Official Luthiers Forum!

In preparation for the arrival in our area of the corona virus we've given some thought to how we might better prepare ourselves so that:

1). Maybe we won't get sick or bring it home to our loved ones.

2). Our clients don't get infected by coming to our place.

3). When we have client contact we use best practices to avoid infection.

4). We can remain open and running and hopefully weather the storm.

As some of you know we have over 50,000 students within a few miles of our epicenter of Ann Arbor location and these students travel at times to and from Asia and other places world wide. So... it's just a matter of time, maybe even days before it's here.

Here's what we are employing so far.

1). There is a "hot" red colored pen on the bench that is not touched by us and to be used by our clients only to sign their credit card receipt. My plan is to Clorox wipe the sucker at the beginning of every day and after each time someone uses it.

2). Since I work on many guitars in a given day I'm going to religiously wash hands before and after each guitar and avoid touching my face.

3). We will not be wearing masks and subscribe to the current recommendation that you wear a mask when you are sick (and stay home.....). If anyone comes to our place and they have a mask on we will ask them if they feel sick and if so they will be asked to leave. If they are dropping off they will be asked to leave and take their guitar with them. Business can wait.

4). Every day at the beginning when I Clorox that red pen I'm also hitting the door knobs and anything else that may be touched by a client.

I'm considering invoking a "plastic only" policy to avoid cash AND to avoid the added public activity that we have to do to deposit cash.

So nothing earth shaking here but it is a concern and we plan on being smart and prepared.

I'm wondering if any other Professional Luthiers who have brick and mortar facilities OR invite the public into your work spaces even if it's your home are planning on minimizing their exposure to the virus and their unintentional spread of it to others?

Lastly the largest demographic of my client base are 60 year old or older males and this is one of the groups that has had the most severe cases of the virus. We want to be sure that we don't contribute to anyone else getting harmed.

We built our business in the heat of a nasty recession and as such we planned and engineered Ann Arbor Guitar to "scale" meaning ramp up and down business wise easily and with little impact to us. We have zero debt and the lowest rent in our area making our overhead low enough that the business could weather a complete closure for half a year of more if need be. We don't want to have to do that of course but it's a welcome thing that we can if we need to. It pays to be prepared.

Please let us know what you may be doing in preparation for the arrival in your area of the corona virus? I'm looking to share and learn best practices.

Thanks

Good advice for the common flu too. Speaking of masks. I went down to the local Hardware store for some dust masks.

I would highly recommend disposable gloves. Especially when working on dirty instruments. Also if an extremely dusty instrument comes in I would flat out refuse to work on it.

Replace the air filter in your heating/cooling system frequently as well.

most masks are useless you need a mask rated for vapors .
Use common sense . avoid the panic . WASH HANDS
I am amazed at how many adults use a washroom and don't even rinse off their hands.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

AMEN to that!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Why do surgeons wear masks if they are useless?

I know I heard the same thing and in fact read an article that said in some cases masks are worse but still.

This is strictly about coronavirus, okay? Masks won't keep healthy folks from acquiring it, it's to keep the infected from spreading it. Nobody said anything about surgeons.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Someone broke into my shop last night. Only thing missing was the masks.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Exactly that's what it looks like in these parts too, masks are gone. I've got a bunch at my home that I bought two months ago thinking it might be important... Glad I did.

OTOH masks are not effective in prevention so they say if you can believe that and instead are best saved for infected people. Who knows, very scary time.

Good stuff Dan thank you. We have gloves and as soon as we know the thing is in this state I plan on trying to work on guitars with gloves on. Don't know how that will work out though but it's a great idea.

Thanks John that's exactly what we are doing and I'll add I'm avoiding touching my face too. It's scary enough already Not panicking is exactly right too. We will get though this but it may be pretty serious...

The thinking is that masks encourage us to adjust them frequently and in doing so we are touching our faces. That's what they are saying I can't vouch for the validity.

Yep that's what I am hearing.

Really? Wow.... that's scary.

Surgeons and other health workers wear a different breed that catches much smaller particles than what we find in hardware stores. We all commonly spray tiny amounts - or more - of saliva when we talk. Can't have anything like that getting into a surgical wound. Plus they protect the workers from splatters of who knows what.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

the CDC is being kind of sly...yeah, masks aren't recommended unless you are sick and trying not to spread it...the thing is COVID19 (henceforth to be termed as The Bat Flu) can get into your body via your eyes...so skip the freaking mask...IMHO the CDC is trying to keep stocks up until (hopefully) The President can force them into production using emergency powers if needed.

as noted, surgeons wear masks to keep their patients safe...if they were worried about what you have, they'd be wearing a full body suit with oxygen supply.

being real, the spread of The Bat Flu is going to be real hard to stop...at most it can be mitigated until a vaccine is available...it's already gotten out and nothing is going to STOP it, we can only hope to slow it down...

this whole situation is really showing a lot...big tech is restricting travel, but those with real money to lose don't give a flip...take SXSW...petition to shut it down has over 20K signatures, and they won't budge, in fact are doubling down and adding more speakers...I get the need to protect the economy from panic, but seriously, an international conference and they're thinking nobody is going to be carrying Bat Flu....what greedy pigs...they obviously never took an econ class and got exposed to the concept of good will, and its associated monetary value...methinks they are going to be eating some mighty tough and cold crow (actually, I hope I'm wrong as I really don't want my city shut down because of this)

Forget the masks then we need plastic sheeting and Duck Tape

One thing that is being said, but not too loudly is that many people who contract the disease do not have life threatening symptoms and don't seek medical treatment, and have not been counted. The statistical probability of dying from the virus may be much less once the "mild" cases of the illness are recognized. Not to down play the seriousness of the outbreak, and many of us who are "old goats" have a greater risk of croaking, but look on the bright side - it might keep Social Security solvent longer.

As a retired surgeon I can tell you that a mask was absolutely mandatory when you biopsied a billfold.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I have given up drinking coronas, sticking with Stone ipa until things calm down.

I can see the "Stupid" is already affecting some of you here. There are only 9 dead in the US, and we've endured much worse problems than this. Survivability of this affliction is high in America. Focus on that, not the hysterical ravings of a few looking for headlines, clicks, and likes.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

You can minimize this all you want right now, but let's see how you feel when it arrives in Witchita. That'll be the test. Those nine people who died got the virus about a ten minute drive from where I am and new cases are popping up daily at an increasing rate in this area, and not just in a nursing home. That tends to focus one's attention.

Yes, there are sensationalistic reports and the survivability in this country will be high, but that's if we don't stick our heads in the sand like they initially did in China. That's if we pay attention. That's not "stupid", it's prudent.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

At least this has some understandable logic to it. Unlike the run on bottled water in many places. Bottled water! As if the water supply to the faucets in people's homes can be knocked out by this virus. Combine that lack of simple common sense with ubiquitous articles with headlines like How to Prepare Your Home for the Coronavirus in which the authors clearly just copy/pasted the prep recommendations for hurricanes and earthquakes, which include things like a gallon of water per day per person for two weeks, and that's what we end up with. Now that's some "Stupid" right there.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I'm filling my bathtub as we speak

Ed

A few things:

First, regarding masks, I read an article from a public health official who has serious bona fides. He has been in the trenches of public infection. He says that, while it is true that surgical masks are ineffective at stopping the inhalation or exhalation of the respiratory droplets that spread this disease, they have a useful role to play, in tandem with washing our hands. Masks do two good things. The first is raise public awareness of the need for caution during a time of outbreak. Let’s skip that one. The second good thing was much more interesting. This official said that, basically, masks keep us from picking our noses and putting things in our mouths as much as we would do without a mask, and that level of physical impediment helps a lot to slow the spread of the disease. He recommends washing hands thoroughly and frequently, using hand sanitizer, and trying to avoid touching your face as much. Masks help with the last thing.

Regarding the potential for disruption of basic services, I would slow my roll before calling anyone stupid over such concerns. Water doesn’t magically come out of the tap no matter what. Tap water comes from water treatment plants that are staffed by people, and people get sick and stay home from work. If the water treatment plant is inadequately staffed, interruptions in service can happen. I live in a place that has had issues with our public water system. Let me tell you, none of us should take it for granted that clean, safe water will come out of the tap. Now, take that concern and apply it to every other service upon which we rely. Electricity comes from power plants staffed by people who get sick. Distribution chains for supermarkets rely on truckers who get sick. I could go on. We should not panic, and I do not advocate for doomsday hoarding. I’m just saying that nobody should be called stupid for planning for interruptions of basic services, because that can absolutely happen if things get super bad. Hopefully they won’t get that bad.