Where in East Tennessee are you, Steve?

I would love to make it but I can't do it on July 21st. We could also make it a swap meet, bring any wood or tools to sell or trade. I am willing to host sometime on down the road. A few East Tn'ers have already been to my place.

I'm in.

AFAIK, I can make it.

Would you guys be willing and able to do it that Sunday 7/22? I could make it then. No worries though if the date change doesn't work out for everyone.

Sunday's wouldn't work for me.

Ok. I'll probably have to miss it this time, but I will try to make it.

I am planning to come. Thanks for the invite!

Hey Guys,

I am new to this forum and stumbled across this thread. I had no idea there were so many other luthiers in my area. I would love to be a part of this gathering if you will have me, though I don't know that I will have much to share right now. Allow me to introduce myself:

I got started into luthiery when I was a teenager. I worked on my own guitars and my friends that were in bands, set-up and electronics mods and such. Then I attended Roberto-Venn in AZ in 2005. Then I moved back home, bought a house and started a family. I just recently got back into building. Life has a funny way of passing you by sometimes. For the last seven years I have been working a full time job and raising my two boys while buying tools and such for my shop a little at a time. It has taken me this long to get fully equipped, and I still feel like I'm not really ready to be as efficient as I need to be. It has been my goal to be a full time luthier, but as the sole provider for my family I have had to keep a full time job to support us so it's not happened yet. This year I have made a goal for myself to actually do what I said I was going to and try to actually start doing builds again and hopefully be able to go to some shows and festivals and sell some guitars. I am just finishing up set up on my shop as well so it's a mess. Routing all my dust collection right now, what a pain.

Anyway it's good to know there are other luthiers so close by. It's easy to feel alone sometimes doing this. Just let me know the final date/time for this get together and I will try my best to come, as long as you'll have me.

http://www.cartercustomguitars.com

Look forward to meeting you. I feel your pain with the dust collection - I just finished two side branches yesterday that I've been putting off for several years.

After some discussion in another thread and a few PMs it seems there is some genuine interest in a few of us getting together for a meeting.

It would be great to meet some fellow OLF'ers. One suggestion was to meet at one of our shops each time and that would be fine with me. I would be happy to host the first one although my shop is in the middle of a major renovation. So if someone else has a shop in better shape then feel free to step up.

Maybe a get-together for a few hours on Sat afternoon or??? What do you guys think.

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EDIT: I'll keep this updated so the current plan is always in the first post

Option 1 - Meet at my house
Tentative date Sat Jul 21 from 1pm to 6ish?
Ideas for an agenda:
- Meet and Greet
- Show and Tell - guitars, wood, tools, whatever you want to bring
- Shop tour - go down to the shop and check out tools and techniques.
- Food - I can cook up some brats and burgers
- Jam/hang out/??

If anyone has something they would like to demo that would be great - let me know so we can figure out how to set it up.

This is just an idea - so we have at least an option of what to do. If anybody has some other ideas of where to meet or what to do then let's discuss it.
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BTW here is the clean side of my shop where I've been reworking my old lumber rack from my custom furniture days into shelves for my guitar wood.

I've been running all my machines without it for awhile. Got tired of rolling around the dust collector for the planer and jointer and sweeping up the rest every time I'm in the shop. It'll be a real time saver when it's done though. Any tips on what to do/what not to do? Never ran a duct system before.

Is that an Airedale Terrier alongside the white dog ?