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Mark knows a good guitar!

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Bump - So I've been bringing work home with me often now and especially on weekends. We are always so busy it's hard to keep up and I do the stuff that is promised the next day.

This is my home shop and I'm proud of it. Unlike our commercial shop filled with tech and bleeding edge tooling what's very different about my home shop is the economy of tools and space but with this small space I can do most of my work. I may have to bring a shared tool home with me such as my reamer for pup installs but I can do most of what I do here.

The shop, both of our's are insured and my work is also specifically insured in transit with me wherever I need to go with it. Heritage offers this service and we have it.

So you become friends with your clients, at least I do and that means they come to your place and you go to theirs and you jam, drink, jam, drink, etc. Some of our clients will even bring me work to my home now it's getting more and more common especially with the gigging crowd who has a bad jack an hour before the lights go on. They can call old Hesh and he will not only fix it but they are welcomed and may even be offered a beverage or two.

Last week a local minister walked over a 12 string and a PRS for me to do at home. Both guitars were repaired in less than 20 hours and back in his hands.

There is a price though, I might ask the folks who come to my home to teach me a tune and just last weekend my studio had some notable lead guitarists enjoying my Dumble clone and the walls filled with Collings, Gibson, Suhr, Fender, Sadowsky and PRS axes.

I read an article about how much money various stores make per square foot of retailing space. Costco beat the hell out of everyone and I found that impressive.

So my shop is maximized not for how many shiny, new StewMac tools I have, not for how big it is and all the associated overhead with heating, cooling, RH of a big space. It's not maximized for having a 3D printer (we have one in Ann Arbor at the shop there) or an ERP system for running the business.

It's maximized to have the most capability in the least space and here is the kicker.... it's maximized for the jobs that are not the exceptions that always cost everyone the most to do where you may have to bang out tooling and such, make jigs, etc.

I can dress frets, fix cracks, reglue bridges, do the 600 set-ups I do a year and repair electronics if I need to. I can install pick-ups and more. This little space can produce and that is something that I respect people and things that help people get our work done well and on time.

So with this said.... how about showing us your shops and what your aspirations for it and you are?

Thanks

You won't be seeing pictures of my shop, without a court order.:>)
Just imagine the exact opposite of what you see in the pictures of your shop.

You mean like this?
Student installing back braces on her J-45


Sent from my moto g(50) using Tapatalk

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

JTB no worries you won't be the only one and it's me who is the sick..... here

Colin very cool! Very cool too that you are teaching.

Thanks guys.

I've been dealing with Hesh's obsession for neatness for over 20 years now - no big deal. Go ahead and post the photos of your messy shop, I do (ours are all messy too!).

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Here are some random shots of the shop. Yup, I’m on the tidy team. Once I’m back from Europe I’ll start the long process of dismantling it and selling most everything off in preparation for the move. Sure wish I didn’t have to do it -

Cheers, M

Love the downdraft desk! I'm going to have to have one.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Michaeldc you have the coolest shop I've ever seen, wow! Lots of cool stuff too that I have not seen before such as the vertical bus driving.... dish sander.

Is that the new StewMac bender or something else? It looks like commercial quality and very nice too.

Why are you down sizing, retirement? I would not want to leave that shop either, wow very nice!

Hi Hesh,

The bender is my take on the C. Fox design. I built it about a dozen years ago. It has served me well. I’m surprised nobody has asked for the CAD files. Once again, the powered radius dish is my own design. It takes up very little floor space and has full dust collection. All of my dishes are from Canadian Luthier Supply - the best in the business.

As for closing down the shop - About 40% of the US population is thrilled with the direction the country is headed. The other 60%, not so much. I’m in the later group. My wife is a German citizen so we are looking to sell off our homes and holdings here and move to Deutschland. Kind of ironic, no?


Best, M

Don't do it! That shop is so beautiful, it would be tragic to dismantle it over geopolitical drama. Besides, Germany is likely to swing back the other way soon as well, so it will all be for nothing.

I hope the move works out well for you, Michael. Thanks for all of the inspiration you have provided here on the OLF. You set a very high bar in terms of your craftsmanship.

Michael do you ave plans for the Power radius dish? I just made one but yours looks sweet

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https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

Alas, that is one of the tools I plan to keep. I probably do have a cad drawing of it if you’d like to build your own.

Michael, I would love to have that CAD drawing- you could attach a pdf to a post. I'm still enamored with the down draft desk-

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

That shop has a real Olson vibe. Especially the battery of dedicated routers. Nice!!

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Hey Karl,

I’ll send the drawing when I’m back in the states. Do you have a way to look at a DXF/Autocad file? It’d be more useful than a PDF.

Best, M

Thanks! Not sure but I’ll give it a whirl. I’ll bet my commercial printing shop can…

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I can send it as both DXF and PDF - with DXF you can easily scale the drawing…

We can chat when I’m back, M

Just shipped off this European Birdseye maple Torres FE-13 homage to a client in Germany. Really love this shape, planning to build a fairly true to the original version some time in the coming months with Brazilian back and sides.

Wow Brian that is a beauty!

Brian, you're killing it. Beautiful guitar!

You probably already know this, but for anyone who doesn't, the original FE 13 can be heard on the first 3 tracks Stefano Grondona's album Temas de Recuerdos.

Back in the early 2000's I made several guitars using the FE 13 plantilla. It is a beautiful shape that makes lovely guitars. Here's something related on my bench right now.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

Thanks Josh! Means a lot coming from you. I think you'd appreciate my subtle deviation from Torres with the herringbone.

Did you make that tornavoz? I've always been curious about installing one but I can't find any suppliers and have no idea how to work with brass. Was the original FE-13 tornavoz solid brass or was it perforated? Super cool stuff!

It looks great! I’ve always thought the direction of the herringbone has almost a philosophical quality to it, pointing up or down like a choice of perspective. I like the personal touch you've brought there. By the way, thank you for the Maderas Barber tip earlier in the thread. I am making a pair of Torres-inspired guitars next year, with Torres rosettes, and the already thinned-out veneer will be a real time saver.

I believe the tornavoz in FE13 is non-perforated, and that Torres went that way for all of them after FE09. I make mine myself, and the brass works easily, but it also likes to dent. I use a specially made aluminum form with the original Torres dimensions and solder them with a torch. It's easy enough, but I am not a metalworker, so it took some time and experimentation to get good results.

If you decide to make one, I'd be happy to walk you through it privately. I'm working on a tornavoz guitar now, and one of the Torres builds next year will also get one. These will be my first tornavoz guitars since 2007, and I've recently overhauled my process. I'll likely share some of that on Instagram, too.

Congratulations again on an awesome guitar. I'm sure your client in Germany will be ecstatic.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

By the way, where did you get the European Birdseye Maple from? I'm curious how it compares to the American variety.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/