Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks everyone! There is clearly enough interest so let's have a gathering!

Our shop is not all that large, about 1,000 square feet but I think that we could fit in 15 - 20 folks but it will be a bit crowded.

What I am thinking is a Saturday when folks are off and we are closed so that we are not interrupted by folks dropping off shredders and pre-war Martins.... We could have some presentations and if anyone here would like to present an informal presentation short or long please let me know and the topics too?

Live music is possible too and if anyone wants to share a performance with us let me know please?

Lunch would be brought in and folks could bring stuff to swap or sell too if they wanted to.

We are still cleaning out the stuff of Herb David so there will be some tools for sale including a long-belt sander like what Gibson uses to shape necks, a small Inca table saw all for sale and going cheap. We also have stacks upon stacks of wood, back and side sets, mahogany, EIRW including one piece EIRW backs, and possibly a set of BRW. Much of the wood has been stored here for 30 - 50 years..... so it should be well seasoned...

If you have never visited a busy, three Luthier dedicated repair shop this is your chance to see how stuff is done in the real world.

Most of all though we are open to ideas as to what you folks would like to see in terms of short presentations, etc. The prospective date is still being coordinated but it could be March 29th if that works out for our people. More to come on this.

We are located in the epicenter of Ann Arbor's very busy downtown business district so if you wanna bring your significant others and they might enjoy some shopping I suspect that they would really enjoy Ann Arbor weather permitting. We also have an art gallery on the first floor but that's a long story....

Keep posting here if you think that you might be interested and if enough people want to come we may split this into two groups one in the AM and one in the PM.

Thanks and it will be great to meet some of the folks who are interested and we have not yet met.

Merry Christmas too!

Thanks for that Todd! I'm not in the shop today so I will check the model number tomorrow and see what we have.

At one point Herb was fancying being a dealer for Inca stuff so there was a lot of it in our shop when we moved in. The bandsaw was a three wheel design and not very good IMHO with lots of flex, etc. We replaced it with a Rikon 14" deluxe that I moved from my home shop to Ann Arbor and gave the Inca to one of our guys who works for us. He was happy to get it and we even moved it to his shop for him.

By the way two of our tools were Dan Earlywine's Dad's, a belt sander and drill press. Dan got started in Lutherie with Herb David back in the day. Bryan Gallop too so there is a notable linage of well-known Luthiers who were spawned in A2 (Ann Arbor).

Thanks for the info Todd and Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Great to have you posting again.Not sure if I can make it but I will try.The last one was a lot of fun.My daughter no longer lives in your republic.

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Hi James!

I was going to PM you to make sure that you knew about our gatherings so it's good that you posted here! I hope that all is well with you and hope that you can come to the gathering too.