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I don't know if this is the place for this but I have a feeling I pissed somebody off as well, but I'm not sure. Howard Klepper I think. We were having a conversation off line about fingerplanes and wooden attachments and he all of a sudden stopped talking to me and left the group. I think all of this typing instead of face to face causes misinterpretations and bad feelings over nothing. I would love to see all those guys back.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Howard is a wonderful guy Sarge and I doubt that you pissed him off or that he is mad at you. Maybe he had to take a dump?

I spent time with Howard at Healsburg 2007 and he's great, warm as can be. I took a picture of him and he acted like he was mad at me claiming that I photoshopped the pic to make him look more ancient than he actually was. So he does mess with your mind at times man and I suspect that's what happened here.

My mistake, it was Filippo not Howard.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I joined MIMF about twenty years ago, and here about ten. During that time I have learned a lot from the pros. I’ve also been insulted, talked over, and misdirected. Mario P, in particular, was nothing but bombast, arrogance, and insecurity. New builders on this forum are not missing much from his absence.

There are very few professional guitar builders, just like there are few professional watch makers or cobblers. It is not a surprise there are few here. There are just not that many of them PERIOD. It is great that some still show up on the forums.

At the same time, guitars are complex to make. As Alan Carruth (a rare pro on these forums) has said, “ it’s not rocket science, it’s harder”.

So there is naturally a lot of hunger for the “secret” to building a world class guitar. New builders want to be “on the cutting edge”. The thing is, unlike rockets, guitars have been made the same way for over one hundred years. We are not building faster more powerful guitars. Likewise, you can always innovate on the design, but then you’ve created a new guitar like instrument. Not a guitar.

The pros have made the same guitar the same way dozens of times a year for decades. Beginners ask the same questions over and over to which the same answers apply. So where does that leave us?

Please, to the new builders: have some patience. It may seem like the pros are overly didactic. But if they are telling you that is how it is done it’s because that is how it’s done. It’s the nature of this endeavor. You can do it differently, but then you are doing something else. After building hundreds of near identical guitars for them there is no mystery, no question, no angle they didn’t try. It’s not being cranky, it just a straight answer to an obvious question.

And to the experienced builder, please don’t take out your boredom or frustration on new builders. If you can’t answer with grace why embedding a kazoo as a sound port is a bad idea, just don’t. We are a culture that revers the new and is suspicious of traditions. Most people assume innovation is always the goal and that new designs are always better. Likewise, most people assume that if knowledge is more that five years old it is useless. It doesn’t occur to people to read existing books or do a search for existing questions to their answers.

It may be frustrating to see yet another new builder ask how to sharpen a chisel or whether they should glue the headstock scarf below or above. But if you can’t answer with patience just skip it. You don’t have to answer just because you have an opinion. The world will survive even if some ignorant maniac says to glue it above.


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Good ending

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Confusing brusquely efficient guidance offered with intentional offense given is far too common, and complicated by this communications media and format. All those subtle clues as to intent and true state of mind disappear from view, leaving far too much space between the characters on a web page within which to imagine personal slights and rampant ill will.

Certainly, irksome people are more common that might be desirable from the viewpoint of blood pressure management, but there are fewer here than on the average online forum by both count and percent of active population. Having missed the tenures here of Mr. Proulx, Mr. Turner, and a number of other seemingly disruptive forces of nature mentioned earlier in the thread, I was directed to read their archived posts early in my training by several former members here in bad standing (Messrs. Morelli, Stock, and Verhoeven). Absent the emotional turmoil that affects even seemingly neutral bystanders in a good web-scrap, I was able to mine their posts for a significant amount of useful information and solid guidance.

Yes, certainly at some point, nearly all of us succumb to the temptations of valuing our own company and way of doing things to an unhealthy degree (easily recognizable by sentences which begin with 'After doing X 1,000 times, I feel strongly that...'), but that guidance offered still provides the less experienced - and perhaps less jaded - with a temporary way-stop or point of departure on their own journey towards that seemingly inevitable curmudgeonly stasis.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Nicely said Woodie. Except for Rick Turner I have had a number of interactions over the years with the folks you mentioned by name and found those interactions to be overwhelmingly helpful. Perhaps my 23 year military background makes me less likely to take offense at "brusquely efficient guidance".

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I took a day off from my Bryce Canyon ride/hike vacation, so managed a brief Signal exchange with Mr. Morelli. That note suggests that you were without fault.

If I understand the events leading up to Mr. Morelli's exit from this forum, he departed of his own volition, but felt that continued mucking about with a number of the members here might be misread as less than respectful behavior. This was very much in the spirit of my own restrictions on participation here on OLF through the end of my tenure at Mr. Stock and Mr. Morelli's shop... all intended to avoid any friction over things best left in the past.



Four interesting years of 'brusquely efficient guidance' from Mr. Stock (U.S. Army, Ret, 30? years of service) makes me think you are likely also bullet-proof and very comfortable with toxic masculinity (i.e., perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable male behavior ).

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I am truly sorry that you were exposed to four years of abuse. I know your sarcasm is supposed to diffuse what you said, but I cannot let lie the statement that toxic masculinity is "perfectly normal" or in anyway a natural part of being in the military. My father and uncle both served in the military; my uncle gave his life for this country. They believed that military service was about honor, courage, duty, and above all a selfless willingness to sacrifice your life to defend the least among us.

My father loathed the little men in over sized pickup trucks with giant American flags who cosplayed being soldiers. He hated that they gathered near his farm in the woods to pledge to each other that they would not pleasure themselves while watching rape porn, hatched elaborate plans to do violence to people of color who bested them at work or the women who rejected them, and shot off weapons of war as if they were toys. "Plenty of wars in this world," he would say. "No one is ever turned away. If they really wanted to be soldiers, it's only an airplane ride away." He had nothing but contempt for "toxic masculinity".

So, again, I am sorry if you were exposed to "toxic masculinity" while working for the men you named. I don't want to undermine what you went through. But please know that is NOT what it means to serve in the military and it is NOT perfectly normal behavior of servicemen. Hundreds of thousand of soldiers serve honorably and take that honor and sense of duty with them for the rest of their lives.

It's been raining a lot here today in the Mid Atlantic. Y'all keep your feet dry and be careful you don't go down that slippery slope.

Goodness... where to start?

Did you just ASSUME the size of my pickup truck and American flag??? (There is no available emoji for that viral meme of the screeching/crying person having a mental moment, so working with what I have available).

That should do for now.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Your pickup truck? I don’t know what you are saying. You said you dealt with four years of toxic masculinity, but you also identify with toxic masculinity? That doesn’t even make sense. Why complain in the first place? A joke?

And did you just double down on mocking the military?

Wow. Ok. Thank goodness most people stand by people in the service. Sorry you had a bad experience with a retired service member, but that is as far as my sympathy goes for people who try to paint all.soldiers as monsters.

I have no more to say. This is why it’s best to stick to talking about guitars.


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Dude, I think you have totally misunderstood Woodie’s comments. Let’s stick to guitars.


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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Focus, Mr. Rhett...did you just hear a loud whooshing sound originating from somewhere above your head?

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Woodie’s original post started off pointing out just how bad this media is at allowing accurate interpretation of intent. I think that is exactly what has happened here.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I read here from time to time, but don't post much. A long time ago this was a forum chock full of pro builders. The expertise sharing here was high - both expertise and the content provided forthwith. Slowly many of the pros left, or their community interaction dropped to a dribble. Make no mistake - most left.

It's much easier to feel good about one's self in a low-fi environment than a hi-fi environment. The facts hurt. If you are so damaged by someone's commentary on a forum that it interferes with your ability to reflect, learn, adapt, and grow then maybe that's an opportunity for introspection rather than emoting. It's a lot easier to grow personally than it is to try and make the world and people around you fit your vision of the perfect human. Always easier to make things about everybody else. And so go the lost opportunities.

Well said Andy

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

All of this stuff has gone over my head. I don't understand offense in the first place. Someone thinks different from me? So. I expect that. Don't you? I wouldn't expect to agree on more than a few things with anyone. Well, more than a few with my wife!

People will watch a long video, and then make rude comments on everything about it? Why watch it if it bothers you? Watch something else. You're offended by it? Why did you keep watching then? Like I said, I don't understand it.

I don't put people in categories. I don't want to be in a category, but I know that people probably put me in them. Everyone is different. Isn't that a great thing? I think so. Everyone has good and bad things in their character. Everyone. Some are more obvious. Some are hidden deep. That's just the way things are.

Remember that each of us has weak points too. We all have certain skills that may be elevated above others. We don't have to flaunt them, but we certainly should use them. That's why we have them. Some are better at that than others. But we're back to the same thing again. Everyone is different.

There are some things where there is really no right or wrong. Like guitars. Each is an individual, like people. They all have something that isn't perfect. Some may have only are few things that are even tolerable. There are different ways to do things on them too, and that is what is great about forums; we can see many different ways to do the same thing, and try as many as we want until we find one that works well for us.

If you are like me, you might come up with your own way. Not that you think that the other ways are inherently wrong; you just happened to find another way to do the same thing. Some are techies; I'm more of a Neanderthal. But I like to read and see the technical stuff. I bend on an iron, but Dan Koentopp's bending jig calls to me. That I would copy; but I might put dowel holes on the other side of the base, and thru holes on the patterns to bend the bass side on guitars that has tapered sides.

Learning from each other is what we are supposed to be doing.

Some may be more at the teaching end, but even they should be learning every day about something. If nothing else you have to learn to respect everyone as who they are. Whether you like who they are or not. you don't have to marry them, or even listen to them. Just realize that they are different.

In that case you may see that different is a good thing.

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Why be normal?

So how about them Detroit Tigers eh?

While you all were extending this thread I was in Ann Arbor doing four guitars this morning and back in time for lunch.

I love going in very early and I often will get up at 2:00 AM and head for the shop. It's very quiet then and still and cool as well and I love it that time of morning. I point my Honda north east and she steers herself and that adaptive cruise is cool too keeping me from getting too close to who's in front.

Anyway I'm off to see what's happening in the "paramount" thread that I posted some pics in this morning at around 4:00 AM when I left home for work.

Have a great day everyone.

2AM? That's just about the time I like to go to sleep

Hmmmm, let's keep this thread PG-13 ...

And now for something completely different.....

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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

Probably not much bat speed with that. Mickey Lolich hit one out in the World Series with the humongous pitchers bat. That was pretty cool.

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Why be normal?

I remember that!!! . Let's see Bill Freehan, Denny McClaine, Micky Stanley, Norm Cash, Willie Horton, Dick McCalliff that's all I can remember from way back then and they say that pot smoking makes you lose your memory