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 in 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 buy 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"

Don't Do It, Please! Get Help

I deal with EMS suicidal psych eval calls quite a bit, and until recently, those were the only people that ever heard my story. I use it as a mechanism to get them to trust that I truly understand where they are coming from. I finally told my story to a trusted co-worker the other day after yet another suicidal individual went in the ambulance, and decided since my true identity isn't known to post it here. Maybe it could help someone. I have never told my wife or anyone else close to me. It's just embarrassing.

Forty years ago, I attempted to throw away God's Greatest Gift for being in a situation that I thought there was no way out of. Lucky for me, I was not successful. Hell, I was not even injured, and it was the circumstances of that attempt that made me never contemplate such a foolish and selfish thing again. Funny thing was, I had been a gun owner for years and that method never crossed my mind prior to how it really happened.

Without the details, I thought it was a real bad situation with no good way out of. I was still in the Army Reserves, had a good paying civilian job, and my wife was six months pregnant. This day was a few weeks after the "situation" and I was in a deep depression over it. I was working for Northern Telecom normally assigned to CT Bank & Trust, but there was a large project going on at Aetna so they were pulling guys in off other sites for a two week stint to help out. They were renovating the upper floors of City Place in Hartford for new offices. I was was putting new phone jacks on cables that were being re-used and was working all alone on the 34th floor. I did not have a radio to listen to so I was alone on this large quiet office floor with my thoughts. I started thinking about where I was, and wondered what if I were to take the one-way high speed trip to the sidewalk? I kept thinking about it, then dwelling on it, and all the time not thinking about my pregnant wife or other blessings. Just trying to make the depression and thoughts of the situation go away permanently. ENOUGH! I'm gonna do it.... RIGHT NOW!

I looked out the windows to see which side of the building was best. I did not want to land on the roof of an adjacent building so I chose the Haynes Street side of the building which would give me a clear shot 34 floors down to the sudden stop on pavement. The plan was to take out the window with a heavy object and follow it out. I grabbed a large office chair on wheels and heaved it at the window.

It turns out, high-rise office windows are tempered glass, not plate glass. Tempered glass doesn't break with large blunt force unless it is truly overwhelming, it needs concentrated force like a spring punch or a bullet to craze it into little squares like a car window. The chair simply bounced off the window, landed on its wheels, and spun around a few times. It was like it was laughing at me for being so stupid. I sat down on the floor, alternately laughing and crying for the next hour and took it as a sign from God Himself to never do such a foolish thing again.

I was still depressed but no longer suicidal. I decided to tough it out and take it like a man. I wanted to meet my new daughter, be with my wife, and continue to live.

Well, it turned out to be a big nothing burger after all that was resolved without much fuss. I have since been in a couple of similarly bad situations, but taking the permanent solution NEVER entered into the equation. But prayer did and based on these situations, the only reason they eventually worked out or became nothing I can only attribute to God hearing and answering my prayers. Chose to believe or not, but I do.

ALERT!

Working in emergency services, I have the ability to declare an MCI.... "Mass Casualty Incident" any time resources are overwhelmed by casualties. 

Therefore, I am declaring a nationwide MCI right now, for all the Demon-Crap Libturd heads exploding coast to coast after President Trump's impromptu press conference yesterday.

"Riviera of The Middle East"... indeed.

The winning continues unabated.

Time To Pick This Up Again

 My 1946 vintage Regal lap steel guitar in Sunburst with matching amplifier. It was my Mother's. She started playing when she was 8 which would have been 1946. It spent a couple of decades in the attic of my parent's house. I have messed with it off and on since I was a teen.  Several years ago I restored it to what you see in the following photos. I replaced the strings with a set of John Pearse Am6 which gives it the "Hawaiian sound." I want to play blues on it, so it is going to get a new set of John Pearse "Open D" strings set #3160 from SteelGuitarShopper.com. It uses lighter gauge wire for older or delicate instruments.

The original case. The loose fasteners were all repaired

Dig that purple soft fur inside

A closeup of the headstock and original Regal decal. The original tuning keys were Mother of Pearl, but had crumbled away to nothing. I replaced them with faux Mother of Pearl for the original look. They simply press onto the spline of the tuner set.

The next photo is the business end. I disassembled everything, cleaned the pots, rewired and re-soldered all the connections. No more static or hums. I polished all the bright work and the pickup. While it was down to the bare wood body, I gave it a wipe down with Murphy's Oil Soap. It made the Sunburst finish pop. It also got a new 10' cord with gold-plated plug ends. The original was made of stiff wire and used telephone switchboard plugs. I kept it along with some other old parts.

Now I have seen these guitars for sale online anywhere from $299 to $800 depending on condition. The condition of mine put it with those at the higher end. I have never seen the matching amplifier that I have which still sounds great. I saw different Regal lap steel model with a matching amp and I believe it was like $1500 for both. I have no desire to part with any of this. After my demise, my wife can do whatever she wants with it.

The amp with its fitted cover on the left

The rear. The rubberized cord is like new

 

And finally, the stack of original music books she had. On the right were song sheets she bought at the local music store with pop songs and Christmas carols. Up on the top left folded up is her music stand.

I don't have any interest in playing the Hawaiian music that was popular when my Mother was young. Hawaii was not yet a state but was a cool and exotic place so everyone was into it. Her music class was quite large. I have a photo somewhere and there were like 20 kids in it. 

This is the video that got me interested again. I never knew my guitar could make such wonderful sounds, and so easy to play! He explains the tuning which is D-A-D-F#-A-D but his guitar is more modern than mine and can take the heavier strings of like a John Pearse #3150 Open D Heavy. I am also considering a different slide bar in place of the solid round stainless bar I have now. I like this Dunlop 928 Ben Harper Signature Tone Bar but I may be able to pick one up locally. It seems easier to hold and control. Maybe later add some effects like distortion and reverb.

Don't expect to see any music videos for a long time if at all. I haven't touched it in a long time, and with the cold dry air my fingers are cracked and painful.

I Will Be Watching & Enjoying

The confirmation hearing of one Kash Patel, that is.

I have been watching the hearings so far just to see how absolutely committed to personal destruction the Commies in The Senate are, and just how stupid it truly makes them look. I believe a group of Commie operatives sit with these morons in the so-called smoke filled back room and distribute the questions out among them so they all get to ask opposition questions. This is so it doesn't look like what it actually is.... BORKING a nominee. So far the nominees have weathered this onslaught. But I predict one nominee whose hearing has not been scheduled is gonna give it right back to them, prompting this post from me on X.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's right, nominee for FIBBIE Director, Kash Patel. Since it would appear despite the opposition from the Commies and RINOS, President Trump's nominees are going to be confirmed. I put this post out this morning after a terse discussion with my wife about not attending a family vacation in Florida because I am on a self-imposed no fly list. The other reason I won't go is because I refuse to visit or give one red cent to the woke fucking mouse.

 

 

 

 

If, after he takes over and does this, and the bullshit TSA kabuki theater could be minimized, I may fly commercial again.

Speaking of the FIBBIES, you motherfuckers only have 3 more days to kick in my door at zero-dark-thirty, terrorize my wife, kill me and our 4 dogs, or if I happen to survive.... haul me off to solitary confinement deep within Garland's Gulag.