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#1
08-04-2018, 10:16 AM
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Build Thread: Mile End Guitar Coop 10 Year Anniversary Guitar!
Greetings everyone!
I'm very excited to start off a thread for what's going to be a very special guitar for me. Ten years ago this fall, Jeremy Clark (52 Instrument Co.) and I set up our first workshop together in the Mile End neighborhood of Montreal. We had both just spent most of the previous three years apprenticing with Sergei de Jonge in the beautiful Gatineau hills of Quebec and, being young-ish unattached bohemian bums, it's no surprise we were lured by the amazing and vibrant culture of Montreal. At first we only had a couple of goals in mind -- have space for ourselves and other luthiers to work/collaborate, host shop concerts, and, most important, to have fun! At some point I must have blinked because somehow it's now been ten years, many many shop concerts later, in our third space, and currently have 10 luthiers working in the coop! There's always been a wonderful spirit of sharing, openness, and collaboration in the shop so what better way to celebrate our anniversary than building a sweet guitar together! The design and various element of the guitar will be a mix of past and present. Starting with the shape and in a nod to our roots, Sergei (whose generosity is endless) lent us the mold for his SSS model (Standard Steel String). We'll also be building it out of a beautiful set of dark Brazilian Rosewood I got from Sergei all those years ago! With an engelmann spruce top, here's a look at where we're starting....  The real fun part of this build will be all the people working on it! Here's a list of who's involved.... Jeremy Clark (52 Instrument Co.) Mike Kennedy (aka me aka Indian Hill Guitars) Nic Delisle (Island Instrument Manufacture) Joel Michaud (Michaud Made) Lenny Piroth-Robert (Daddy Mojo Stringed Instruments) Dion Bews (Dion Guitars) Joshia de Jonge (Joshia de Jonge Guitars) Sergei de Jonge (de Jonge Guitars) Dan Wilkie (The Wilkie Guitar Co.) Matthieu Dallaire-Walker (Dallaire Guitars) Loic Martin (Loma Guitars) Oliver Duval-Quinn (Guitares Quinn) As this guitar comes together I'll toss in some side info about the coop and how we got to where we are today -- it's a pretty unique place that's had a lot of great people working in it's walls over the years. Lots more to come on this one -- stay tuned and thanks for looking! Mike Last edited by IndianHillMike; 08-14-2018 at 09:28 PM. 
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#2
08-04-2018, 02:02 PM
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Super exciting! Post a lot about this - there are bound to be many interesting stories as well as photo ops. Congrats on 10 years!
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Hatcher Woodsman, Collings 0002H, Stella Grand Concert
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#3
08-04-2018, 02:54 PM
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Mike,
I'm excited to see this build completed. From my visit to the Coop this winter, I could feel the special vibe you and the other luthiers have created. All the best for this special build and looking forward to the next ten years of your members development and growth.
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Ian K. 2018 Michaud OO-R 2012 Webber Dreadnaught *SOLD* 2010 Eastman E20OM 1994 Guild D30 1979 Yamaha FG375S (retired) 1974 Norman B30 (retired)
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#5
08-05-2018, 01:31 PM
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Interesting concept and great Braz! Are you not worried about there being too many cooks in the kitchen?
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Circa OM-30/34 (Adi/Mad) | 000-12 (Ger/Maple) | OM-28 (Adi/Brz) | OM-18/21 (Adi/Hog) | OM-42 (Adi/Braz) Fairbanks SJ (Adi/Hog) | Schoenberg/Klepper 000-12c (Adi/Hog) | LeGeyt CLM (Swiss/Amzn) | LeGeyt CLM (Carp/Koa) Brondel A-2 (Carp/Mad)
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#6
08-06-2018, 10:00 AM
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About a third of the coop members are relatively early on in their luthier careers so another goal I had for this project was to give the younger guys an opportunity to work on something at a high level that would stretch their skills in some new areas and not allow for any "good enough" work. For example, the guitar is going to have an elevated neck so I'll lead one of the younger guys through that process instead of just getting someone with more experience to do it on their own. Seems very fitting and in the spirit of the coop to include teaching, learning, and sharing as an integral part of the build! Thanks again for looking and more soon! Mike
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#7
08-06-2018, 02:35 PM
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Great idea. I love it!
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Circa OM-30/34 (Adi/Mad) | 000-12 (Ger/Maple) | OM-28 (Adi/Brz) | OM-18/21 (Adi/Hog) | OM-42 (Adi/Braz) Fairbanks SJ (Adi/Hog) | Schoenberg/Klepper 000-12c (Adi/Hog) | LeGeyt CLM (Swiss/Amzn) | LeGeyt CLM (Carp/Koa) Brondel A-2 (Carp/Mad)
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#9
08-07-2018, 04:23 AM
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Sounds like an awesome project. I'm curious as to who does what in a project with so many fine luthiers involved ?
As for the voicing who'll take care of it, and what choice will be made, for what type of sound ? It's not for a particular client is it ?
__________________
Avalon Custom Auditorium Fan Fret Sinker Redwood/Ziricote Furch 34 SR Stahl (custom) - Sitka/EIR Classical Hanika 58CF - Alpine/Cocobolo Yamaha LS16 - Engel/EIR Alvarez MSD1 - Cedar/Mahogany Breedlove C25 - Cedar/Mahogany K-Country 1975 - Sitka/Mahogany upcoming : Michaud Made OM-R - ARW/ Swiss "moon" Astrand A-OM - MRW - Euro Bearclaw
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#10
08-08-2018, 09:08 AM
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It was definitely a challenge trying to break up all the jobs and assign them to people but mostly I tried to play to people's strengths and evenly distribute the grunt work (sanding, thicknessing, etc.). As the build progresses I'll post about the various jobs and who's doing them so you can see for yourself how it all pans out! Jeremy, Joel, and I currently have the most experience with bracing/voicing tops so we'll work together in coming up with a bracing pattern and the target frequencies, deflections, etc.. Most likely I'll be the one doing the actual bracing and carving but with input. As of now we're going to do a variation on Jeremy's hexagonal bracing pattern which tends towards a very clean and un-muddied tone. The guitar will also have an elevated neck which should balance nicely with that pattern by cranking it up a notch and adding some oomph to make sure the tone is clean, strong, and beautiful, but not thin. As of now the only destination for this guitar our anniversary celebration in October and after that it will be up for grabs! It's going to be a pretty unique and special guitar so I don't imagine it will kick around the shop for very long before someone snatches it up -- to play it safe we are of course happy to accept offers ahead of time!  Mike
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#11
08-13-2018, 11:10 AM
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I thought I'd start this post with a little bit of the shop's history. In the winter of 2005/6, Jeremy and I both moved out to the beautiful woods of Chelsea, QC to start an apprenticeship with Sergei de Jonge. For those of you that know Sergei, it should be no surprise that it was an amazing/surreal/hilarious/wonderful couple of years and I feel beyond fortunate at how much I was able to learn in such a incredible environment. I could easily fill up an entire thread with just my experiences during my time with Sergei and his family -- many many late nights playing music, daily swims in the Gatineau river, the endless stream of interesting family/friends/students, births and deaths, and, of course, lots of guitars! For now, here are a couple of pics...
A peek in the shop...  photo: Charles Le Guen Sergei doing his thing...  photo: Charles Le Guen Here's Jeremy and I attempting to soak up some of Sergei's taping expertise...  photo: Charles Le Guen Swim spot about a 2 minute walk from the shop...  Since we're talking about beginnings, one quick story -- the first time I pulled up to Sergei's was at about midnight the night before my first guitar building course. I had just finished the long drive across the country from Santa Cruz with everything I owned packed into my little car and was feeling pretty weary. Walking down to the shop for the very first time I met Sergei in the yard as he and a few others were standing in complete awe of the northern lights that had just come out. It was as if we were centered directly under a giant glass dome covered entirely in swirling green with a giant red ball at the peak. It was like nothing I had ever seen before or even come close to since. I'm not overly concerned with omens but it definitely felt like the universe was giving the thumbs up and saying, "Hey! This is a special place and you're in the right spot!". Okay, now on to the guitar! As I mentioned earlier this one will have some sweet dark Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides. Here's Loic Martin (Loma Guitars) getting the sides ready for bending...  Loic is one of the younger builders in the shop and is focusing on building some amazingly clean, precise, and well designed electric guitars. He's never had a chance to work with Brazilian and was very excited to get his hands on some. However, being the one who provided the wood I had the joy/terror of bending. It's not a difficult wood to bend, but it ain't cheap so there's definitely an extra level of stress involved!  Since this is just a one-off guitar for the shop (with no dedicated bending setup) I did most of the bending by hand and put it the mould with a heating blanket (and a million or so clamps) just to smooth things out before laminating....  There should be a bunch more developments this week so stay tuned! Mike Last edited by IndianHillMike; 08-14-2018 at 09:25 PM.
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#12
08-20-2018, 10:43 AM
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When starting this project I didn't realized I'd be creating a new role for the coop as shop-juggler/cat-herder in my attempts to keep all the moving parts of this project organized! The guitar is moving along nicely, albeit in fits and starts as the work gets passed from person to person, and we should have a box within a week or so. Here are a few updates...
Jeremy is in charge of the back and used Sergei's system to get the Brazilian joined. With only two contact points on one side, this is an incredibly simple and versatile system that allows you to quickly join oddly shaped pieces (even if it's already cut out to guitar shape)...  And here's Jeremy using our fancy new thickness sander getting some back braces prepared...  I continued working on the sides and here I am gluing up the side laminations (again with +/- million clamps). As a shop, more and more of us in the past few years have been building with what we call "structured sides". Essentially the liners are not just in the corners but extend the full height of the side. This was a technique that Jeremy and I first built with a few times at Sergei's and it makes incredibly stiff sides (ridiculously stiff). It clearly adds weight as well which is very intentional with the goal of limiting the transfer of vibrations from the top into the sides by acting as an anchor. Imagine a ruler hanging over the edge of a table with a weight holding it down (like a diving board). Give that ruler a twang and see how it vibrates. Imagine doing that with a one pound weight versus a hundred pounds -- clearly the heavier weight is going to keep a lot more of the vibrations isolated in the ruler. That idea with the crazy increase in structural integrity is a clear win for us!  Once the sides were laminated it was time to get the frame joined. First up we have Matthieu Dallaire-Walker (Dallaire Guitars) prepping the blocks and making sure they're a perfect fit to the sides...  Matt is another one of the younger builders in the shop and has really impressed me with his creativity and execution in designing rosettes and other marquetry on his guitars as well as his incredible thirst for knowledge. We both tend to work later schedules and when 9 o'clock rolls around it's often just the two of us in the shop -- we've had many a many long discussions over an end of the day beer diving into the nitty-gritty of how guitars (might) work. Once the blocks were made it's time to join the rim! This joint and glue up was taken care of by Dan Wilkie -- Dan's been in the shop for a while now (probably 7 years or so) and has slowly been getting more interested in furniture making than instruments. He's still working away on guitars though and it's been amazing to see his progression from when he first entered the shop as essentially a complete beginner....  That's it for now; back and top bracing this week!
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#13
08-20-2018, 04:56 PM
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This is a really cool project. I think the organizing of tasks is as important as the tasks themselves with this many builders involved so great job there!
I don't mean to sidetrack, but your story of the Northern Lights brought back my own story. I was on our farm in Wisconsin, about 15 years old, and we had been working all day, dairy farm, so up at 5:30 to milk and then were had hay cut and almost ready to bale. I was either racking, or baling, or hauling and unloading hay all day once it was dry enough. We had stopped for dinner and supper, but other than that we had not stopped all day. I milked that night myself as my cousin was baling hay...for those who know, dew usually comes in at night and the hay becomes to tough (wet) to bale, but this night we had no dew, so a very unusual situation we kept baling all night. I was hauling and unloading back and forth from about 2 miles away. We finally stopped at midnight as we were both exhausted. I don't even know how I drove the last load home, but the northern lights had been going since probably 11 and I had been entertained greatly. However, when I got into our barnyard, the entire sky was lit up, 360 degrees around with Northern lights that seem to be extending from the horizons up to a peak where there was a red ring 360 degrees around that was spinning. I thought I was hallucinating, but when I asked my older cousin (20 years older) if he had seen it too, he said he had! I have yet to see it again some 40 years later, but I have researched it and it is a rare phenomena that does occur. When you describe your experience as to being under a glass dome, that seemed like you were describing what I had seen as well. Awesome.
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PS. I love guitars!
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#14
08-21-2018, 08:36 AM
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Cool! Yeah, sounds just like what I saw. I've seen a couple of flickers here and there over the years but nothing like that night -- I feel pretty lucky to have witnessed such an amazing show!
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#15
08-22-2018, 07:30 AM
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What an absolutely wonderful thread! Such a great idea to commemorate the anniversary of your co-op this way Mike ... love it!!!!!!!
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David Wren
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