Stephen Faulk

Talk about being over talked. Jesus H. Christ on a cracker, use freaking hide glue.

He did something wrong on the rosewood backs. Guitar makers often join plates for backs and tops and store them for many years. They got moist or something happened. Or the backs had not been fully dry.

No! Hide glue. Use Hide glue. The resin in 'Cuban' Cedar or cedrella, will not effect the gluing. You have to make clean well planed joint. And don't try to clean the wood with any solvents, it's a waste of time and not needed.

I never counted them out actually. But he started in on me about Scots whiskey. I'm eager to try any well made single malt. He's a dry fly trout fisherman too, if that tells you any thing ...

I had an argument about whiskey with an Irishman, he said the Scots can't make a damned whiskey. So I said neither can the Irish, and besides you fools can only make five brands, The Scots, I said are like artists who use many colors etc. I expounded on the variations of taste within the envelope of Scotch whiskey and told him the subtle differences between peaty Islays and the lighter upper lands whiskies were for deft palettes to explore and enjoy. Then he said Bulllshit, we make five kinds because once you get it right why keep fucking with it? To further insult him I began naming off US brands of cheap Bourbon and saying look these taste horrible and they are Irish whiskey's ! He was not in on my joke and said mate you don't know anything about whiskey. And I said yeah, but you're still gonna drink that I.W. Harper crap and I'm gonna buy an esoteric bottle of Islay. Then he said You should just stick to guitars, in that realm you actually know something. See this is how you win an argument with an Irishman, you let him think you lost and then he complements you on another of your skills to keep you from feeling bad for being beaten so badly in the argument. It's V for Victory if an American can coax an Irishman into saying the American does at least one thing correctly.

I like the maniviola thing, it's weird. In the right band it could be really nice. I made guitar with four strings tuned in fifths to cello tuning and range. I wanted a cello tuned instrument that could be played with classical guitar technique. The stings were not super even in volume, but I had mixed string set between nylon and over wound nylon, a more sophisticated set of strings may have made a difference. It was quite awesome because I could play the Bach suites with thumb and fingers playing picado and arpeggio, and being in cello tuning CGDA you could just read the bass clef score as is. One day a guy come over and asked what it was and I showed him. Then he said it reminded him of giant ukulele- I swapped the G and C places and raised the D a step and then tuned it GCEA Good Cats Eat Albacore a standard Ukulele tuning. He's a very good uke player from Okinawa and he already had a Koa uke I had made for him. Short story, he would not leave without the bass uke. So I lost my strange Cellotar thst I could pluck with fingers. The instersting thing about is that the mensur was about the same as a smaller Guadagnni cello, so moving back an forth between a full size cello and the Cellotar was not that jarring. I think I need to make another one because it was just a lot of fun. And not strichety like an arrpeggione. The good thing is the Okinawa guy is planning his forth uke for me to build him. This time I might even charge him real money.

This is pretty good- but Over priced on this website- I get this for much cheaper at a local chain drug store. There is 12 year old and 17 year old version of this, I;ve had the 12...and it's good. The harmony does not have an age, but very good, https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/hakushu/the-hakushu-single-malt-whisky-distillers-reserve-whisky/ This is the Hibiki that I think everyone would agree on- it's about $50.00 for me locally there might be dealers in the in the same price range is you study it..not sure. All this stuff is over price din my opinion. https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/hibiki/hibiki-japanese-harmony-whisky/?recommended_by=31205 I would scan BevMo because they import in quantity and maybe lower in price. And these are the commonly known ones, there are a few others you might catch. I have not had the brand Kikori or tried this one, but I think would be worth the try at this price : http://www.bevmo.com/togouchi-blended-japanese-whisky--750-ml-.html I saw David Finckel perform the Arp and he was my favorite. It's a light yet tough piece. I've never been sold on the recordings on a real arp tuned in forths, but there are a couple that are ok.

Back in CA I used to keep a bottle of Dalmore or Glen or Laphroig, or what ever single imports were at Bev Mo. , for after work use. I wish I could get Dalmore here, but it's a long car drive and pricey. However if I really wanted to drink scotch I would go to Edinburg Castle in San Francisco, it's a bit of an institution and they stock like 200 kinds of scotch. So you get a sampler flight and check out lots of stuff until you find one you want to buy special. So if there's a place near you that has scotch I'd just go and sample. maybe they have Japanese stuff. There's also lots of people writing about it now so there are those experts. I think you are right that a normal bourbon is superior to a bad scotch, but a bad bourbon is like syphilis inside a monkeys arse in a glass. I ain't got nothing against bourbon, it's just that I had a college girl friend from Kentucky, where they make the stuff, and I can't bring myself to put anything in my mouth that's from Kentucky after, well long story... The Arpeggione is a beautiful piece. Weird though that it lays out on the cello fairly well having been written for an instrument tuned in forth's instead of fifths . We were talking about fifths right?

The Hikiki blended is very good and you can share it with non hardcore scotch drinkers and will find it satisfying. It's smooth and rich, but still slightly edgy. It's about $60.00 all the Japanese companies Nikka, Suntory, Hakushu have medium and high tier special lines. I think the medium level stuff is very good, the "well" grade Japanese whiskey all of it is fairly good, but the Hakushu 12 year old single malt is where the interesting stuff begins. There's also and 18 year old. For me locally it's not that expensive, but I was looking at prices in Britain and it seems far too high. Suntory makes like a lower tier blended that is quite servicable is you like Highballs and those kind of drinks. But these guys are not messing around so any higher quality blended or single you buy with some age on it will be good. So far Ive not had one that is really smokey flavored or funky like a near the sea Scotland whiskey, those are the ones I really like. It's my nose for stinky cheeses that leads me there. But if you like funk I can ask around here. I think the aged singles are all pretty good in the 35 - 60 dollar range and if you go higher than that the hooch will be darned good, but I'd hold back and get to know the under 60 dollar stuff. I would not shrink back from a 18 dollar bottle of regular Suntory for my own studio use after work. But sharing a Hibiki or a more aged Hakushu would be much more tasty. The finer Nikka whiskey, good stuff too.

Bourbon is for ninnies. Peaty scotch is a mans drink.

Have any of you noodle heads ever seen 'Song Remains the Same'?

O FOR THE LOVE OF DOG!

I tried to cut a log off her downed tree, she chased me out with a pitch fork. It was a normal Tues night.

That is a great idea, I used to weld I remember those sticks David my choice for a while was beach sand, motor oil, pumice and Gold Bond medicated powder- I went with pumice and Gold Bond, which is talc with some minty stuff in it to make your socks and underwear tingle. Sort of like baby powder for adults. I would have gone for corn starch, but I could not figure out what is called here. Sometimes I just get tired and no longer care to find the right stuff because fighting through the language is so tiring. Yesterday I was talking to a guy about the country of Turkey and after explaining that the Saz is an instrument that comes fr Turkey he looked at me and made an 'eating with knife and fork' gesture and said Christmas turkey? No a saz is not a christmas turkey. Then I had to begin all over and look up a map of turkey on my android phone. I just don't care anymore, it to difficult to figure out how to say 'Borax' or 'naptha' for example or figure out the words for these substances so I just go without them and rub beach sand on everything.

The pumice is for the sticky and the talc is for the slippey. Not really meant to be an abrasive, but a braking agent.

I have seen the pegs with shoulders, I was thinking you could say they have a 'third collar' like a politician with a double or triple chin. Lava soap seems weirdly gritty. I do use a fine uniformly ground pumice, but I bet it would pass the Burg-wearomemter, I think the pumice breaks down further and loses the sharp edges. Now that could be checked out with a spare peg box using different grades of pumice and other abrasive powders you might include in a compound mix. You could make a before and after comparison of the pumice under a microscope. The real problem would be figuring out how much pegs get turned and then hiring a person to sit there and turn the peg back and forth until it equals the same amount of turning a peg gets in a few months. Then observe how much the pumice gets broken down. I wager a few donuts that the pumice gets dull pretty fast. Could the shoulders be created because of hardness differential in the woods as another contributing factor?

I'm doing a few guitars with friction pegs after a long hiatus on wood pegs and I wanted to brush up on peg compounds to see if anything good has been developed in the last 5 years. I read a few threads about peg dope,but this one is especially good information wise. And Dave's feigned concern for the insides of vilion peg holes is just too precious! I have used the Sakura oil stick on the ukuleles I have been making, it works fine really. But the viola sized pegs in guitar headstock need better consideration- I mean if I ask for a high price for a guitar I have to use the best peg dope right? Turns out there's a few good ideas but no precise one solution consensus. So I did what I always do, Ivory soap and pumice with a few hits of graphite and hard wax. Pegs really need careful attention and slow work setting them- a friend gave me a new tip, set them deeper with 20 mm of shaft sticking out the back of the peg head, he said there is less torque on the shaft. I set them at 23 after the peg doping. I'll probably order some Hill lipstick to include in the case when I ship it. As Mr. Miyagi says: " Spooge on, spooge off."

I wanted to find out what the official ingredients of peg compound are are supposed to be so I read this whole thread. I thought there was some wisdom and some insider knowledge that would guide me to make real peg compound, some thing vetted by veterans that common minds like mine can understand. I've learned any things but am still confused and afraid of peg compounds, like I'm not being 'official'. I'm scared now that if David finds out I use glycerin soap and pumice mixed together that he will punish me for introducing more soaps and waxes and horrible grinding compounds to the interiors of peg holes. He chastised me once for using wax as a glue occluding agent on sime strips of wood in rosette making. I'm still emotionally scarred. It only gets worse from there because all these makers who's opinions are very good and whose reputations I admire are all debating waxes, soaps, rouges, unobtainium and one highly regarded astronomer who wants to do away with wood pegs altogether. I'm even more confused than when I began and I really want to understand peg compounds and be 'official' and smart. When I learned to set pegs I was told by me teacher, use soap and pumice, or grab that lipstick looking thing called Hill Peg Dope. Now I learn that HPD is a high top secret proprietary substance, and it very well could have stuff in it that will make David unhappy if I spooge HPD into a peg hole. I don't even have any, so I m safe from committing this heresy. It's as if every option here is a no-no. And the customer wants to lead me back into the dark ages of wood pegs and not forward into the world of Pegs in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. A great essay BTW on pegs and modernity by Walter Benjamin. The old Spanish guitar makers used cornstarch and talc in a 50/50 mix, maybe even wax or fat rendered from jamon serrano mixed with kaolin clay and tarted up by some ground rosin and dash of fino. It seems like anything you jamb in there and mash around is going to make David unhappy. Once I realized this unpleasing fact I was struck by a notion of self preservation, spend as little money possible on peg compounds and the crap you mix together to make it. I had a stroke of genius when I was at the 'dollar store' or here in sushi land we call it the 'hakuen shop' a place where you can get any kind of cheap Chinese kitchen spatula or very cheap masking tape. I studied the entire hakuen shop carefully scanning fastidiously for a Hill Peg Compound stand in that would be very cheap. Finally after much deliberation and several jaunts back a forth between the sewing section and the art supply section to compare products, I settled on a three dollar box of Sakura brand kids oil pastels. The three dollar box holds a dozen of the venerable oilsticks in a rainbow of color, literally. Sir Issac Newton, his shelves of prisms and his whole book called 'Optics' as his guide could not have minted finer simulations of the breakdown of frequencies of light into 3" long sticky cylinders of blue, purple and lime green goo. The true and endless wonder of the 3 dollar Sakura oil stick set is that one can draw messy pictures on paper that will take geologic ages to dry, and if you are a toddler, ingesting them they probably won't really harm you - at least as far as lead poisoning is concerned. The five dollar box has 16 of these cylindrical gems in extra colors, Ultra Violet and Fleshtone being my favorites followed by Faux Azurite and Pink Himalaya Salt, rather esoteric colors, and a bargain at twice the box price. The real beauty however, of the Sakura three dollar 12 set is that is affords one with a replacement for the expensive HPD and it offers this with the added diversity of colors. There really is no choice here once one realizes that HPD is a proprietary substance and really probably fulfills a placebo roll for those who employ it. So a substitution of Sakura Oil Stick would do the same work, also make David unhappy and be 15 times less expensive than a box of very boring mono-color HDP. And there is one added bonus,the shit works and is a fine peg compound, but add some pumice. Then repeat it three days later, it lasts for years. provided you can fit pegs in the first place. Warm regards from the year 1238 AD, Stephen

Everyone reinvents their self at one point, and they all say the same. During the voyage I have encountered a few things I decidedly did not sign on for, but that's par for the course. I'm just making low cost stuff because the high ticket items sell more slowly and it never hurts to have small instruments to make cash. I don't get as much repair work as I used to get due to location, so I have to have another way to diversify the way cash comes in. Being out of CA has made the contact with buyers very difficult and I have not been able to get much of a toe hold on the market here. The dealers are on a different wave length here, they treat the business like it's an art gallery and keep a stable of a few makers they work with and they don't take instruments on consignment from other makers. At least so far that has been the deal. I spent a lot of energy trying to get into a shop and finally just gave up. They rejected everything I showed them,which is strange because I would then send the 'rejects' to CA and they would get picked up fairly fast. The thing I think has to do party with me being here, I noticed that imported instruments sell well, especially Spanish and European work, but since I am here my work does not have the cache' of being imported. A certain dealer was shown an instrument I built for an American living here who knew my name from the US, he lives in a big city. He took the guitar into a dealer who had seen two of my guitars before and the dealer played the guitar for about half an hour and praised it. It's a very fine instrument. He said bring it back I want to see how it plays in. I told my customer not to feel obligated to follow up if it wasted too much of his time. There was an old singer in a town called Lebrija, he was famous around there because he was a drinker, but he hated the taste of wine. He just held his nose and gulped it down. He was in the bar one day and said in the voice that can address the whole bar with , No te' invite, me voy! meaning- if no one invites me to a drink, well I just leave and damn all of you. Someone nodded and the bartender gave him a copa. He tossed it back. Then he sang a siguiriya that floored everyone in the bar and then he stood there a while longer before he repeated, No te' invite, me voy! If you don't treat me I'll just go! Someone else bought him a copa..and so on. Another funny thing is I can still play ok, but I decline because the dancers that straggle along around here are pretty bad. And it's a long and horrible story, but I played for them once when they had a wedding gig and it ended up taking two days to play for ten minutes costing me a hundred bucks more than what I made doing the gig. So to save face and not lie to them that I did not want to play for them, I sent the guitar I had made for myself a dealer in Belgium who in turn sold it to a player in Bahrain or some guy in UAE....I can't recall. I told the dancers I could not play because I had no guitar. I felt vindicated because I was not enabling flamenco to be assassinated. I kill it pretty well on my own, no sense in adding to the artistic carnage. Then two, three months ago I heard there is a Gitano guy who sings flamenco who lives in a town about 50 miles away, but he does not use social media and his Japanese dancer wife keeps him from working with anyone but her. Or so I am told. So here I am, with a cheap Japanese Aria guitar my land lady gave me, which I hide for fear the slug footed dancers will find out I have a guitar, and there is a gypsy singer nearby who I can't figure out how to contact- who I'm sure would be able to commiserate fully and to whom I could say I invite you to a drink. If I run into him tomorrow night when I go to the new opening of the 'flamenco bar' in the city I'm going to grab a guitar and play the intro for a singer who would sing por solea. and if he is a singer and hears that he'll come right over. And if not,well then I'll pinch down my nose and toss back a glass of wine, because frankly I really don't like wine either.

Hello Roger, It's good to know that post your venture into The Death Valley you still have a sense of humor. And that California still has a few orange trees. The rabbits in Death Valley are supposedly very good, I hope you picked up a few to take home. S.

Upon hearing the plight of the poor downtrodden gaijin immigrant, St. Violadamore exsanguinated sorrowful rivulets of mercy through her saintly tear ducts, said nobody in any time or space ever. I was taking a nap in the shop after having sharpened a dozen sawzall blades and was about to do some routering on a few bridges when my uke customer showed up a month early with 20 minutes warning to collect his treasure. Good thing it was finished. I had to throw some strings on it and spit polish a few warts, but I made under the wire. He held it steady on the bench while I put some fret position makers on the side of the fret board. He felt included in the process. Then he gave me an envelope full of cash, then I walked the envelope home and handed the envelope to a higher authority, who in turn gave me a nice gaijin dog biscuit.

It's so sad how ridiculed I am after my valiant defenses of the violin world on the low brow guitar forums. Sad.

The whole Cigar Box guitar thing as already been a trend for some time, in a way I think it is waining somewhat, or getting decadent. The work seems a bit too precious sometimes. But over all it interesting to see how little it takes to make an object with strings tightened over it that makes sound. At one time a violin was this basic thing. My next one is made from a piece of tin roof as a sound board. It sounds like a person talking when it's played.

Very nice, and the neck mounting idea is good. Yes they are fun. I have an order to build one for a local doctor, he's very excited.....he keeps coming over to talk about it. I noticed the basic cbg are very cheap, but the work can get deep and esoteric like building a roadster hot rod. I can see making them could cost to grand in your time, but so far, I've made them more primitive. It's a nice break from hours under the magnification visor making super tight guitar details. I'm thinking about a fish box violin, or a mando cello, we'll see.

I'm making cigar box guitars out of old fish crates. Whopeee!