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October 02, 2007 Obsessing Over It Let's talk about obsessions for a minute. They come in all sizes and shapes; some are benign and harmless, while others can be cruel, crippling, or even life threatening. Members of various twelve-step and self-help programs go on endlessly about how insidious our own self-delusion can be, which intrigued me enough to take a look at myself. I took stock of any compulsive behaviors or things that kept me up at night. I tabulated items that pushed my buttons or irritated me. In the end I had to admit that I've got issues—I'm obsessed. I can't help myself, but I don't want to either. There are names and acronyms for what I have, but it all boils down to one thing. I'm obsessed with the little details. Details. The little stuff that most people can pass by without a second thought. That candy wrapper teetering on the edge of the waste bin; I wonder, who could possibly tolerate that? That screwdriver with a worn tip? I've got to replace that! A small gap between a maple top and the binding? We can't let that go. An uneven bookmatch? To the bandsaw it goes and then the dumpster. Those are the little details that make a statement individually and add up to a total that is less than what it could be. No, make that should be. Of course, there is a limit, otherwise we'd never get anything done. I'm not crazy. I know that the guys in the shop are used to it. Some of them have been with me for so long now that my obsessions are part of their workshop DNA. In fact, very often they surprise me. I'm proudest of the guys when they push the limits and engineer a solution that is more fastidious than even I could imagine. I guess it makes me feel better when somebody takes obsession to a higher level. In the coming weeks and months, I'll be introducing those people, the guys that have my back and make me look good. They're a great group of people and supremely talented at their individual specialties. For me, it's like conducting an orchestra full of first chair players. They can turn on a dime and give you nine cents change. Together, we've got the best shop in the business and the best jobs in the world. I'd like to give you an inside look at what we do every day and why we sweat the details in an obsessive way. I'll also be interviewing musicians, inventors, artisans and builders whose work inspires us to return to our shop with a greater sense of purpose and a resolve to reach even higher levels—of obsession. October 07, 2007 Of the Earth and Drying in the Air Every now and again, when the spirit moves and the circumstances are right, we develop a special "designer" model. Now, you might be wondering what the process for that is—is there a logic, a need, or just a marketing demand? Generally, I don't respond well to the "demands" of marketing. I think that if a guitar is to be made, there has to be a good reason for it. The designs that fill a need or solve a musician's problem are the ones I like best. But sometimes the availability of unique components or materials will prove too hard to resist. Recently, we were able to acquire just such a thing—a small quantity of figured maple with a very special pedigree. This curly stuff had been submerged in a bog of mud, and over time had absorbed various earth minerals, leaving amazing and exotic streaking. I call it "Earthen" maple to describe where the tiger got its stripes. We thought it would be a great foundation for a limited run of guitars, if we could dry it successfully. When the wood arrived at our shop, the moisture content blew the needle on our meter right off the scale; after all, it had been in water! We knew that it was going to be a long process if we didn't want to crack the boards, so we needed to proceed slowly. There were only fifty-five billets, so by taking our time, I figured we'd get close to fifty usable tops; the lost boards being just part of the cost of doing business. The first step in this drying process was to split the pieces to expose more surface area to the air. Then we "sticker-ed" them, which means spacing them apart with thin sticks of wood in between so that air can circulate. The wood is kept in a sealed "kiln" room with variable circulation fans, and a heater/dehumidifier all of which we control via a digital display control panel outside. Based on experience, our veteran builder Dave Brown set the temperature fairly low, and started the fans. After about ten days we checked back to see if we could get a reading, and sure enough it was down to about 20 percent. Encouraged, Dave raised the temperature, which will drop the humidity of the ambient air gradually over the next few weeks. Today we checked again and this time we got a reading of around twelve percent, so we're almost there. This is the critical time, because the wood is becoming less flexible, so we take things cautiously and don't rush it. Soon it will be time to start building, but I've got to map out something worthy of this amazing wood. The guys in the shop and I will be pondering this over the next few weeks, but I think that when we get the first top matched up we'll get our inspiration. Part of it will be how much the top weighs, and how it resonates. This will steer the rest of the selections in the design process. We'll want to build a "system" where every component focuses on the overall goal. I can't wait! Dave puts the meter to the maple October 11, 2007 Even Guitar Builders Need a Break Being creative isn't something you turn on like a light. When it happens, it can seem like a thousand watts of illumination, but it's not easy to do on demand. This is hard to describe to people who never experience it, but it sometimes it's best to look the other way, and just when you've forgotten about what you were trying to do—bang, there it is. I was reminded of one of my favorite ways to recharge when I saw a post on Goofydawg's blog about getting your creative juices flowing. Luckily for us, our workshop is nestled in a lush valley and situated about fifty yards from the Farmington river, one of the best trout fishing pools anywhere. Our lunch table overlooks clear waters that rush quietly over the rocks reflecting the sky and trees in a unending symphony of light and sound. Most days during the summer I see cars, many with out-of-state plates, drive slowly to the river bank—occupants bristling with fishing gear. The anglers climb out of their vehicles and into their waders to get close to what we enjoy every day. If I'm are having a off day, or just want to make a good one better, this little respite is a perfect prescription that won't leave you with a hangover—although it can be addictive. I think that just being near such a wonderful spot helps us be more creative and focused, which results in beautiful instruments for our clients. October 17, 2007 The Road to Talladega (Part One) Since its debut almost a year ago, our Talladega guitar has been constantly in the news. It was given an Editor's Pick award by Guitar Player Magazine, featured on the cover of Tone Quest and Music Inc. Magazine. It remains in high demand worldwide with guitarists waiting to get their hands on one as we patiently go about making them one at a time. Even though it is very new to most players, within our shop it's been around for quite a while. The life that a guitar design lives before the public ever sees it is part of every instrument's DNA—its own personal pre-history. I thought it might be fun to tell you about how the Talladega actually came about, and how it almost didn't. Looking back, it might seem like a straight shot to the Talladega from my mid '80s TLE design, but it wasn't that easy. I wasn't even consciously thinking about the TLE when I embarked upon the path that led to what has become one of our most distinctive guitars. Instead, the journey started when a guitarist named Evan Skopp commissioned a guitar in January of 2005. Evan is a good friend, and one of Seymour Duncan's top guys. Aside from helping oversee the Seymour Duncan empire, Evan tours the world playing clinics and shows with Seymour. So, when he wanted a new guitar, it was going to have to be something unique. His idea was to bond the twang of an Esquire with the fatness of a Junior. I suggested we make a double cutaway Junior from African limba (korina) with a 25.5" scale. The Talladega in repose The longer scale and lighter wood could provide the snap and the right P90 would thicken things up nicely. I suggested that we use a Pigtail wraparound made of aluminum with Tone Pros locking studs. Evan went back to Seymour's shop to wind up the perfect pickup while we built the guitar, much of which was documented in a Duncan forum thread. The result was so pleasing that I started thinking about a two pickup version immediately. That guitar was based around a pair of P90s that utilized polepiece magnets instead of bar magnets underneath. I figured I could get even more twang that way, and I compensated the balance by making the whole thing from a denser piece of limba to give the guitar more growl in the mids. The idea of using our original "Sustain Block" bridge which loads from the rear seemed appropriate, and just for fun I added a chrome control plate with some amber lap steel knobs. Evan Rocks the Korina The resulting instrument was really good, very unique, and the addition of a four way switch to provide a "series" wiring option really took the guitar into new sonic territory. I showed the guitar to a few people and everyone who played it was stoked. I was thinking about a short run of them, but as of this time it's still floating around here awaiting its destiny, because, as we'll see in part 2—sometimes lightning strikes twice. Here are a few photos from the construction phases of Evan's guitar: Phase One, the Jellecaster Jamie uses a spoke shave to carve Evan's neck shape. Mike cuts some tortiose cellulose for the pickguard. Here I am trying to keep my fingers out of the sander. Fitting the neck and prepping for finishing. October 23, 2007 Two Cream, or Not to Cream: The Uncovered Truth. Original Hamer Sunburst model with double cream and zebra pickups I received an email today asking a question, the answer to which I'd taken for granted for so long that I had to stop and think about it. Why did Hamer use cream and 'zebra' colored humbuckers in many guitars? The short answer is because it looked cool. But that statement apparently needs some back story now that so much time has passed, that the esthetic history of guitars is, um... history. For its first decade in existence, the humbucking pickup was a shiny, nickel-plated rectangle with six screw heads showing. There wasn't any aftermarket replacement, and guitarists viewed pickups pretty much as a permanent part of the guitar—not something to mess with. Beck rips it up with his exposed coil 'buckers So, from the humbucker's debut in 1957 let's turn the clock forward to 1968. Jeff Beck strolled onto the stage at Chicago's Kinetic Playground with his now legendary Jeff Beck Group and launched into the first number playing a 1950s Les Paul which appeared to be fitted with four single coil pickups. I pushed my way forward to get a better look, and on closer examination it turned out that the ever-tinkering and hot rodding Mr. Beckola had taken off the nickel covers from his vintage axe to reveal the guts within. Why? Possibly to allow him to get a small tonal advantage, or perhaps just to "screw" around with his guitar for fun. Maybe he was trying to be different. Maybe he just couldn't get them back on after a curious excursion with a soldering iron, but the sound he was getting was hard to argue with. Of course, I had to go home and take the covers off the humbuckers on my guitars too. Wouldn't you? My original '59 V in 1971 Soon I noticed I wasn't the only one who had noticed. Before too long, the exposed-coil look was being sported by a few more British guitarists like Marc Bolan, Robin Trower and Martin Barre. Savvy guitarists who recognized the superiority of sound from the older "PAF" pickups found that there was no rhyme or reason to the coloring of the bobbins, save for the fact that they were mostly black. On rare occasions there were cream colored bobbins within. There were combinations of cream/black or "double cream" because, as the story goes, the company that manufactured the pickups had run out of black plastic molding material (butyrate) so they used cream color material for a short while. After all, the coils were hidden, and no one would ever see them—right? It was completely random, but the "cream" bobbin pickups became coveted items. The guitar-manufacturing industry was oddly oblivious to this. Marc Bolan of T-Rex with his coverless wonder In a humorous side note, a short while after the Beck sighting, when I was at the factory in Kalamazoo (while employed as a warranty technician) I mentioned that I thought it would be a "cool" idea if Gibson took a look at removing the covers on their guitars. Bad idea, I was told. "They could be damaged." Not too long after that exchange, when we were starting Hamer Guitars, we just naturally used that look on our guitars. We figured if it was good enough for those British dudes, it was good enough for us, and Hamer became the first guitar company to feature exposed coil humbuckers. Of course, now the look is so ubiquitous, that a few years ago I decided to go retro-retro and put the covers back on our guitars! Everything old is new again—and again. Of course, I haven't really addressed the matter of if or how this all changes the sound of the guitar. I'm sure you all have your opinions on the matter—it has been debated endlessly. But that's a topic for another day, and I've got to get to work! October 26, 2007 Closer to Earth Here's an update on the Earthen guitar project. The maple tops are now dry and our millmeister, Enrico "Frank" Glavash is busy re-sawing each one. They are all so different that each guitar is going to be an individual work of art. He'll slice a thin sheet of maple off the face of every top to use as the headstock faceplate. They'll all be numbered and tracked so that they'll match up with the same body! Enrico sizes up some awesome maple tops October 27, 2007 Saturday Morning Wood Lying in bed this morning, I ponder the large, almost incomprehensible number of Saturdays that I have spent in the shop. But almost as soon as I start down that slippery slope of thought, I snap myself out of it and head for the shower. By the time I get to work the lights are on and the music is rocking—Mike and Dave are already there, working on custom orders as they do most weekends. Because the crew is small and the work is painstaking, the way we deal with the mounting complexity of our designs and orders is with extra hours. Mike is working on a Newport model that calls for mother of pearl purfling around the body, neck and head. It's an option that comes standard on our Artist Ultimate solid body, but this is the first time we've done it on a Newport. Yesterday Mike bound the body using a filler strip as a spacer in-between the layers of cellulose binding. To do it, he softens the material with a heat gun to allow it to bend around the cutaways, being careful not to go to fast or too slow. Move too quickly and the binding will kink—too slow and it will melt and distort. As Mike moves around the perimeter of the guitar he lays a bead of glue in the slot he's routed, then pushes the binding into it with his fingertips. He tapes it down and moves on to the next small length, repeating the process until he's gone all the way around. After the binding dries overnight, the spacer strip can be removed to leave a slot into which the pearl can be inserted, and that's what he's doing this morning. Typically, guitar factories use lots of small pieces of pearl which can be easily laid around curves—but that's the easy way to do it—and we don't do easy. In contrast, Maestro Mike will use very large pieces which are cut from blanks of shell and are shaped and sanded to follow the curve of the instrument. This is time consuming, but the most elegant way to do it, and when he's done the owner can marvel at the precision of the cut pieces. It's a small difference that an educated eye can appreciate. Mike runs a bead of glue into the channel before inserting the large cut pearl pieces At the next bench, Dave is putting some tortoise-shell binding onto a headstock that features a Brazilian rosewood faceplate. Dave has to cut the layers into strips one at a time and then heat them in order to bend them to shape by hand. When they fit precisely, he'll fit them together by mitering the ends where they meet. Then the whole deal gets glued into position and taped up to dry overnight. The margin for error is extremely small, so this task progresses at a slow pace with lots of patience needed not to rush it. Squaring up all the layers of alternating colors so that they match perfectly is more difficult than it seems, which is why mass produced guitars (even those that cost many thousands) do away with it and use an injection molded headpiece trim, and instead have black lines that are just grooves filled with black filler, or are pre-laminated pieces stuck together. I like to do it the old fashioned and harder way. I don't know how many people actually appreciate the difference, but we do. Dave routs a channel around the headstock for the binding which will be built up layer by layer Right next to Dave, Tom has already cut headstock logo pockets into a quilted maple faceplate and prepared the pearl pieces to be glued in. The tolerance is very tight, so the inlay work has to be done right away before the wood has any chance to expand or contract, which would make the fit difficult. The pockets are done with a cutter bit that is .020" in diameter to minimize the amount of filler. Tom will make some sawdust from the headstock piece and mix it with some adhesive to make a matching colored glue that holds the pearl in and takes up any gaps. Even the little USA letters are individual pieces of pearl! A decal would be an insult, so instead, we inlay real shell letters one at a time I've got a couple of drawings to complete, and I want to do a final set up and play test of a Talladega after it has sat overnight. That's the best way to get a handle on our consistency and much better than just sending it out the door before they come to their final resting spot. I trust the setups that the guys do, but I'm always on the lookout for something that can be improved or a tip that I can pass along. I like my Saturdays, and as much as I'd like to be wrenching on some motorized project in my garage at home, there's a special kind of feeling here in New Hartford that makes our time here special and the extra effort worthwhile for all of us. Meanwhile, I'll try not to ruin the weekend by stabbing myself with a screwdriver! October 31, 2007 Earthen Delight Heads-Up It's business as usual here in New Hartford, and the Earthen Maple guitars are starting to take shape. Today, Tom did the inlay on the headplate and is starting on the binding. Besides having a unique hue, this particular piece has some very distinct dark lines as you can see. It almost looks like spalted maple, but instead of the dark markings being soft and spongy like spalt, these lines are hard with mineral deposits from the burying process. We're sending a few through all the way to determine their final resonance "snapshot" so I can work on getting the pickups wound. I've always viewed the guitar's acoustic sound like a singer's voice, and the pickups like a vocalist's microphone. In the studio, a good engineer or producer will pick the right microphone to bring out the best qualities of any singer's voice, but there's not a mic made that will make a bad singer sound good. The final unamplified sound of the guitar will guide my choice of pickups as I seek to bring out the best in its "voice". How will they sound? Well, the billets rang like bells, so if that's any indication, they should be spectacular. Finished with the faceplate inlay, Tom admires the amazing grain and matches up the Brazilian fingerboard Next month

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