It's finished

My kids took a vote and decided on blue, I like it. It will be hanging around the shop for awhile but won't be for sale until a few more are made. The guitar hangers we use in the shop will be available soon too.

John

I'm looking for a name

Stick Dulcimer (it needs a better name)

We used to sell Stick Dulcimers a number of years ago but the guy who made them moved away. A week ago I thought I'd look into making them in house. After an evening of careful planning I came up with a design that could be made mostly from one piece of wood.

I used the wood from an old dresser that I had taken apart last summer. The drawer fronts were cut into 1 1/2" strips and glued up in twos. Then they were cut to make the neck and sides (all one piece) and fingerboard. I got an off cut piece of spruce for the top and utilized the dresser drawer bottoms as a back. The fingerboard is fretted like a dulcimer (diatonic scale) meaning you can't really play a wrong note on them. This makes them fun for the novice and an interesting challenge for a player.

I plan to make more of these and sell them in the store, it will 3 or 4 weeks before they are ready and I want to keep the price under $150.

John

I'm just sayin'

Late at night when everyone is sleeping and there is $25 in your Paypal account, you to could end up with Gold Chicken Head knobs. I have black buffalo horn from a similar event.

Humidity

Lack of humidity keeps me busy this time of year. Often older guitars seem to be more resilient in the dry cold winters, don't be fooled I get guitars in that are 30 and 40 years old showing thier first damage from dry winters. Humidify your instruments.

Old case humidifiers should be replaced by the latest great new humidifier, right now that would be the Oasis Plus not the regular blue one but the Plus model that is made for climates like ours. Years ago I liked the Dampit (green worm shaped thing) Two years ago we were pushing the Planet Waves humidifier and had great hopes for thier system that required no refilling.

The Oasis Plus wins the Sled Dog Music Award for best conceived and executed humidifier on the market today. It's a gortex tube with ¼ tsp of crystals in it, add distilled water and the water turns into a gel. You get a controlled evap rate in a sealed container. When the container is empty it shrivels, giving you a visual that it needs to be filled again.


I just placed an order for Oasis humidifiers, we've gone through several dozen this winter and we're low in stock I expect to see more in two weeks.

John

Soon to be expatriate

Manitoba Hal is moving to Nova Scotia, so it's farewell to Manitoba for Hal. (there should be a song in that) I'd like to set the record straight, under the category of the-one-thing-everyone-knows-about... fill in the appropriate bit of common knowledge.

Hal is not changing his name, the marquees will not be sporting the name Nova Scotia Hal, Liverpool Louie, or the transvested Glace Bay Gladys. No he will be billed as (expatriate) Manitoba Hal. Ex Pat Pat is probably going to far but I thought I'd throw it out there. In 9 days Hal will be touring east through Canada on his way to NS, you can follow him on his website, Facebook, Twitter, My Space and podpigeon.

If you see Hal in the next nine days don't try to change his name, wish him well and say goodbye.


John

Guitar to tres conversion

A few weeks ago, a month actually, I was asked to convert a 3/4 size guitar into a tres. ( Google Cuban tres guitar) I have worked on several of these instruments installing pickups and putting them back together. Many of them are modified guitars, converted with varying degrees of success. Some are made to be a tres, again with varying degrees of sucess.

The Ebase 3/4 size guitar which features a cutaway and pickup is a well-made $150 guitar, and as it turns out is an ideal candidate for the conversion to a Tres. I was able to fill 4 of the bridge pin holes (leaving the two outside holes intact) with ebony bridge pins cutting and trimming them flush after the glue dried. I then reconfigured the bridge pin holes, one forward and one back to accommodate the tight string spacing necessary for double courses ( like a 12 string guitar ) .

To layout the nut correctly I had to establish where the 2 outside nut slots would be. Measuring to the center of the nut positioned the middle course of strings. A new saddle was required, the original being compensated in a way that was no benefit to a tres. After this, clean up and stringing were all that was needed to be done to complete the conversion.

John

Pick up rewinding

Broken pickups can be saved by rewinding, you get the benefit of the aged magnets and brand new wire the best of both worlds. We'll be getting parts in soon to make custom pickups.

John