I Guess This Makes Me A Luthier

luthier /loo͞′tē-ər/

noun

1. One that makes or repairs stringed instruments, such as violins.
2. One who makes wooden stringed instruments, such as violins, guitars, etc.
3. A person who, or a business which, makes or repairs stringed wooden musical instruments, such as lutes, violins, and guitars.
4. A craftsman who makes stringed instruments (as lutes or guitars or violins). 

 

 

Apparently I am, according to definition #3. However, my experience is even more limited than my experience as a amateur gunsmith. Oh well, I will add it to my multi faceted list of skills and abilities.

I have been diligently practicing on my lap steel guitar when I am home alone or if I have access to the big screen TV in the living room. I am subscribed to Troy Brenningmeyer's Youtube channel where he has some great free videos. It's much easier to see and rewind on the big screen than on my phone. Every day I get a little bit better with not making extra sounds or notes, picking strings properly without looking, holding and placing the tone bar properly, hammering the strings, doing ring outs, pull offs, slants, and pick blocking. For example, hammering properly doing multiple notes in succession requires having my ring finger contact the string(s) right before the tone bar hits them and that takes lots of repetition to get right. I will do the same hammer over and over trying to build proper muscle memory. If I plateau and need more instruction, Troy has a website called "Lessons With Troy" that you can pay for more lessons, sheet music, and accompaniment jam track files. I have a few songs I work on one at a time in the Open D tuning by simply copying what he does repeatedly. The Allman Brothers "Midnight Rambler", Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks" (actually in F tuning made by using a capo on the 3rd fret), the opening slide parts of Pink Floyd's "Breathe", and "Ghost Riders In The Sky" by Stan Jones. I also work on the "X", "L" and "U" patterns as well as several bluesy licks and riffs, some demonstrated, some I "found" on my own. I am able to do so much more than when it was set up for Hawaiian music, that I am really into it. Sometimes just making sounds and trying to put notes together that sound good helps me learn where things are. A lot of Troy's videos use the dual camera angle, so you can see the picking and tone bar placement.

A photo of Troy's "X's and L's" video on my TV

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Several years ago I cleaned and restored the guitar. I junked the old strings, took the guitar apart, took apart and re-soldered the electrical connections, repaired the tuning mechanism, re-strung it, played with it a bit, and put it away.

Playing it now has me doing things with it I never did before. Like playing strings 1 and 2 very high up the neck, like on fret 21, 23 and higher. I noticed I was losing the sound. Weird, I thought until I did a little investigating. First off, being an older instrument I wish to preserve as well as play, I have a lighter set of strings than would be on a modern instrument. This allows for more downward flex with the tone bar. I discovered string 1 and 2 (but mostly string 1) was contacting the top surface of the pickup, muting the strings when I got that high up on the neck. The reason was the plate the pickup and controls are mounted on was warped and forcing the pickup upwards into the strings. I decided I would disassemble my guitar once again to correct. That was my project for earlier today after getting off work and getting the weekend chores out of the way.

A close up of the "L" shaped chrome plated mounting plate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I couldn't remember how the guitar was made and put together, but I knew it wasn't too difficult to work on. Once again, it never dawned on me to photograph what I was doing. DOH!! I used my padded gun bench in the basement to do the work.

First was to remove the strings. To make life easier I removed the chrome plated cover over the bridge. From there I released tension on all six strings, and then unwound the strings one at a time from the tuning machine post. I also discovered the three mounting screws for the bridge were not tight and cranked them down tightly. No wonder I had to constantly re-tune it! Once all the strings were removed, I removed the five wood screws holding the mounting plate in place. There is a wire that goes to the output jack soldered in place. I removed the retaining nut on the jack and the whole plate came away free. Well, looky here... I found the problem! It was either a manufacturing defect, or someone many decades ago changed or serviced the pickup. The pickup mounts to the plate with four tabs, one in each corner, that goes through corresponding slots in the mounting plate and are bent over at 90 degrees. The plate with the pickup lies flat on the guitar body, and there is only a recess under the controls by the output jack. No provisions were made for the pickup mounting tabs in the guitar body! That caused the plate to warp and raise the pickup too high. There were marks from the tabs on the guitar body, so I used a very small chisel and a soft mallet to create a small recess for each tab at their corresponding marks. When I test fit the plate after my modifications it sat flush on the guitar body. I then hand stretched the first and second strings across the bridge and nut and BINGO! plenty of clearance now. I re-installed the output jack and re-mounted the plate to the guitar. I re-strung all the strings and replaced the bridge cover. The clearance between all six strings and the top surface of the pickup looked perfect.

I went and got my chromatic tuner, picks, tone bar, amp, and cord and headed back down to test my work. Tuning with the chromatic tuner is done without the need for the amp. It clamps to the headstock and uses vibration to read the string. You just pluck the strings one at a time, turning the tuning key up or down depending on the readout on the tuner. Once it was in tune, I plugged in and fired up the amp. I was able to pluck the first string all the way up to the very last fret with the tone ringing out crystal clear, even with the lighter strings. I did some licks and riffs and everything sounded normal. There was no change in sound with the minute amount of wood I removed.

My Fender Tuner from eBay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided that before getting any effects pedals, I would get a new amp. Two reasons; put away and preserve my beautiful and rare existing amp, and the one I bought has built is effects and a battery for portability. Nothing big or too fancy, just this Boss Katana 10W amp again off eBay and again from Sweetwater's eBay store. It has built in reverb, tremolo, and has an input gain control I believe will let me overdrive the input to create some distortion without having to but a pedal. We'll see. It is supposed to arrive via FEDEX tomorrow.... can't wait!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had it in my "Watchlist" for about a week, and they offered it to me for $15 off and free shipping, so I pulled the trigger.

I uploaded these two recordings. This first one is just a strum of all six strings in the Open D tuning.

 

This next one is a strum of all six strings in F using the capo, and a riff from "When The Levee Breaks" that comes late in the song.

 

Those are as close as anyone is gonna get to any kind of "performance"