Official Luthiers Forum!

Wish I'd get some kind of confirmation...

After some of you have red Ervin's books I would like to know if they will really help you build a better sounding guitar. Ervin has a big problem of being overly verbose, though he does seem to be a very nice man and out standand builder. I've talked to him since nine years ago and kind of stopped because he tried to psychoanalyse me over the net when I did not ask for it. I hope he has never done this to anyone here.
There was no reason for him to have done what he did and we were talking about guitar building when out of the blue out came the psychology crap.
I have purchased a couple different builders books and the first helped some but you had to read so much just to find a small bit of information, I got real tired of that. I was in college long enough to get two degrees. I know how to do research but I'd rather have the information right in front of me in at least a paraphraph.

I kinda got the impression, that, if you paid for a signed set, which I did, you probably aren't going to see them till after Healdsburg!

My books finally arrived from the Port of Oakland last week. I spent a day transporting six-plus tons of boxes from the customs warehouse to a rented storage facility. I'd thought to have my books much sooner but shipping, etc. took several weeks longer than I'd anticipated for a variety unavoidable reasons; I can truly say that I've learned something at every step of the way. But I am now, finally, in a position to start mailing books out.

The timing is tricky, because I'm also gearing up for the Healdsburg Guitar Festival, for which I'm leaving in a week. I've got plenty to do in getting ready for that show, but I will start to mail books out this week nonetheless. Those books that I'm unable to mail out before the Healdsburg show will go out as soon as I return from it.
At this point, it would be easiest to just slap a shipping label on each set of books and send them out. But as it is, I need to sign a lot of the books. So I need to unpack boxes, remove the shrink-wrap from the books, sign them and repack them before the shipping labels can go on. So this will be laborious and will require some time.

On the plus side, I've ordered special shipping cartons to be made for the books to be sent off in. They are custom-made for these specific book sets. They are designed to include padding so that the books are protected during shipping: otherwise there's a chance20that some of them would arrive at their destinations with dented corners or various other potential kinds of damage. The books should arrive in perfect condition.

One humorous dimension of how long this all took is that my books were in the customs warehouse for about a week. I was informed me that, being a first-time shipper and being off the official radar for that reason, my shipment would be subject to ‘special inspection’. When I asked what that was he told me that this is when they bring the drug-sniffing dogs in and open the shipment up and check it thorougly to see whether any contraband is coming in. Wow. And, indeed, the customs people had opened up an awful lot of the boxes the books came in, and then taped them back up. They are a THOROUGH bunch, they are. But it obviously extended the time all this took.

Now that they know I’m simply a guitar nerd, and therefore harmless, I can bring the drugs in next time.

Just kidding.

I apologize for such delays, but I'm unable to do any better.

I hope to see as many of you as I can at the upcoming Healdsburg show.

Sincerely, Ervin S.