The Guitar Designer's Workshop

PBS Television Visits the Workshop

You will want to turn off the jukebox audio before watching this clip. ➚
OFF switch is in the right hand column. ➚

 

No Corners Worth Cutting

I’ve spent a lot of my life cutting corners. Carrying two bags of groceries at a time to save steps, or taking a back street to clip a few precious seconds off a trip to the store. We all do it. My hobby is racing sports cars—the ultimate corner cutting exercise. 

At age thirteen I devised jigs and fixtures to hold brass tubing in place while soldering them into slot-car chassis to be sold at a local hobby store. A succession of factory jobs building things like film inspection machines, splicers, mechanical scales and grain moisture testers introduced me to the big-time of cost-cutting time management. Even my promotion to purchasing agent at nineteen taught me the ideas of maintaining a lean inventory and shaving pennies off an order. Later, my studies with Japanese Kaizen gurus Yoshihisa Doi and Hajime Oba took this to an even higher level. You might say it’s in my blood to look for a better, faster, cheaper way.

 

 
When I first set up shop as a guitar maker, those same skills helped to fashion jigs and fixtures that kept things consistent and maintained an orderly flow. My training had also taught me to seek help and insight from those more experienced than myself. So, in 1980, while setting up the Hamer guitar factory in Illinois I invited a visit from Stan Rendell, former President of Gibson Guitars. As he looked around, Rendell pointed out places where money and time could be saved without upsetting the customer. He mentioned that he could help whittle the time it took to make a complete guitar to under eight man-hours. I was horrified. The changes he suggested would certainly have reduced manufacturing time, but not without consequence. It became clear that the modern world had shifted its focus from improvement and consistency, to reducing cost without affecting customer perception.

 

Today, I’m beginning my second day of testing pickups for the Sakura guitar. Every build goes through this process because every guitar is different and unique. From experience, it’s easy to whittle down the choices before I even begin. Still there are variables that only ear testing can address. I have a test rig that holds a pickup in place under strings to give me a baseline along with measuring the impedance and inductance. Because the Sakura guitar has steel plates on both front and back, the inductance will be important. Still, the final ear testing in the guitar will be the final exam.  

When I talk to people about what I do, the thing that always surprises them the most is how much time it takes. In a one-click world where the emphasis is continually on saving time and cutting costs, this kind of patient work is almost viewed as quaint. I could just put a pickup that was deemed “good enough” in the guitar and assume that the customer will change it out anyway. But that would be a waste of my skills. I just remind folks that I’ve already cut enough corners for several lifetimes.

 

Axe in Hand

Not too far from here an old factory sits quietly alongside the Farmington river. Once upon a time it was the pride of the townspeople. The products made there were superior quality and sold around the world. The company employed most of the town. Those were the good times, but now they’re gone. Groups of business people have tried to revive and repurpose the old mill—none to any good effect. Sure, there are still some tenants inside. A few businesses continue to turn out some product, but for the most part, bitter and defeated ghosts walk the hallways.

I thought about the old axe factory today as I cut up some kindling for the wood stove that heats my shop. The small Fayette R. Plumb Co. hatchet I use almost every day felt good in my hand—its hickory handle burnished smooth from decades of use. Most of the original finish on the handle has worn off, and the gold foil Boy Scout seal is tattered and illegible. I’ve had this tool since 1963 when I joined the Scouts at age eleven. Somehow, it has followed me through countless moves back and forth across the country. I’ve always taken it for granted.

 

The Plumb tool company can be traced back to Jonathan Yerkes, who had been an established Moreland, Pennsylvania toolmaker since 1856. Yerkes moved his concern to Philadelphia and partnered with a young man named Fayette Plumb in 1887. Eventually, Plumb bought out his partner and the name was changed to the Fayette R. Plumb Company. These were tools made to work and made to last. Over the next hundred years, Plumb manufactured fine tools in Philadelphia, until the company was consolidated with the Cooper Group and manufacturing was shifted primarily to China to cut costs. 

Like so many products once made in this country, axes are much cheaper to buy from places like Mexico and China. Will those tools stand the test of time? Now, I don’t doubt that the people who toil in those foreign factories are fine folks. They deserve a shot at a better life, just like our ancestors did here. It only makes me sad that most of what remains of all that effort is a tool that will probably outlive me. 

 

Interestingly, my particular Plumb hatchet utilizes an epoxy resin to attach the head to handle. The process, which Plumb patented on September 2, 1958 is said to reduce the vibration of the tool overall. Reducing vibration is obviously a benefit in a striking tool but not in a guitar. That gummy epoxy is still doing its job today fifty years later. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an axe to grind.

 

 

Crow Wing Spread in Guitar Player

With about fifteen minutes to kill before our pizza was ready for pick up, my wife and I ducked into Barnes & Noble. Carla headed directly for the photography magazines while I hovered over a copy of Vintage Motorcycles. Eventually, I made my way to the music section and opened up a copy of the latest Guitar Player.

The main subject was dedicated to fuzz boxes so I was curious and hoping to see some coverage of my good friend Analogman. Before I got to the effects-pedal article I found something that stopped me dead and brought a smile to my face.

Wow! Just wow. There she was, spread out over two full pages—Rick Whittey’s epic shot of the Crow perched on a tree branch. Now, of course I knew that the editors had the shot, but I wasn’t prepared for this. Even when you pour yourself into a project like I do, you’re still happy when people “get it” and this told me that they did.

I rounded the corner of the aisle where Carla was standing and flashed the spread just to see her beautiful smile.

Thanks guys. 

 

Jol Dantzig Guitar News

Just a quick note. Thank you to everyone who has been reading, writing and encouraging me during this first year in the new shop. Special thanks to the owners of the first instrument commissions—I owe my rekindled enthusiasm for building to your stubborn insistence  that I should do what I love. The snowball has started rolling down the hill, and I'm just trying to hold on!

You may have noticed the NEWSLETTER signup fields in the left hand column. Because the blog is primarily where I write about the design and building process, there's a lot of stuff that gets left out. The newsletter is designed to capture the goings-on that aren't covered in the blog, so you'll definitely want to sign up.

Also, thanks to Kris Z who has forced me at gunpoint to interact on Facebook and Twitter (yeah, even I can't believe it) and is now spearheading the newsletter for me. He's pushing to make T-shirts and hats available, and I told him if we reach 10,000 fans on FACEBOOK I'd consider it. We're at something like 8200 so there's a good chance this will happen soon. I actually need a new hat because my Oakley endorsement ended, so maybe you'll "like" me on FB and I'll get a Dantzig hat. That would be cool.

Again, thanks for your support and interest in my work.

Testing Frosted Duco Lacquer

It is amazing how followers this blog, and The Crow Guitar build have been very supportive and encouraging. And now the time for color coats has arrived. The back will remain clear to show the flame, but now the rest of the guitar can be painted.

Months ago when I embarked upon The Crow’s journey, I had a vision of it as a living, breathing creation. As the Workshop filled with crow and Kerouac prompts, The Crow guitar became more and more alive in my mind.

Even when working on other projects, The Crow was never far from my thoughts, and its presence hovered over the shop. Friends mentioned that they were noticing crows. People sent me crow photographs and stories. A stuffed crow arrived by FedEx. 

 
I was concerned about the finish. The guitar’s construction was enough to make The Crow a singular instrument, but how was I going to finish the guitar in a way that reflected the theme completely? I knew it had to be black, but it needed something epic to convey the message visually.

One morning I spied a pair of crows in a tree above the shop—I shot a few photos and went inside. When I put the photos up on my computer screen I noticed how the light reflects off the feathers. The birds are black, and they are shiny, but it’s not an even reflection. This played right into my new obsession with lower-gloss nitro finishes. I had an idea, but it wouldn't be easy.

The Vintage Solution

From 1928 to 1941 the National company made resonator guitars from German silver (actually an alloy of nickel, zink and steel) as well as  brass and steel. Some of them were nickel plated—others were painted to imitate wood like this rare Tricone.

Others were coated with what is now referred to as the “frosted” Duco finish. This paint got its name because it dried to a texture that resembled frost on a windowpane. It was available for a short time in a few colors including a greenish gold and a clear.

The original Duco paint was made with tar camphor—the stuff mothballs are made of. It fell out of favor and was discontinued and is considered a lost process by many. I thought that if The Crow could be done in a black version of this finish it would be the perfect thing. I don't think there ever was a vintage National in Duco black, but I was convinced that it could be done. The nitro-based finish would have to made from scratch using the original recipe in order to get results.

  

Starting with a 99% pure naphthalene compound, I added the black nitro and satin flattener until I got a solution that gave me the results I was looking for. It took about three weeks of testing to get a solution that would go through the gun yet still “frost” when it dried. I found that the paint is very sensitive to temperature and the thickness of the coat. It stinks to high heaven too.

There was no way of telling exactly how it would turn out, so I shot a ton of test pieces to get a handle on how to control it as much as possible. Once I had what I wanted, I sprayed a small sample on one page of the journal I'm keeping for the guitar. 

The trick with this paint is that it can’t be topcoated with clear. Any application of finish over the Duco melts the pattern and it disappears. Once you’ve shot it—that’s it. This presents an interesting problem on how to deal with the binding. After some contemplation, I devised a plan. You'll have to check back here to see it.

More Vintage Americana: Salvaged Electronics

The Western Electric Company was America’s largest producer of electrical gear from 1870 until the 1980s. Known for their Bell Telephones and associated switchgear, they also manufactured amplifiers, speakers, microphones and wire. By 1917 their Hawthorne Works plant in Chicago was one of the largest manufacturing facilities in the world. Although the plant is now gone, what remains is a legacy of American manufacturing might, and a massive research project known as the Hawthorne Studies.

 
The Hawthorne Studies were something I’d read about in high school. It was fascinating, and I struggled to use it as a guide when I became a factory department-manager at age nineteen. This research named for studies done at the behemoth Western Electric Hawthorne Works factory in Chicago was the world’s most comprehensive employee behavioral observation when conducted between 1924 and 1932. The Hawthorne Works sprawled over one hundred acres, employed over forty thousand Americans and generated a staggering $300,000,000.00 per year. This is equivalent to about $3.7 billion in today’s money.

With vast amounts of capital to spend and even more to make through creating efficiencies, the Western Electric Company embarked upon an odyssey to use their employees as lab rats to determine how to make them work faster and better. The research covered all aspects of worker life too. The effects of smoking, alcohol and diet were put under the microscope in an exhaustive attempt to fine-tune Western Electric’s massive operation.

In the workplace, researchers noticed a curious thing while conducting observations. If they increased lighting levels, productivity increased. When they lowered the lighting, productivity increased as well. By the time I read the studies in 1968 it was common knowledge that when workers know they are being studied, they tend to buckle down and try to look good for the bosses. My take-away from all of this was that people just want to be recognized for their contributions. It’s not about manipulating or threatening people, it’s about appreciation.

When W.E. closed down, the assets were scattered to the winds. As part of the Federal Communications Commission’s break-up of AT&T, Western Electric was absorbed by a new entity, AT&T Technologies, in 1984. An American manufacturer was crushed.

 
As luck would have it, I managed to collect a stash of Western Electric parts manufactured in the Hawthorne facility. I’ve always been a fan of tube amplification and mechanical switching mechanisms like the ones produced at Hawthorne, and a lot of this stuff was rescued from telephone switching stations when they went digital.

Here is some vintage cloth-covered Western Electric wire that I plan to use in The Crow, Sakura and Hell’s Half-Acre. It looks great, and is made to an insanely high quality compared to the imported junk available today. Think about the incalculable amount of  energy and human conversation that has traveled through this wire. Routine or romantic calls, cries for help or joyous good news—this wire has heard it all. With its installation in a guitar, the work of the fine Western Electric employees can be appreciated again.

Old Wood for the New Hell's Half Acre

Yesterday was a good day in The Workshop. The Sakura’s finish got sanded and sprayed with new coats of nitro. I selected a nice medium weight mahogany blank for Hell’s Half Acre and began mapping out the body. Because I make guitars one at a time, I can afford the luxury of finding and using really exquisite boards—many of which have been sitting for decades.

This guitar will be a single cutaway solid body with a pair of humbucking pickups. The main section of the body will be a single slab of Honduras mahogany, with a figured maple top and back. The 8/4 billet above weighed in at fourteen pounds, but it’s going to lose well over half of that in machining.

This is what the blank looks like after a few passes through the planer. A nice clean piece, ready to get a top and back. It’s almost a shame to cover up that beautiful grain, but we'll know it’s in there, won’t we?

 

The Crow: Charlie Christian Pickups

I'd been playing guitar for about six years when I first heard Charlie Christian. Of course, everything changed that day in 1970. It was no secret that many of my influences had been influenced by those who had come before them, but it was usually a reference to a 1950s player. My teacher, Mike Bloomfield, implored that I study Muddy. Jeff Beck went on about Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore, and Keith Richards wasn't bashful about citing Chuck Berry. Peter Green and Clapton went on and on about B.B. King, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy. As a well-read (I thought) and curious musician, I assumed that Django and Les Paul had invented shred. Of course, hearing Charlie Christian banging out amazing single-note electric runs in 1939 set me straight. Above all, his mysteriously raw tone floored me.

 

I hadn't even realized that there were electric guitars before World War II. It made sense—big jazz bands were loud. If you've ever heard an orchestra the size of Benny Goodman's you know what I mean. Guitarists were tired of playing "strictly rhythm" and wanted to break out sax-style solos. The crude but effective technology of the day allowed guitarists to plug in, finally giving them a fighting chance. Christian was not the earliest of the adopters, but his amazing chops and visibility with Goodman's band made him the best known. Although not created for him, his guitar's pickup became associated with the man, and became known as the “Charlie Christian” pickup.

The original object of a pickup was to reproduce the sound of a guitar as accurately as possible. Electric blues, jazz and rock and roll changed all that. Players pushed their equipment to the breaking point in search of an expressive voice. To keep pace, builders rolled out new improvements. Time marched on, all but forgetting the crude, rude and singularly raw single coil that Christian first employed. 

But I never forgot. The hauntingly rough-edged tone of Christian's big single coil pickups were never far from my mind. I'd had a few over the years—usually mounted on a big-box jazz machine unfit for cranked up rock or roots music. A few pickup makers offered P-90s with a Christian-style plate on top, but I wanted the real thing. Not available. That is, until I asked my friend Seymour Duncan if he could replicate them. To my delight, he'd just finished doing exactly that. That first set went into a semi-solid guitar a few years ago, and the results were astounding. When I started thinking about The Crow guitar, I knew that I wanted those pickups in it.

 

Built to the original specifications, the CC has a fiberboard bobbin wound with unusually heavy (38 gauge) copper wire with an enamel insulation coat. The Alnico magnets are sand-cast and oriented with their north pole firing upward through a period-correct steel blade polepiece. Seymour hand-bound the top plate to match the originals as well. To add an interesting texture, I internally reversed the polarity of one pickup to create an out-of-phase middle position. Here are my notes and instructions in The Crow's journal.

  

The problem with the CC is that it was designed to be mounted from behind. The original setup involved a huge and heavy cantilever mounting bracket that hung the pickup from inside a hollow jazz guitar.

 
To solve this problem without altering the pickup, I devised a trestle that would allow the unit to be mounted and adjusted from the rear of the guitar. I had a friend make me some in his machine shop. Elliptical slots allow the pickup to be adjusted transversely for string alignment.

Once mounted inside the guitar, the pickups can be raised and lowered via a pair of hex screws counterbored into the back. This also eliminates having to use mounting hardware or bezels on the face of The Crow, which keeps the look pure. Also, because the pickup is mounted to the back, none of the pickup's weight is on the top, leaving it free to vibrate. The Crow is going to be a visually impressive guitar, and the CC pickups will give it an equally stunning voice.

 

Esoterica Electrica \ Cutting Through The Mix: Duane and Sandy

Here's a little ditty about Duane and Sandy—two American kids doin' the best they can.

via Premier Guitar

A lot of us have spent more time on the road than we'd care to remember. Some of the time it's fun, sometimes not. This is a story I wrote for Premier Guitar for all the people whose life revolves around family, friends and music. It's been a long strange trip—hope you enjoy it.

Basecoats and Bonamassa

Yesterday was a beautiful New England day—the kind that makes you want to play hooky even when you've got a great job like mine. As soon as the stained back on The Crow was thoroughly dry I taped up the fingerboard, masked the f-holes and got it into the paint room for its first coats of nitro.

Just a few coats first to raise the grain on the spruce top, and to tie to the filled mahogany. This process goes pretty fast as the nitro flashes off quickly. After the tie coat, the top gets scuffed, and then it's time for three solid coats.

Each coat gets thirty minutes to dry, then I repeat the pattern. After three coats I hung it up to dry for three days. Now it was time to take advantage of the nice sunny day. I threw a few things into the car and headed off to Worcester, Massachusetts to see some old friends who were playing there.

An hour and thirty minutes later I walked through the back door and onto the stage of the Hanover Theater. Just inside I found Gav, with one of Joe Bonamassa's Les Pauls in hand. We quickly took a tour of Joe's rig and guitar arsenal, which was housed in probably the largest guitar trunk in history. I didn't really know too much about Joe Bonamassa before Gav started working for him, but I was getting the idea that he's a serious guitar man.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone photo, but I think you get the idea. Ninety-six inches wide and it needs to be licensed in sixteen states. I was wondering if it had its own HVAC unit and zipcode.

We spent the afternoon hanging out with Joe and the band, looking at gear and swapping stories. I was happy to realize that Carmine Rojas was in the band—we hadn't seen each other in a long time. We passed some time leaving messages on mutual friend's voice mail and catching up a bit. I also had the chance to spend some time with Alan Phillips who makes the Carol-Ann amplifiers that Joe uses. Alan is a knowledgeable and unassuming guy who really has a passion for what he does—and the amps he builds certainly prove it.

Joe had recently acquired a real 1959 LP Sunburst, and he uses it every night, just as it was made to be. This guitar is wired out of phase in the middle position, exactly like the Peter Green/Gary Moore guitar. As far as I know, this wasn't available as an option back in the day, so it must have been a mistake. I didn't bring my magnetic tool in order to determine if it was a magnet reversal or a wiring mistake inside the pickup—that's for next time. Oh, and Joe sounded amazing all night.

 

Guitar Hardware from Scratch

After completing the strap buttons and switch tip made from buffalo horn, attention now turns to the rest of the hardware. The Crow will be fitted with variegated nickel finish metal parts, so I was thinking now about the control knobs. Amber speed knobs seemed like a good bet, but the match to the rest of the guitar seemed less than perfect. One consideration was Daka Ware 1930s bakelite knobs. The brown color and retro look was classic Charlie Christian, so they seemed like a good possibility.

I found some in my parts vault and laid them out on a black background and wasn't impressed. They'd probably be good on a tobacco sunburst guitar.

I've always loved the clear plastic lap steel knobs from the 1940s, so I thought that I could make my own based on an original one. The precursor to the "speed" knob, they were slightly taller and not tapered like modern knobs. They were painted gold or sometimes silver underneath, but I just wanted one for a model. A fairly exhaustive search only turned up a few knobs for sale, and those were in really rough shape. I called a few friends in the vintage trade, but no luck. Finally, I found one in almost new condition—amazing for sixty-plus year-old plastic. Needless to say, it didn't come cheap.

My idea was to make some replicas in clear acrylic and maybe paint them underneath with slver. The lack of color would help mimic The Crow's reflective finish without detracting from it. The first step was to make some molds from a pourable silicone material. This entails pouring the silicone over the original knob allowing it to cure for twenty-four hours. The result was very good so I made a few more, including a two-piece mold just for backup.

This is what the mold looks like when fully cured. The next step was to mix up some casting acrylic in a cup. The amount of  catalyst is determined by the total thickness of the part, and I'd have about ten minutes to get it into the mold.

By pouring the first of the material into the center recess I was avoiding any trapped air which would cause bubbles in the finished part.

After another twenty-four hours, it was time to pull the part from the mold and see how it looked.

Not bad for a first try, but it was obvious that I was going to have to sand and polish the part to get it to look like the original. I went ahead and made about another seven parts in order to experiment. I mixed some color into the liquid on a few just to try it, but it wasn't a good result.

Once I figured out how to sand and polish the molded knobs (using the trusty drill press again) I also tried painting some of the knobs with chrome, silver and copper paint. In the end, it was the fully clear versions that I liked the best.

Here's the finished knob, polished up and sitting on my desk. I really like the way it catches the light—like a crow's feathers. I think they are going to look great on the guitar, and the fact that they are not off-the-shelf parts makes me happy too.

I think I've found my "signature" look.

Vintage Marshall Resurrection

I love the look of a proper vintage Marshall stack. After playing various combo amps in the 1960s, graduating to a blackface Fender Bassman and then to a Vox AC 50, I was staggered by the sheer presence of the 100 watt full stack when it arrived upon the scene in 1965. Equal parts audio device, stage backdrop and weapon of youthful enthusiasm, it was a statement which stood alone from all that had come before. I bought my first one in 1968 and added a second in 1969. You haven't really lived until you've stood on stage in front of two wide-open full stacks. Since then I've collected quite a few more—a number of which are in need of some repair.

So, while I was down in Nashville Jim took it upon himself to finish a project I'd started in 1985—I guess he figured it was about time. Many moons ago I'd rescued an original "plexi" 100 watt stack from the rehearsal room of a '80 era metal band where it sat forlorn and neglected. Its owner had "graduated" to a nice little fifteen space rack full of solid-state gizmos and no longer wanted the towering relic. "It's too clean, and doesn't sustain" he'd told me. "My new rig sounds more like a record anyway." To prove his point he danced on the rack's pedal board and then fired off eight bars of 64th notes at about 120 bpm—holding the last one for ten seconds of whammy-bar gymnastics. For $300 the Marshall was mine, I didn't even bother to turn it on.

When I got it home, I inspected it, cleaned some corrosion, checked some voltages and then plugged in my guitar. Score! The amp was fine but the cabinets had seen better days. They started life as a matched pair of metal-handle, salt-and-pepper grille 100 watt cabinets; and as good as they sounded they now needed cosmetic help. Somewhere along the line someone decided that they'd sound better without the original grillecloth and they had added period incorrect white logos. The straight cabinet had indeed been re-grilled with a low-budget fabric better suited for sheer curtains. From ten feet away it looked OK. An added bonus was the screaming highs that were now free to stab your ears without impediment—awesome, dude!

If you've never taken an old Marshall cabinet completely apart and re-assembled it before, you'll soon find your first attempt can be a struggle on par with splitting an atom. The second cabinet showed that the previous owner had learned quickly from his experience with the first. Apparently, after Einstein finished the first grille cloth conversion he had a better idea for the slant cab. Out came the carpet knife, and in about three minutes that ugly old vintage grille was gone without even having to look at a screwdriver. They say genius comes in threes (or is that bad luck?) so Mr. Brainiac's next step was to staple some hardware cloth (chicken wire) over the speakers. A little flat black spray paint and the whole heavy metal universe was in balance again. (Cue devil horns here).

So, while I was away, Jim methodically disassembled each cabinet and removed every stitch of cloth and every staple—the man has patience. The whole affair took the better part of three days, which is why I'd put it off so long.

Here's the front baffle with the remnants of the original grille. Note the vertical orientation of the white stripes.

Along the way, Jim found a piece of broken beer bottle embedded in the tolex—a testimony to its long tenure playing in bars I guess.

Inside, greenback 25 watt Celestions with original wiring. Some people like the even lower wattage Celestions, but when they get this old I'm happy for the small bit of extra headroom when only using one cabinet. Age will provide plenty of sag and the dense woven grille is an effective high frequency filter.

Next, a roll of NOS Marshall grille cloth that I'd squirreled away twenty five years ago came out of hiding, looking great. I had just enough for two cabinets.

The first order of business is to lay out the grille in the proper direction—the North-South orientation determined by the white threads. If you get it wrong the finished job will look weird when placed next to a correctly placed one.

Using one of the bold white threads as a guide, Jim starts the folding over and stapling in one upper corner, continuing down and across being careful to keep the thread aligned on the edge. He's got to stretch the material as he goes to get the proper tension. I've heard some people say that if the cloth isn't tight enough when you're done it can be wetted to make it shrink, but we'd previously tested this with a scrap of the new cloth and found it didn't do a thing.

After finishing the top and side edges, Jim stretched the cloth and tacked it down using the vertical threads to align it as he went. The next step was to replace the damaged white piping and then slide the baffle into the cabinet. Jim made sure to tap it home with a dead blow hammer before replacing the screws.

With the baffle locked down it was just a matter of refitting the speakers with the wire harness and putting the back on the cabinet. It was also a chance to replace any stripped screws as needed.

The last touch was scrounging up some NOS gold logos from my box of parts. The originals were brittle plastic that broke easily—you'll often see period photos of bands with mangled logos. After a while, Marshall got wise and started making them out of a more durable nylon type material that flexed rather than broke. My NOS are the brittle kind with gold on the front. While he was at it, Jim replaced some sketchy knobs on the head.

Original wheels are almost impossible to find in decent shape, but I have a stash of suitable impostors that are tall and thin like the real ones, so they'll have to do until we unearth some originals.

Restored to their former glory, it was time to roll 'em into the "Tone Pit" next to the other amps in my office arsenal. This is the place where I evaluate every nuance of the instruments I build so I've got a wide variety of amps in there.

Now, the Dantzig Tone Pit finally has its proper pair of half-stacks—what a nice surprise. Thanks Jim.

 

 

Nashville Cats: Steve Cropper Tribute to the "5" Royales

Late last week, I left Jim to his own devices in the shop as I took a sojourn to Nashville to do some studio time. Generations of musicians have grown up with Steve Cropper's trademark licks as the soundtrack to their lives, so when producer Jon Tiven invited me to participate in the making of Cropper's new recording, a tribute to the "5" Royales, I couldn't say no.

The Royales were a seminal R&B group who bridged the gap between Doo-Wop, Soul and Funk. Their guitarist, Lowman Pauling, wrote most of the hits, and was a madman on guitar—so I understood where Cropper was coming from. I anticipated a good time, but it was only when I arrived in Nashville that I realized the true magnitude of the undertaking. As an unforeseen bonus, the recording was being done in Dan Penn's studio. If you're not familiar with Penn's career, do yourself a favor and follow the link—very cool stuff.

When we arrived at the studio, Cropper had already unloaded his silverface Quad Reverb and Billy Block was dropping off a drum kit for Steve Ferrone, who would play on the first day. Bassist David Hood was on hand and he and I immediately started talking bass-player trash.

What a thrill to sit and watch this guy track—a master class in restraint and note choice. Although he'd brought four instruments including a '57 P-Bass, David was tracking with a pink Jazz Bass made in Chicago by Lakland. When I asked him why he chose to use it he said "it was just the first one I took out."

As one of the Muscle Shoals "Swampers" Hood was one of my teachers through the grooves in vinyl, and here I was in the studio with him. As the session began to roll Billy Block and I busied ourselves with the video and audio equipment. I was soaking it up, learning a few new tricks along the way.

Keyboard chores were handled by Spooner Oldham, who is a legend in his own right. Knowing when not to play is the test of any musician, and Spooner has mastered this art. Standing two feet from him as he laid down piano and organ parts was simply a sublime experience.

Day one brought vocal performances from Buddy Miller and Bettye LaVette. Laying down vocals live with the band is the best way to capture the raw energy of a song, and the sessions proceeded at a breakneck pace. Near the end of the day Dylan LeBlanc dropped by to do some singing and was clearly loving the atmosphere in Penn's studio.

  

Day two saw the arrival of drummer Steve Jordan who took over from Ferrone, who happily attended to various percussion duties. Jordan's recordings with Keith Richards and the Winos are some of the best grooves ever committed to tape so I was stoked. I wasn't disappointed—two of the world's most solid drummers laid it down together without a hint of ego. Tiven had assembled an unbelievable team of individuals. 

 

One high point was having lunch at the Penn dining table. Eating 'taters and greens surrounded by music legends listening to stories about Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Jerry Wexler, Wilson Pickett and more from the people who were there—just priceless. 

 

As the days wore on, we got confirmations from some soon-to-be-announced guest-stars, but I had to high-tail it out of there before any of that went down. As it was I got more than my share of mojo risin'. I can't wait to hear the finished product.

 

F-Word in the Workshop

The Crow build continues in tandem with other projects in the shop. I like it this way—dividing my time between creative thought, and the zen-like trance induced by laborious, repetitive handwork like sanding. Each of the Signature guitars that I build starts with the journal—a place for ideas and stream-of-conciousness rants. The good, the bad and the indifferent are all there. As the ideas begin to coalesce into a usable and recognizable form, the journal starts to morph into a set of plans.

Here, I'm laying out the f-hole shape and control locations. After this step, a paper template is made so I can evaluate the placement of the controls from the player's perspective. Do they fall to hand easily? Are they blocked by each other, or does the bridge get in the way? These all can be tested before going any further.

Once I'm satisfied, the next step is to make a 1/4" thick router template from the drawing, onto which the spruce top can be pinned. Then it's to the router I go.

You can see the locating pin holes as well as the control locations. The interior volume of this instrument will be a bit larger than some of my other designs and I've reduced the size of the f-holes and moved them inward about 1/8" closer to center. I'm going for a very old-school blues sound with this guitar, and it's going to be interesting.

Cry of Love

 

"There is no percentage in remembering the past"
— Taj Mahal, Take a Giant Step.

 

For the most part, I view lingering in the past as a cry for help. If you are afraid that your audience will abandon you, the first thing some performers do is dig into the archives for the old hits. I'm not saying that old hits are bad, I've had my share of "glory years" but they're all in the rear-view mirror now.

As time passes, I become more attuned to the different needs and desires of my own motivation. I want to build guitars that have a back-story built in as opposed to building the back story for the second or third time.

 

Here's a look at the hand-made book of sketches, dimensions and ponderings that accompanies each "Signature" guitar that I build. It's a place to draw, doodle and communicate the concept that drives the build. It's a place to record dimensions and ideas. The pages step through the thought process behind my choices—the true back-story that is built into the guitar. This is one that I'm calling "The Crow", and when the instrument is finished, the book is hand-stitched, bound with a beautiful cover of original artwork and goes with the guitar.

 I bring my experience, my taste and my sense of humor to each project. Serving the client is only one side of the coin; just as fitting my designs into a template dictated by a company policy isn't my priority any longer. I'm free to express my own desires and esthetics with my own projects. I love what I'm doing and I hope it will show. It's not such a bad place to be.

  

All of this comes to mind as I am simultaneously designing new instruments and building a classic "replica" for Anthony. In that regard, it certainly feels better to obsess on someone else's past than your own.

 The question that remains is, can guitar designs that owe so much to a vintage esthetic, move ahead without being purely nostalgic?

 

Natural World, Natural Instruments

Wind in the woods brings consequence. On the way up to the shop today the road was littered with leaves and boughs—nature's way of cleaning house. Trees are all around us in life, and in what we do. Trees are the source of great instruments and home for countless animals. We're always aware of the crashing of trees and branches when the weather gets a little rough around here. 

 

In the perfect reflection of my car's hood I saw it fall towards me. I flinched instinctively, but it wasn't a tree branch—it was a red-tailed hawk with a wingspan as wide as my windshield. For about a hundred feet we flew down the road together, the great bird just a few feet above the road a car length ahead of me. It was as though the world was in slow-motion and the space between seconds became like minutes, until the hawk banked off into the trees and disappeared.

 

 Once inside the shop, I mixed up some of the waterborne lacquer I'd been using on Anthony's guitar and got down to business. We'd both decided that a satin finish was the way to go, so it will be interesting to see how the flattening agent works with this paint. After decades of pushing the envelope to create thin, yet glossy finishes, I've decided that I don't care for them any longer.

 I'm the first one to admire a custom-car paint job, but the patina of age on guitars that have been played and loved speaks of  the experience that they have absorbed over time. There's just something about the satiny sheen of an aged guitar that makes it a musical instrument, and not an appliance. Stepping away from my past obsession with ultra-shiny guitars feels good—like taking flight.