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Posts: 1718
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
"Acoustic" guitar set up. ...
Why not; this is lutherie?
I was never interested in "acoustic" guitars. In fact, it has always irritated me that they're called that. But sometimes people ask me if I can do setup on them. This video just taught me everything I never wanted to know about setting them up, in a very clever way. I think you might enjoy it even if you don't like "acoustic" guitars either.
It also annoys me that steel string guitars are called 'acoustic' guitars, because any instrument from clarinet to tympany is obvi an acoustic instrument. I think the difference came in the 1960's when Bob Dylan and Miles Davis 'went electric' and everybody pissed their pants either trying to justify it it or shut it down.
Anyway... I think it's fun to work on nice steel string guitars. You can make a living dressing frets or refretting and setting up Dreads ( D-45's) with new nuts and saddles. These things are everywhere. And all the instruments that people play with picks, mandolins, all the various models of American steel strings, Archtops and Martin 0-18's to modern line production Taylors; that's the bread and butter of repair work because that's what's out in the popular music world. Throw in a few electrics, but deep electric repair is a mechanical thing I'm not as interesting in, it's like being a car mechanic in a way. The worst is paint and body work on solid electric guiars....uugh, that's a kind of masochism.
I worked for Stewart Port in Oakland doing his second line work. He had vintage Martin work all the time and still does. He works for the established Martin vintage dealers. He would get several guitars from a dealer that need anything from neck resets to fret dressing or a structural rebuild that required taking the back off. He had me on second bench following up after he did the neck resets. We has so much fun because of the shop banter, neither of us particulary like working alone so it was a good fit to share his shop. I rented a space for my own bench where I was building my guitars in the mid 2000's and then walked bacj and forth to his second bench where the steel string work was going on. Stew has built some nice flamenco guitars too, we both went to Gene Clark' shop for coaching in the late 90's.
Stew is kind of a Martin repair genius, he went to an industrial arts high school in Philadelphia, the same school that Matt Umanov the NYC Martin repair guy went to. Stew was trained to do pattern making and industrial design drawing, he was born with a vernier calipers in his hand. After he graduated and spent some time working with journeyman pattern makers then went to New York and worked in Matt's famous shop for seven years. He saw everything vintage Martin and Washburn and developed his repair chops there before moving to Oakland in the late 70's and starting an industrial wood turning factory, while building and repairing guitars. When I met Stew through Gene Clark he still had a wood lathe in his shop that was ten feet from stock to stock. He had a business turning giant architectural pieces like over sized balustrades or using his huge bandsaw to make finial scrolls for big open beam structure work. If someone was restoring say a Spanish Revival building, which are a special thing in California, they could go have him make the architrave that need to be refurbished.
Great fun to to thrash around in Stew's shop in those days because he'd been dome with the heavy architectural design work, but the tools were still there and he's genrous about letting frinds buikd crazy projects in his extra space. Want to make a traveling puppet show cart on wheels? Talk to Stewart.
On second bench he taught me how to make nuts and saddles for steel strings and how to do the compensation, which works differently on steel strings because they have a different outside wrapping to core ratio on the string as compared to nylon strings. He would fret up a guitar he'd just done a neck reset on then hand it off to me to dress the frets and make new nut a saddle. He was very specific as to the styling of the work. Nylon string Spanish guitars have a one aesthetic for how the saddles should be rounded off or nuts smoothed over, but there is also a convention for fine steel string work and the general drift of it is more angular with careful attention to how and where a facet is cut on a nut or how a transition of rounded over. He demanded a consistent application of his rules of ratio and style coming out of his shop. That was a challenge for me to learn, but once i got it to his trust my work got better. He really helped me as a teacher, ( who paid me to be there) but he considers us equals, which is gracious of him.
RE: "Acoustic" guitar set ... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
c.He really helped me as a teacher, ( who paid me to be there) but he considers us equals, which is gracious of him.
Mostly off topic but:
You know, this is where I fail, I'm not a gracious teacher. I work at it. Showing a young man a few things the other day. Was able to stop, lower my voice and use less of that ass hole WTF were you thinking tone.
Just wish I could respect someone regardless of their ability and experience.
It's been in my mind a lot lately...
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
Posts: 1718
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: "Acoustic" guitar set ... (in reply to Ricardo)
When I was a kid people would ask why I had nail hardener (which looked like nail polish) on my right-hand nails, and when I told them it was because I used them to play flamenco guitar, they told me I should use finger picks. Maybe that's when I stopped talking to people much.
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