Official Luthiers Forum!

OLF member and all-around great guy Burton LeGeyt is visiting Seattle this week and the two of us managed to connect yesterday afternoon. We met up at a coffeehouse in the Fremont neighborhood and chatted a bit before wandering around the corner to Dusty Strings Guitar Shop. Burton had noticed a Simon Fay guitar listed on their website and we were both excited to see one of his beauties in person. The guitar had been on consignment and sadly for us the owner had wisely come to their senses and taken the guitar back home before we arrived. Oh well, it's a nice shop and they had some gorgeous Noble's on hand, as well as a harp guitar that was so incredible we were both kind of afraid to touch it--at least I was!

From there we headed over to pay a visit to Rick Davis (Running Dog Guitars) and Cat Fox (Sound Guitar Repair) in their workshop, which is just a few blocks away. Rick showed us some of his amazing work, including a wonderful baritone guitar with beautiful inlay. That set us off on a topic and Rick showed us a rather surprising inlay trick that I suspect Burton may be putting to good use one day soon. As always, Cat was busy tending to the wildly diverse instruments that are lucky enough to find their way to her workbench, but she kept in the conversation by dropping the occasional droll and hilarious comment. Thanks, Rick and Cat! Visiting you is always a treat!

Burton and I considered heading over to Ballard for a visit to Michael Gurian's barge but when I called it seemed they weren't well set up for visitors, so we decided to take a stroll over to the Fremont Brewery instead. Always a good idea, in my opinion.

Thanks for sharing some of your time with me, Burton, it was great fun!

George :-)

P.S. Here's Burton, with a glass of Fremont Brewing's Dark Star Imperial Oatmeal Stout. It was delicious!

Love hanging out with Burton! Glad y'all are having fun!

Dang, wish I could have come. Sounds like you guys had a great time.

_________________
-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

With work and travel schedules in flux we had to improvise a bit to make it happen at all. It would be fun to try and set up a Seattle-area get together. Might be tough to invade a tight workspace, but getting together for coffee or beer shouldn't be too difficult. One day soon I'll start a new thread in the Off-Topic area. Maybe I should have put this in there. I don't know.

_________________
George :-)

Finally back in Boston- I had a blast in Seattle, thanks so much to George for meeting up and showing me around. We had such a great time hanging out for the afternoon! The Fremont brewery was killer. I have to give some props to the OLF for allowing those sort of connections to happen, it is really cool.
Thanks too to Rick for having us over, it was a treat to be able to see his shop and talk for a bit.
I did get down to Gilmer on my trip (and had another OLF meet up with Michael P, which was also awesome - his reso guitar was great too) and finally got to see what the inside of that place looks like and meet the people I have been speaking to on the phone for years. My wife snapped a photo that she thinks makes it look like some holy light is shining down on me. She has been making fun of me since for how excited I was to go to a wood store on our vacation. in good fun though.


Thanks again to George! - and in that spirit if anyone is traveling through Boston feel free to shoot me a note.

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

I also had a great (albeit short) time, Burton. In the short time we had to talk, in between drool fests perusing the offerings of Gilmer, you shared some great information, especially regarding your technique for the classy scalloped cutaway that you incorporate into some of your instruments. By the way, how much of a hit did your pocketbook take at the wood mecca?

_________________
michael propsom
www.propsomguitars.com

There was no way I was leaving without snagging some stuff. I guess compared to how it could have gone I got away without too much of a hit to my pocket. I did manage to score years and years worth of perfect Madrose bridge blanks (still in turning blank form), that alone was well worth the trip!

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.