The Scroll Shop (Ed of H's Shop Thread)

[edwardofhuncote]

Too cold to play outside... but pretty nice in here. I get a lot done when there's no distractions. 

[jon_jackson]

Nice picture of your shop, Greg.

[hammer]

Greg...So what is "too cold to go out and play" in your neck of the woods? Today in Minnesota it was -18 below zero (that's F degrees not C) when I got up to take the dog for his AM walk. He hit the deck with a bound as he usually does but then quickly looked up at me with the look of "I can do this later when its warmer" and then made a beeline for the back door.  Almost knocked me over to get inside first. Before I left for work he was asleep again but not before nosing his bed over about 2 feet so that it was directly above a floor heat grate.

[David Houck]

Well, it's not that cold down this-aways, but in the morning it'll be in the single digits.  A light snow late this afternoon instantly froze to the driveway making it too slippery to drive on.  I guess all over this side of the country this has been one heck of a cold spell, and still a ways to go.

[edwardofhuncote]

Single-digit cold is my outdoor activity limit. I can deal with mid-20's okay. I worked out in it for years, and had the gear for that. I like to walk every day, about 6 miles is my regular loop. But I don't go in hard rain, high wind, or extreme cold. I may go today if it hits the forecasted 27°.

Down here, our homes just aren't designed or built for that extreme... the plumbing, insulation, none of it. Fortunately, these cold spells seldom last more than a week or so. Which is good; people make bad decisions out of desperation and wind up burning down the house.

My shop is insulated better than my house is, so it's quite comfortable in here. There is that one oil-filled radiator there... it's on low, and the thermostat is set at 65°. I keep a small recirculation fan running in here. The floor gets cold, but as long as I'm working on my mats or sitting at the bench, it's fine.

[edwardofhuncote]

I haven't posted much from my shop lately... I'm in here early-mornings M-F, and sometimes on Sunday afternoons I set up a little work for Mondays. Tuesday mornings, I knock off and go play music with a couple buddies in a cool little coffee shop, then make deliveries of completed work and pick up more. So this has turned into a decent little part-time gig. I'm currently running about a week to a week-and-a-half backlog.

I don't post on stuff that belongs to the store's customers, but this one is a walk-in, and without really identifying the whole she-bang, I gotta' brag on my buddy and mentor Ward Elliott. I got this early 70's D-35 in for a lifting bridge, and the original pickguard rolling up. I heat-lamped the bridge and slipped the seam knife under it, and it eased right off, no mess, no drama... and I was met with this; (check the pic)

This bridge was replaced, and the intonation corrected on this guitar by my old friend many years ago. I immediately recognized his trademark locating holes for the bridge saddle from his jig, custombuilt for this job, and the relocated bridge pin holes so perfectly plugged, inside and out. I have no doubt he scratch-made this bridge so that the footprint fit the existing one on the guitar, no touch-up required. I texted him a picture, a Thank You, and a reminder that I owe him a sandwich next time we hang out. I'm so used to finding a big mess under these, that I was overjoyed to see such a nice job. All that's left here is a little clean up and reglue. I could almost do this one with one hand and my eyes closed.

I'll have a little more to do with the pickguard replacement... it had shrunken, and split the top at the infamous B-string location as well as the lower edge. I've already closed and cleated the cracks, still have to *seal the bare wood, cut, fit, and apply a new adhesive-backed pickguard to the guitar. (*until sometime in 1985, Martin pickguards were stuck directly to the bare top, and finished over, after that, the pickguard was applied to the finished guitars)

This is about all I'll do on a Sunday... brush a quick coat of Deft lacquer on here and let it be curing overnight. In the heat of the day, there's just too much going on in here, too much dust in the air, too many things moving around. And I can't be sitting around watching paint dry... 


*It seems like I spend an awful lot of time fixing tragically wrong predictive text. 

[David Houck]

So, do you get free coffee at the coffee shop gig?

[edwardofhuncote]

Ted and me buy the first cup, and our kind Barrister refills us while we're playing. 

https://www.firstxicoffee.com/

Nah Dave, I really wasn't trying to make a gig outta' this per se, but since retirement I just wanted one day a week to be musically accountable to someone else... to sit across from them and have to play something intelligible. Something about being out of the house gives me a fence to swing for. Ted and I play music together anyway, but usually in a band context with me on bass, so it's a good opportunity to kick around new ideas or work out glitchy things. Or just hang out, drink some good coffee and pick a while. We planned it so we'd be in there at a kinda' off-peak time, but there's usually a small handful of folks. Sure enough, a month into our little coffehouse guitar jam, they asked us to play an advertised event on a Thursday evening, and "see how it goes". Dang-it. 

[David Houck]

 

[edwardofhuncote]

Good Morning from the Scroll Shop... got kind of a long-shot favor to ask... I took in a Gibson ES-150 guitar to evaluate and fix up for a resale. It needs a couple things straightened out to maximize value in this resale, but overall it's in decent shape.

I can handle the binding replacement... I even have a few long strips of old binding salvaged from donor guitars to fix the fingerboard edge with. Replacing the junk tuners isn't a problem. I am stumped on replacing the missing first fret inlay. I found a whole set of amber pearloid ones at Philadelphia Tool...

https://www.philadelphialuthiertools.com/inlays-and-side-dots/les-paul-trapezoid-crown-yellow-celluloid-inlays/

...and that might be my huckleberry unless someone here knows a good source for one first-fret pearloid trapezoid, kinda' aged yellow. Anybody got an idea? TIA.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Well, you could just send me the guitar and let see if playing it for a decade or 2 gives me any ideas......

Peter (who adores P-90s, especially on a hollow-body)

[edwardofhuncote]

Well... that'd be awesome wouldn't it?    I'd like to test-pilot this one for a while too, and yeah, P-90's are my happy place.


Just to be clear, this isn't my guitar... I was giving an estimate on stages of repair to make it more attractive/saleable. The customer has decided for now to stick with an 'as-is' sale, so it really doesn't matter unless they change their mind later and decide to proceed with the work.

[David Houck]

Knowing nothing of the market for these guitars and for this particular vintage, I would have guessed that the cost of the repairs would have been less than the sales value added to the instrument.

[peoplechipper]

I would think the repairs would be more than worth it, and I totally agree on the p90's; when I swapped out the humbuckers on Lenny Kravitz's flying v (it came outta the Vancouver Hard Rock) the guitar really came alive, it sounded kinda dull before...

[cozmik_cowboy]

Knowing nothing of the market for these guitars and for this particular vintage, I would have guessed that the cost of the repairs would have been less than the sales value added to the instrument.

When I worked for the Evil Empire ('83-'84) we had one in the store that I could have had (like the 125, 220, 330......) for $150 - if I'd been willing to lie to make enough at GC to afford them.

On Reverb right now, the asking prices range from $2200 to $6500.

Peter