article. Lamenting the loss of hand tool skill while recognizing the efficiency offered with modern power tools.

There have been several heat discussions over the years in the lutherie community about just this subject with 2 main camps of thought. One hold that it is not craftsmanship if power tools play a major roll or even stricter. Many have openly displayed almost contempt for those that chose not to master the the hand tool skills. Then the opposing camp that feel the use of any power tool that makes the process more efficient in time or labor is the way of the future.

I may self like to think in third dimension to this debate. Having grown up working with a grandfather that was most certainly of the old world craftsman error. I learned to use most hand tool pretty proficiently and many of the process I love to do. However that same grandfather that gave me the love for the skill of woodworking by hand was also a wise and businessman and taught me to know the difference in craftsmanship for arts sake and craftsmanship for vocation and financial support. He taught me do not compromise the integrity of the product but always seek efficiency with an eye for quality.

So I fall in the camp of a love for the hand tool and the skill to use them but at the same time I am a proprietor of a business that needs to be reasonably profitable without compromising the integrity or quality of the product. So if I find a power tool that does the job with the accuracy and detail needed I have no issues with it's use. I am as big of a romantic towards this craft ans anyone but I am also pragmatic.

The old debate hand tools vs. machines…
It all boils down to artisanship vs. production. Clearly Ervin is not production-oriented and Taylor or Martin couldn't churn out zillions of consistent low-priced guitars without mechanisation. Small shops that produce 30 guitars/months definitely couldn't stay in business without some level of mechanisation either.
I do not think mechanisation adds to the quality of the work, nor does it mean "progress". Suffice to look at instruments produced in the distant past, and high-quality modern ones produced by the few who still use traditional methods.
Mechanisation bypasses some processes that can be monotonous and no too rewarding (like hand-planning a highly figured rosewood back for example) and it is cost effective in terms of time and volume. Also for a shop or factory with many employees it guarantees a certain consistency in the making of the parts.
On a personal level I dislike the noise and dust made by routers, saws, sanders and the like, so I prefer to work by hand as much as I can manage. But I am in no hurry either and do not plan on going into production, ever. That being said I welcome the use of power tools when the alternative is just mule-work.
On the other hand Taylorism (not Bob, Frederick) repulses me for the kind of society it produces, but hey that's me. It all depends in what kind of world/society one would like to live in. I also believe there's something embedded in every object, not the least the soul of the maker.
Does the world need another zillion factory guitars? What is the salary/lifestyle/future of a floor employee at Martin's or Taylor's?
BTW Ervin's essays on his website are a must-read…

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I liked Rod's very long post, but won't reply to it besides <high five>. The need to see a neat, new idea brought to fruition keeps me up at night and in the shop 'til early morning some days. I just need to see it done, and that drives me. Kevin Ryan and I talk about CNC stuff and what we're doing relatively often and our goals are much the same: figure out what this technology can do that hasn't been done yet, it's not just to do the same old thing faster but figure out how to do it better. It's always 'isn't this so cool!' when we're talking about what we're doing now.

I myself am not religious, and the guys I talk about guitar making with most are Kevin Ryan, Peter Marreiros, Michael Collins, and Mario Proulx. I know the first two are religious (publicly) and I don't know about the second two. I think that there is a sense of gratitude in those who are working to be really great at something, and the sense of being privileged to do what they do for a living[1]. Being thankful for the opportunity drives people to make full use of it. And maybe that gratitude makes some people pray and thank a higher power, or the spouse that supported them, etc. It means I'm closer with my family than most anyone I know. The gratitude is the fuel for the fire. My explanation of the phenomenon might be a bit unclear, but the psychology is:
Love of craft->Gratitude->Effort

That concept isn't my own invention, though I can't recall who deserves credit right now.

[1] (OK, Peter's not full-time yet...but, seriously, does anyone think he won't be soon? The guy's amazing)

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Isn't that the truth. He's got the chops, for sure!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars