Guitar show stress, WHAT IF's & full disclosure... warning LONG post!
 

In the life of a luthier, preparing for a guitar show is one of the most stressful times that we experience. Many of us routinely burn a lot of midnight oil in preparation and the anxiety levels raise exponentially as the show quickly approaches. There is always that dark thought looming in the back of our mind, WHAT IF something would happen and we can't deliver the guitar on time or we won't be ready for the show due to some unexpected catastrophic occurrence.

Lots of unexpected & ugly things can happen when we cut it too close to our deadlines. WHAT IFs could include many of the following: a guitar or neck goes airborne while we are buffing the finish to a mirror gloss. Perhaps a chisel slips as we are removing the finish from the top as we prepare to glue the bridge. WHAT IF we drop a tool on the top as we are reaming the bridge pin holes, a fret file slips & gouges the top as we are dressing the frets, the drill slips while drilling the end pin hole or worse yet the finish chips around the hole. Perhaps the finish cracks as we snug down a tuner bushing or a nut file gets stroked too far and we put a gash in the peg head. WHAT IFs just have a way of sneaking up on builder at the most inopportune times… not that I would have any direct knowledge of such things... ;)

Howard Klepper sent me a PM two weeks ago and asked how we were coming along with our Healdsburg guitars. He mentioned that he was just starting to pore fill one of his guitars for the show. I thought to myself, “Man am I glad that I am not at that stage this close to the festival”. Therefore, I "proudly" replied that I had just finished tweaking the last of our 5 Healdsburg guitars. There is a verse of scripture that came immediately to mind after I hit the send button, Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Hmmmm....

Our guitars were "proudly" resting on stands in our loft and were ready for their first real test drive by a much better player than myself. The next day, my friend Kurt (from this forum) came down from Michigan to look at the Healdsburg batch of guitars before we shipped them out. Kurt arrived and we made small talk but I knew he was chomping at the bit to get his hands on our latest batch of guitars. We proceeded to make our way to the loft so he could put them through a work out which allowed Mary and I the pleasure to hear the fruit of our labor. I will let Kurt chime in with his opinions of each guitars unique voice.

All was well up to this point and Kurt, being tired from a full day of driving, was ready for some rest. This was the first adventure for this group of guitars beyond the humidity controlled room whence they were birthed. After Kurt had played each of the guitars for us we gently tucked each guitar safely into its respective case that Friday night and I went to bed.

The next morning I walked up to the loft and took the first guitar out of its case and something just didn't look quite right. The finish gloss seemed a bit dull but upon closer inspection; the finish had actually wrinkled everywhere it came into contact with the case padding. At that moment my knees felt weak and my stomach had instantly felt nauseous. I just couldn't believe my eyes. Pinch me; this had to be a very bad dream. My mind wanted to believe that this finish reaction had to be unique to this particular guitar and this case. I quickly began opening the other four cases (three different brands of cases BTW) and ALL the guitars had the same wrinkled and dull finish.

Now I was extremely sick. This couldn't be happening, especially two weeks before my due date to ship the guitars to CA for the Healdsburg Guitar Festival, which BTW is the most important guitar show that we exhibit at. My life was passing before my eyes, the email exchange with Howard and the "proud" thoughts that I had were spinning in my head. What was I going to do; my pride was in free fall...

There was no way that I was going to have enough time to repair these guitars before the festival. What was I going to tell my customers? They had bought plane tickets, booked hotel rooms, arranged rental cars and purchased their tickets for the guitar show. This was a very grim situation for me, very very discouraging!

Kurt quickly got a sense of how distraught I was. He was a much needed blessing in the time of dire need. His soft spoken words were such an encouragement to me when I wanted to just give up and throw in the towel. Soon after, I got alone and began to pray and ask for divine help. How was I going to explain this disaster to Mary? Soon Kurt and Mary both began encouraging me and said we have work to do so let's get to it...

To be continued...

Some background is needed here - I had previously been using a catalyzed Urethane finish for the last 8+ years and I had grown to really love that finish. It was durable, had excellent gloss and was my favorite finish to date. The problem was that the Lawrence McFadden Co, who manufactured the finish, had gone out of business last year and my stock was gone. I had spent the entire winter researching and testing a plethora of finishes to try to come up with a suitable replacement. After all of my testing I had settled on using a short oil varnish, which incidentally I just used on this Healdsburg batch of guitars.

During some previous testing, I finished two guitars with this new (to me) varnish and I was pretty satisfied with the results. However, Mary wasn't. She did not like the color and thought it imparted a hue that was just too amber, tainting the natural color of the wood. Looking back, I should have listened to her woman's intuition but I am often pig headed and a slow learner. After I had completed those test guitars I purchased another "batch" of finish (which shall remain unnamed). The finish on the Healdsburg batch was at least two months old. I waited a full month before I buffed it to allow it plenty of time to fully cure. However, after two months it just felt a little “odd and tacky" to the touch. I had noticed some faint haze marks on in the gloss where it contacted the rubber pads on the guitar stands, so I allowed the guitars to remain in my environmentally controlled wood room for an additional month before I did the final set ups of the guitars. I was trying to give the guitars ample time to cure before I put them in their cases. My gut told me there was something awry with this batch of finish but I thought time was on my side.

After some dialog with the varnish finish OEM we still really don't understand what happened in this situation. It could have been a bad batch of finish although they said that they have not had any other similar reports. It’s doubtful they would though because this company’s target market is the marine industry not guitar builders. There is another well known builder who uses this brand and he had not had any similar problems so we are still in the dark as to what the root cause of the failure really was.

Back to the story … Kurt asked what I needed to do to get the guitars ready for the show. I told him it would take an absolute MIRACLE to repair them and I had no chance to pull this off. I went on to explain to him that the old finish had to come off. He so GRACIOUSLY offered his help so I gladly accepted his offer. For the next 14 hours we applied paint stripper and carefully removed all of the old oil varnish from these guitars. Without his help this grim story could never have a chance of ending on a positive note.

To make matters even worse, the fumes from the paint stripper penetrated one of the Hollow Backs and melted the glue on the inner back. The next day that outer Hollow Back sunk in and looked like a giant salad bowl, from the outside. This required me to remove and replace the entire back on that guitar adding even more time and stress to an already stressful situation. Luckily I had an identical sister back. At this point I felt like I was about to have the Big One.

Kurt left the following day to visit his parents. He offered to stay on and help even more but the next steps were critical to having any success with this project. The margin for error was huge and I was not willing to allow him to take any of that risk upon himself. Next the frets had to come out of the fingerboard extensions, the extension had to be heated and ever so carefully separated from the top. Next the neck joint had to be steamed apart. Once the neck was off the bridge had to be removed.

I was a nervous wreck the entire time. One slip with a tool and the top would have been toast. I sure did a LOT of praying that and the following four (18 hour) work days. It took that long to get four of the five guitars stripped, sanded, the Maple Hollow Back and bindings replaced and prepped for finish.

Since I had a really bad experience with this varnish finish and there was certainly not nearly enough time left to allow varnish to cure properly (30 days) I had to find a suitable alternative finish that would cure EXTREMELY fast. The only finish that would stand a chance was polyester.

Enter Joe White, blessing number two! Joe is a professional finisher to a LOT of instrument builders. Joe has a LOT of experience with a number of finishes. He had tried to convince me a year ago, when we lost the McFadden business, to switch to polyester. I actually did try it, but only on one prototype guitar. My results were discouraging because I tried to apply it the way I did urethane which is why my first attempt failed. The finish builds so rapidly that I killed the tone and I had to strip it off and start all over again. Joe graciously talked me through the process to properly mix and apply the catalyzed polyester. I ordered the finish on a Monday and I was spraying it the next day. Joe also encouraged me to speak with David Taylor who is also a convert and proponent of polyester.

Enter David Taylor (DT Guitars), blessing number three! David has a lot of experience with polyester since he made the switch about the same time Joe did, from McFadden’s. David uses a similar but slightly different technique of mixing and material application. Both David and Joe were huge helps in my time of need and without their willingness to help me I would still be crying in my spilled milk ;(

Joe encouraged me to spray some finish test panels on glass plates so I would have an idea how much finish material my gun and my own personal spraying technique was laying down. I sprayed one coat on one pane of glass, two coats on a second pane of glass and three coats on a third pane of glass. I measured the glass pane thickness before I applied any finish and then again after the finish was dry (12 hours). The DRY finish measured an exact .001" thickness per coat. This was very helpful because now I knew exactly how much finish I was applying per coat.

I was able to spray the polyester on Tuesday and I was buffing the guitars on Wednesday which was nearly unfathomable to me. Never before had I been able to buff a finish any quicker than 14 days without the fear of some shrinkage. This new finish is nothing short of amazing. My utmost humble gratitude goes out to Joe and David!

There was a learning curve mixing and applying this high quality polyester finish but it just goes to prove that this old dog can learn a new trick. My old urethane finish took me about an hour to buff a body and neck while this new polyester took me two and a half hours to buff a body and neck. It’s like buffing iron but the gloss and results are well worth the added effort and time.

Therefore, after 16 LONG days the guitars are now done, for the second time and I truly believe they look AND sound even better than before. The new finish is considerable thinner measuring an amazing .0015" - .002" at the bridge with a beautiful mirror like gloss. It feels bullet proof to the touch. You can scratch it as hard as you want with your finger nail and it just smiles back at you ;)

Sorry for a long winded post but I just wanted to share an amazing journey that we have had. It was quite difficult but it was the right thing to do for our customers. Even if we don’t fully understand it I truly believe that all things happen for a reason and because I can sometimes be stubborn and a slow learner at times, those tribulations randomly appear in my life to teach me some valuable lessons for my own well being. I was taught some very valuable lessons in these last two L-O-N-G stressful weeks. Mary reminded me daily that the Lord has everything in control and that when I depend upon myself I am likely to fail. When I put my faith and trust in the One who we first dedicated our business to He will never disappoint and let us down. He has taught me a humbling life lesson and a glorious new meaning of dying-to-self while all the while depending upon Him for His leadership and helping Hand. For that obedience ... we got to experience a very special miracle.
Soli Deo Gloria

Wow, Tim. That's quite a story... I'm certainly glad it has a happy ending. I guess there are two good things that have resulted from this experience. One, your finishes are now faster to apply and thinner. Two, you were able to see how the oil varnish finishes reacted to the cases before the trip... think of how horrible it would have been to arrive in CA and open the cases then...

I'm glad Joe and David were able to help too. While I haven't met Joe, I do have a guitar he finished (my Batson) and he did a brilliant job. I also own a DT Guitar and have nothing but the utmost respect for David Taylor. He's as good as they come.

I'm looking forward to seeing you and Mary next week! I can't wait to see the new guitars. Travel safe.

Kindly,
Danny

Thanks for your reply Danny. Looking forward to seeing you again as well. Please stop by our table for a test drive because we always enjoy your skillful playing.

All's well that ends . . .well. Sounds like you didn't follow my patented Varnish instructions. I know because you waited a month to buff, which I have never thought necessary. I look forward to talking and finding out where you did go astray (I doubt it was "pride" alone). Nothing like that has yet happened to me, and I would like to make sure I continue to avoid it!!!

My guitars are all ready, so any Festival stress I have is coming less directly. I am having a Saturday night soirée (you'd be welcome Tim (and Mary), with or w/o instruments) and my stress comes from the mess that my shop is and trying to do something about it so I can fool the general public into thinking I have it all together.

wow this was an amazing story. Ever single word was read....and I was hanging by every letter. I never realized how much effort goes into these festivals....Praise God!!! glad everything went well. The future looks bright for you guys!!!

Dang....I'll have to read that one in the morning. My eyes aren't working that well right now!

Wow....I am very glad everything worked out well. I can only imagine the stress you experienced through all of that!

Thank you Tim for all your work. I for one would have just moved to Cuba and gone into exile. You are a stronger man then I. I can't wait to play them at Healdsburg. They look fantastic.

Ouch!!!! Nice recovery though.

Glad it all worked out!

You got me paranoid too. I got a new brand of case for one of my Healdsburg guitars and it had a pretty strong glue smell. Just checked the guitar and it's fine. Whew.

I lessened my stress load by deciding not to even try to finish a dread I was planning to bring. I was cutting it close and decided, as much as I wanted to have a larger guitar, I'd have to make do with only small bodies at the show. Better than rushing and potentially screwing it up.

I only have have 2 more to string up. Back to work.....

...........[/whew]

WOW. I can't imagine going through all that but congratulations of getting it all done and living to tell about it! I'm soooo glad this had a happy ending.

Wow Tim, you're giving me the heebee-jeebees just reading your story. I want to go back and double check all our finishes again. Last Healdsburg, we broke a drill bit putting the truss rod cover hole in and tore up the peghead with one week left. Somehow it got fixed, but nothing like festival stress to wear you out.

Happy everything turned out and we look forward to seeing you there.
Sola gracia

Glad it all ended well Tim! I just finished with the last of my guitars today. Now to get pictures, and launch the new website, and get display materials, and......