Official Luthiers Forum!

I am moving in a few weeks and once moved it will take me until late this year to build my new shop, get the RH under control, and begin to crank out the Flushtones again. At this point I am officially retired and guitar building will be how I want to spend my time going forward. This is a dream come true for me and I am excited as can be about it all.....

So..... I am busting my butt wedge to close the box on the current build which is Cuban Mahogany from Uncle Bob at RC Tonewoods/Adi OM that is for a very special OLF pal of us all- more to come on this. I figure that if I can get the box closed prior to the move and the lack of proper RH control for a while at the new digs my efforts to date will not be lost.

Anyway I thought that it would be fun to see what everyone it doing in their shops and provide you all with a last ever look at the current Flushtone Global headquarters......

Here is the current state of my shop. This time of year the humidifier is on at night when the forced air heating is on and during the day the dehumidifier kicks on to maintain +/- 45% RH. The place is kind of messy but again I am moving.



Being a hopeless WAS addict I am still adding to the stash and I have a question for the wood pros here please. The box contains about 5 tops and some brace wood, it is wrapped in plastic as I received it the other day. If I am moving in 2-3 weeks can I just leave this packaged up as is or do I risk mold growth? The other bubble wrapped packages are some killer Claro and an matching Claro neck blank. This packaging is not air tight so it is probably OK as is right?



Here is the beautiful Cuban back and rim which I hope to attach later this week with FISH GLUE thank you.....



Here is the top, roughly braced and preliminarily voiced waiting to the upper transverse brace to be glued on with HHG.



And of course the HHG pot is heating up.



Here is the other side of my current shop and I am dreading packing all of this stuff.........



And here is where I am going to build my new shop complete with a dirty room, assembly room, store room, and office complete with the essential nap time sofa....... The plan is to frame it all in, hire an electrician to do the wiring as you guys suggested to me in another thread, and then comes the dry wall, paint, etc.



Any volunteers to help poor old Hesh who can't even drive a nail let alone build a wall out here with the framing?????

Thanks for looking!!!

Now what is happening in your shops please?

I have finally found time to start working on my guitar again. So I tried cutting out my first neck ever. I'd say it went okay, except for when the piece moved and my bandsaw made a bad nick in the side.

Here are some pictures.





EDIT: How do you make the images smaller? I can't seem to do it. Sorry for any people with dial-up.

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-Rob Eckert
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Hey Hesh - If you need some climate controlled storage for your woods while moving I have plenty of space. I can assure you most of it would probably still be there when you're ready to pick it up.

I'm going through some pretty big renovations soon as well. I just installed a Binks spray booth a few weeks back and still plan on building a room around it to control air flow. Then lots of electrical, running new pipe for air (and hopefully a vacuum line through the shop in parallel, though that may be a later project).

I also sold one of my belt/disc sanders and am moving a drum sander in to it's old space. It's an old Performax 22-44, but I'm doing some seriously heavy rebuilding of the frame, feed table, and power. It worked as it was, but after this it will be much more stable, more powerful, easier to maintain, and hopefully the feed belt will actually have stable tracking.

My apprentice is leaving as well, so I'm sure I'll be tearing down and rearranging some benches and racks. Lots of thought as to how to best utilize the space available. Then of course trying to keep the repairs flowing at the same time. I'll be working a lot of late nights and weekends (not that that's anything new I suppose).

I'd love to volunteer to do some help, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to get away. We'll see.....

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Hesh, if that is "messy" I would love to see "clean"

Where' the coating of sawdust and various tools one can only find from under the pile of stuff you once used but right now, at this moment, could care less about since the small needle file you need has been buried, without proper services, under a mountain of stuff?

I know that sounds silly but man, what a neat shop. Wish I had the temperament to keep mine that nice. Then I wouldn't have as many gray hairs from my panic attacks caused from temporarily loosing things....alot!!

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"We might not be big but we sure are slow"

Hesh, I'm in the same boat as you - close on the new house May 30th and have to start the shop all over again. My current build will be in limbo until I get re-established in Floridahhhhhhh

But I still have some software to work on as well....

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Mitch

Man I cant wait to see how you outfit the new shop and am wondering what you will do with all of that extra space too. Aww heck, I'm getting all excited about this move already Getting along to the little cuban senorita youre working on, I am anxious to hear what this wood sounds like too. please let us know how it compares to other mahoganys as far as bending and sanding it when you get the chance.

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Reguards,

Ken H

My shop has had a couple of new additions, toolwise. First, a 'baby' bandsaw, but oh, how handy not to have to cut by hand!



Second, a Grizzly radial drill press set up with an auxilliary table and fence for using the Wagner Safe T Planer for thicknessing:



and finally, a little experiment in finishes is underway. I'm comparing my FP method to a wiping varnish concoction made from Pratt & Lambert No 38 varnish, pure gum turpentine and Japan Drier. The guit in the background is a deep bodied 00 in EIR and Lutz that I really need to finish for my brother!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Hesh, you call that dirty?

Anyway, here's a shot of one at Tony's now, and we're doing the neck for it here.



It's something like Sheldon's Angel Wing maple.
We call it Stair-Step maple. It's bound in Brazilian.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Had this sweet lil' feller in for some fretwork and new tuners over the weekend. Washburn, maybe? I'd love to have a little frailer like this. Sorry to see it go.

BTW, the weird thing on the peghead is the guitar stand.

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

Congrats on the early retirement Hesh! You lucky dog!
Man, I would LOVE to have the space your new shop will have. It's
going to be fun seeing it come together.
In my shop...I just finished the last coats of nitro on the L-00 and
have finished up the neck with Tru-Oil -

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Good stuff.

I recently finished up my new bench (although I'd like to hang a couple rows of drawers from the top soon). Beech with paduak accents. Solid like rock.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

I would be ashamed to show pics of my shop after seeing another pic of your pristine workshop.

This is setting on a table waiting for me to finish the inlay for the fretboard, so I can wrap up the neck.


It is a project I have been working on(well more like off and on ) for over a year. This one is for my mom, and as soon as I can get it finished up I need to start one for my dad, and my daughter wants a pink guitar so I think I have found a use for a set of PI that has been kicking around.

I hope the move goes well for you . The new space looks amazing.

Rich

Hesh: leave the wood packaged. I've frequently had wood underway for 6-8 weeks (Ground/sea shipping), and it's always arrived in pristine condition.

As for what I'm up to: currently danish oiling a bed I made a while back. Spent several hours with the festool ROS (wish I could have run the pieces through the thickness sander to clean them up, but they're assembled, sadly). Bed's made of some hard and some swamp ash (because that's what the lumber yard gave me when I asked for 'Ash'). Today I plan to get some work done on a pseudo-archtop electric thing, maybe do a bit of sanding, maybe cut some inlay. The plan: finish at least one guitar by the end of the weekend, possibly have the second ready for the finish line, then get to work on an acoustic and wrap up the strat and tele.

Chris--

The top binding is tortoise with a herringbone purfling and the bottom binding is ebony. You can still order pretty nice tortoise binding through Martin's 1833 shop without getting dinged for a hazzardous shipment fee. I'll get a cleaner shot of it this evening and post it.

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Mike,
That bench is astounding!!!!

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

messing up wood and practice fp. I would show the project but 2 things, I don't know how to do photo's here, and it is a dulcimer restoration.

Hesh, you have to be a fraud. No one can build all those nice guitars in a little room shop, and keep it clean (and give a new meaning to that word) and not have all the big tools. I can't wait to see what happens when you get into the big room.

Yeah, he'll be wandering around looking for his stuff in all that space. Think of all the extra cleaning he's gonna have to do! Now where did I put that Band Saw?

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I got the bridge and strings on flamenco #2 a couple of days too late. This is the same guitar as I brought to John Hall's - it's the guitar in the first picture, second row of Jim Hall's pictures, where it has no bridge and blue tape all over the fretboard. The bridge was on on Sunday and the strings on Monday.

I still feel the need to string up everything in the white, even if it makes finishing harder. I need to figure out if there is anything disastrous going on

Now, this one is ready for a cosmetic adjustment (I need to widen the ebony butt strip to eliminate a disastrously bad joint there), final sanding and touch up, and french polish (thanks to Jim Warwick for demo at John's)

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I just tried my new gobar deck for the first time. I had to rip some new gobars since it is much taller than my old one. The new bars are about about 900 mm (35") long, so they also needed to be a bit heavier than the old ones, which were about 700 mm. A great way to use up some ash (my favorite) and oak scraps! Having access to it only from two sides is perhaps not ideal, but as long as I start with the bars in the back first it works fine.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I just finished (lol yeah right ) shaping the braces on my top, I brought it to the OLF gathering at blues creek and got some pointers from Todd Stock, its funny how much smaller the braces look after shaping the top edges inward to a "point", I also took some off the ends of the tone bars to eliminate one dead area where they meet the leg of the x brace,hopefully I will glue it to the rims this weekend, as soon as i figure an accurate way to inlet the lining ,for the transverse brace and the upper legs of the x braces, then try for a final " tuning " then on to the back ... Jody

Thanks! We have a great bench building class at the school where I teach. It was a lot of fun to make.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Mike that is one of the nicest looking benches that I have ever seen - I have bench envy now......

Great looking work everyone - lets see some more please?

Chris:

Here is a tighter shot of the binding and end graft on the EIR. A very nice back and side set from John Hall.

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

I just finished up a walnut/cedar J-185 to bring out to the GAL meeting next month. This is the first acoustic I have made for myself in 3 or 4 years, and I have wanted to have another guitar for myself to play for a long time!
After I get back, and get caught up on the repairs that will be waiting, I have some guitars to finish up and towards fall I will remodel my own shop, too. I can take out a wall and expand it (she who must be obeyed has finally consented!) and move stuff around. Time goes so fast, and it looks like my whole summer is spoken for already!
Hesh, the new place looks great! When do I move in?
Mike, I love that bench too- who wouldn't!

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

Something I've been wanting to do since I had to sell it to get through my last year of college was to get another digital SLR, and last week I was finally able to get one for the right price on eBay. The body is already here in my possession, and my two lenses should be here tomorrow if UPS is telling the truth (used body, new lenses). So even though it isn't luthiery related, I've been refreshing myself all week by reading my exposure books, the camera's manual, reading my Aperture (software) book, yada yada. I'm happy to be able to express myself artistically this way again. Well, hopefully I can express myself artistically, lol.