Approach the temple with reverence. Every… time… This workshop is constructed from re-arranged pickup truck-sized chunks of my mentor’s shop. Think about that. Not from a distance looking at my world but as a ripple of YOUR teachers, as a ray from those gone whose light you carry and shine out with yours. This is what we’ve been getting to so far as the mythical Uncle Johnny presence in all of this - it began with MY presence in HIS space. Gracing me with a corner of it to build in, he had showed me how to turn my guitars into wood art and I showed him how to turn his wood art into guitars. After he died, his land needed to be sold – sans low-buck self-built weathered buildings - so I tore down his workshop and brought it home. I stacked it under huge tarps until the same intentional community circle that built the green shop put this one together next to it during another work party. If the green shop is where they are transformed from pieces of tree into musical instruments, this place is where they come to life. It’s literally where my dream guitar company came to life, and it’s where your dream bass guitars do the same. More of how I view a workshop can be found in A Craftsman’s Path, available through Amazon here.
Assembly. A gathering for higher purpose. Once the neck and body – now an instrument and no longer merely parts – is here, a typical assembly goes like this: Neck screw holes, strap button holes, install neck screws, wax, let cure; fit tuning machines, line control cavity with copper, fit ground wire, mount bridge. Setup happens in stages so first neck adjustment now. Mark & drill control holes through. Load & pre-wire. Fit pickups, nut blank, first layers on what other pieces are needed – truss rod & neck end covers, control plate, etc. Get those crafted, sanded & finished. Check neck & fretboard again, now slot & dress nut, do a layer of fret detail, and put on strings doing quickie rough adjustments to the action and intonation as it happens. Let it sit and settle in. Adjust again. Serial number. Final wire-up, fitting of the strap buttons and dressing, drilling for & fitting plates and covers (except truss rod cover – that’s the last piece on after final setup & adjustment), test play and adjustment, QC look-over (though the whole build process is an ongoing quality control inspection as it happens), final adjustments, final test ‘n tune, blessing, paperwork, wrench baggie and anything else going in the case, wipe off and detail, pictures. Write the address I’ve probably verified with you twice and hand that to Jamie for scheduling. Packing. And off to the waiting hands where its real journey begins!
All of this goes on with a few instruments together, creating small batch work – this is the only efficient way to keep things moving how they need to be to sustain the shop. Making one truss rod cover, cutting one control plate, etc. happens occasionally - but in all stages of the process from buying planks to running the packed instruments to FedEx, it’s usually groups of three or pairs, sometimes even four or five. This means when I’m in wiring mode, I’m IN wiring mode – not just there for a quickie after doing something else with my mind on what’s next on another bench. I’m WIRING. It’s WIRING O’CLOCK. That’s what time it is. My favorite things to listen to while wiring are on, I’m in that space in that moment with all needed tools and parts right there, and we wire. Most steps along the way of this are like that here. I don’t like to be run amok and I don’t want amok energy coming out of me into what I’m making, whether it’s a Cortobass or a stir fry rice with roasted cherry coconut cream sauce. The process flow listed above is very simplified; there is a lot of movement, motion, preparation, and timing that leaves out – lost in the translation from the “doing” to the “talking about doing”… which are two very different things. Each step is part of the journey and could have its own paragraph.
A word on setup: I don’t set up to numbers. I set each instrument up until it’s right. Playing comfortably to the hands, with the sonic response and detail my ears hear as somewhat melted together and balanced, with the neck looking right to my eyes, all performing AS ONE. Nothing jumping out – just feeling, looking, sounding, and responding to the touch in a refined way. Some leave final setup – that last round of adjustments – to the player or their tech; I dial mine in here to where it’s friggin’ fantastic to me. I’d rather have you raising the action because you dig in harder, with my best in your hands dialed in to its limits, than to receive some half-set-up instrument that plays like something off the rack at Guitar Monolith Superstore, who is giving you the big discount partly because not one qualified person has touched that product since it left the factory halfway around the world months ago, and even there it’s questionable. At their basic function, what comes out of this workshop are simple instruments. Whatever amount of high-end materials, Rolls Royce detail, and Ferrari performance is designed in and crafted in, these are simple machines that are easy to adjust and I’ve talked many clients through any little adjustments needed on their end.
Speaking of END, so ends our series on the basic sketch of how it happens in here! Thanks for reading all of this - it’s been a part of everybody’s life who came through it and it’s a BIG part of life as I now know it. And, as for MY end, it’s outta here for the week - have a great one! Go start something good. Let it take you on the journey.
Listening to: Lots of John Coltrane, Stobe The Hobo audio, Bob Seger The Distance, Keith Richards Life (autobiography audiobook), Aerosmith Rocks.