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WARNING!!!!

The following statements are meant as humor for those of us showing for the first time this year, if you or any member of your family is humor impaired please hit the back button on your browser now.

Thank You...

I have one more guitar to finish for the show, I was routing out for the bridge tonight and set the dremel down on the top and put a hole in my nice new finish (and it was good too dammit). It's certainly fixable and I already put a drop fill in it and will still have it ready for the show but it got me to thinking. Normally I would not make stupid mistakes of this caliber, I actually have a set pattern I use when doing this but was in a hurry and well you know how it is....

So here if you will is my list of the Darkside of showing at HB:

- Realizing that it's been 3 months since you had dinner out with your wife or even seen a movie at the theater. (I fixed this yesterday).

- Working till 11pm and then being up at 6 to get ready for work because you wanted to get that last little thing done...

- Spraying a coat at 6:25 and then later in the day realizing that lacquer makes a pretty good hair spray.

- Peeling lacquer off your fingernails for 5 days after spraying.

- Running out of saddle bone at the last minute and rummaging for 2 hours only to find it was next to the bridge.

- Dropping your newly finished neck on the floor.

- Realizing on sunday night that since friday night you have not left the house at all and now have a cool beard to show for it. ;)

- Opening the door and staring everytime the UPS truck drives by (I'm sure he's worried about stopping here now).

- Waffling on if you are going to go or not.

- Worrying about what McNight, Woolson and Mayes are bringing and if you'll be next to them....

We are ready for the show as far as I can tell, like I said one more to finish setting up and I'll be good, I'll be doing setup on it tomorrow.

Please feel free to add to the list :)

Cheers

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

I got a kick out of that and I'm not even going!!

Pretty good Sprocket, I got a laugh out of that myself.
I especially liked the Lacquer Hairspray and peeling Fingernails.
I won't be going, but still enjoyed it. D.L.

Paranoia should give way to euphoria any minute.
Have fun in wine country. Enjoyed the recounting of the struggle. Just saw a piece on TV on the Italians. Living the good life for them means, time off from work.

Average for Americans, 16 days off from work.

Average for Italians, 32 days off from work.

Jeez, I thought this was normal for lutherie. Guess I really do need to get out more. :)

Best,

Michael
Michael McBroom38578.4623726852

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Live to Play, Play to Live

-have to order Something overnight just to make it in time.

-Stop shaving for 2 weeks because it takes too long and your gonna have
to shave and get a haircut before healdsburg anyway

-Get superglue on your fingers and have to take some 220 to yourself to
get it off

-rubbing your newly strung up guitars fingerboard with some steel wool
and then slip, hit the guitar, and end up having to sand with 2000 grit
and rebuff it

-Gets so stressed out because of impending deadlines that you have to
schedule breaks just so you can have a kyniption fits

-loose all perception of what day it is.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Yeah I did the glue one, more than once...

Here's some more...

- Waking up and running out the shop because you forgot something only realize it's 3am....

- Smelling curing lacquer at the dinner table because the AC picked it up from the shop (gotta make a drying cabinet) and having your wife say.."what's that smell"

- running out of brown tape even when you know you have another full roll somewhere, but you just can't find it.
AAARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!

- Realizing that the WHOLE shop is now covered in KTM-9 Enhanced dust because you haven't finished setting up and sprayed in the open.

- Polishing your frets and then while filing the ends you scratch a bunch of them with the file and realizing that your doing it out of order anyway...

- You get a three day weekend without the wife or kids to do whatever you want and when they get home sunday night your too exhausted to notice and your covered in epoxy, dust and KTM-9.

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

I'm all packed up and we leave Monday AM. I was up several times Saturday night trying to figure out what I forgot to pack , arrrrrggghhhh.

_________________
tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Come to think of it, I haven't shaved in 4 or 5 days. I'm still working on
the last two. One should be strung today.

It's "this'll just have to be good enough" and "maybe I won't let anyone
take a close look at it and then I can touch it up it after the show" time.

Guitar making is really hard, and then it's never as perfect as you had
hoped. A metaphor for life?Howard Klepper38578.6378935185

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Way to go guys. We're pulling for ya. Send pics and some stories.

Whew, I'm glad I still have a week and a half to get all my loose ends wrapped up. WHAT!?! The Fest is THIS WEEKEND?!?!?!
The day before I shipped everything out, I woke up with this horrible feeling that my guitars totally sucked. Not "sucked" in a self-depricating-feeling-sorry-for-my-self way but truly sucked. So I got out of bed (this was at 4:00) and went to see what I could do about it. The problems that had snowballed in my head were very hard to find and I felt much better about myself. Of course while putting one of them back in the case I hit my sander and chipped the lacquer but I'll have to live with that one. So I'm finishing up my last guitar stand tonight and then packing my guitar medical bag. After that, I'm DONE, DONE, DONE.
Can't wait to see everyone there. Good luck to you all and I hope tons of success lands in your laps.
Blessings, Paul

I've really enjoyed reading this thread. How about someone explaining all about Healdsburg for us new people. (and it's not because I'm from Arkansas, I'm just new to building.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

I'm just about ready now, I have enough guitars, some with warts but their going anyway, I'm trying to finish the very last one and it should be strung up today and get it's close to final setup (it's already sold so I don't think anyone will get to play it).

But if someone wants to see a perfect guitar I'll point them to Olson and they can see what can be achieved (I personally think he's the best of the best), but for the rest of us you just have to look past some of the little flaws. I'm even taking the zircote with the patch in the top, if someone asks I'll tell them I made a mistake, I'm human and it happens and it taught me a good lesson (in fact I need to share my findings about *why* it happened, I figured it out about 4 weeks ago).

There's only one that I'm not going to bring for a number of reasons but the rest are going, I'm working today and then off for the rest of the week to get everything prepared.

Ron... The HB show is *THE* premier show for hand built guitars, it was pretty big last time with some just jaw dropping work there (almost scared me away from this one), there are alot of dedicated players and alot of builders and it's just alot of fun.

I'm going for three reasons this year...

1. I want to see if I'm ready for this, I can wait another two years or just go for it and see what reaction I get. I debated it for a while and this year has seen the most change in my life in 20 years of marriage, I lost almost 1/2 the time I had alotted to just dealing with things going on in my life. But in the end I figured it was just time to punt.

2. Hopefully I'll sell some guitars and takes some orders.

3. I want to make sure people remember me, and that's a biggie. I figure in 2 years the handbuilt market will slim down a bit from where it is today, it's pretty competitive right now with a large number of builders who will come and go. I just want to stay steady and keep building no matter what happens, if I can make an impression then I'm doing the right thing.

I'm a little scared (okay alot) but also very excited at the prospect of what can happen, like others I've poured alot into doing this, if it pays out it could be the pivot point for a large change in my life, alot of pieces are starting to fall into place. I am also VERY much looking forward to spending some time with some of the great builders who frequent this system, they are great people I have the highest regard for. I kid and joke with them but in the end I in awe of what they are capable of....

Cheers

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Paul,

Good luck at the HGF. Look me up. Yea my thought on going to show is more as advertising. Get my stuff in some players hand etc. I have heard that lots of guitars do get sold at the HGF, but often nothing happens on the spot, yet sales may come in later on. As you stated in #3 if you are in it for the long haul, then selling a guitar at the show isn't quite as important as a continuing presence in the market.

As far as the dark side, well I had plenty of quirky things happen too. It is part of the business. I am getting better at avoiding them but murphy still comes around. Once he rears his ugly head, it is important to deal with it calmly. I guess that why even though we build guitars, we still need to know just as much about repair.

I would be interested in what you find out about UV. I think it presents a whole new set of hazards. I also think it may be quite expensive to get spun up. I investigated it a little a couple of years ago, but have not looked into it since.

Well I hope to see ya out there, I'll be leaving in the AM.

I'm leaving early Thursday morning.. and I just finished all my guitars!!
Whoo hoo! Finally. Talk about cutting it close :) ended up only taking 5
instruments. 1 acoustic 2 electrics, and 2 ukes. Still a lot for me as they
are all spec, and I rarely get to build this much on spec.. it was "fun" :)

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

I have 4 with me right now that can go, the Flag, the Zircote, the Thinbody and the Koa. I just put pickguards on all of them so I'm set.

The last is a new fanned fret I really want to show, it's going through setup right now so I should be able to do 5 for the whole show.

I really wanted to take a classical but it just didn't work out this time, Such is life, I'm just happy with what I have...

We are leaving thursday around noon, go the hotel and check in and then over to the festival for check in there. John O I saw you in Acoustic Guitar and want to pick your brain about that, the ONLY other thing left for me is a special case we ordered for the flag guitar from Cedar Creek, he hasn't been returning our calls (I figure he's swamped) so either it will show up this week or I'll have to go buy one for it...

Either way it's almost party time

Cheers

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Thanks, Paul
I hope your trip is all you want it to be.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

I’m not going but have been going through the same things on the Ovation replacement OM. Trying to meet a Aug 31 delivery so that it can go to a wedding the first week in Sep. The client has a cousin that is a world touring Christian performer that wants a chance to play it before he leaves for England this fall. This cousin has played one of my OMs I lent to Tanner till this one is complete and liked it. I was told that if his cousin liked it as much as the OM I lent to Tanner, that there would probably be a two box match pair order right away. One OM and a Dread 12 string. All I need is more pressure.

I will name, names if I get the orders