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       Jul 27-Aug. 1, 2014
       Oct 19-24, 2014

I hope you all made it through the Holiday season without gaining too many calories, and are on your way to a wonderful, healthy, prosperous, and fun-filled New Year.

January is a busy month for us, catching up on year-end kit orders, working on some new products, getting ready for the next Luthierie Camp, and attending the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) convention, The NAMM Show, at the end of the month. NAMM is where we meet with our vendors and suppliers and hope to find new products to help expand your luthierie experiences. (I'll report on our activities at NAMM in our next email newsletter.)

As I write this newsletter, I'm returning from the opening of The Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, North Carolina. The Center was planned and underway while Earl was still alive, and I am honored to have received a personal invitation to participate in the Dedication ceremony and opening of the Center on January 11th. Many dignitaries and town officials attended the opening on Saturday afternoon, and there was a concert on Saturday night at the Shelby High School that featured Rob Ickes, Randy and Gary Scruggs, Sam Bush, Vince Gill, Travis Tritt, John Gardner, and Jim Mills. Jim does a wonderful job emulating Earl's picking style, and the evening's concert was in honor of Earl and especially reminiscent of Earl's music. The Earl Scruggs Center is in a restored court house in the center of the town square and features an Earl Scruggs museum that occupies the entire ground floor. If you ever go through North Carolina, the Scruggs Center is a very worthwhile stop.

I'm hopeful that you saw our announcement last month of the re-issue of the highly acclaimed peghead poster from the June 1974 issue of Pickin' Magazine. As I think you all know, I founded Pickin' in 1973 and was personally involved in the creation of this poster as well as few others. The original posters were bound into our "special instrument editions" which were typically in June of each year.

While on the subject of new things, Kali and Amy have twisted my arm to prepare artwork for a banjo T-shirt which mimics the basic mood, tone, and feeling of our heralded mandolin T-shirts (I must admit, they are pretty cool). You can learn more about how to take advantage of a pre-order program they have instituted in the product section below.

Kali has just posted detailed mechanical drawings of our tuning machines to accompany each type of machine on our web site. You can find the individual drawings by clicking on the desired machines (e.g. Loar Machines (301-LG)), which will take you to the specific page for that machine set., and then clicking on the VIEW MORE IMAGES button. Then the "Next" button will take you to the specification drawings (like this for the 301-LG example). Now when you are ready to order machines, you'll have all the detailed specifications you need for our Loar-style, F5, H5, F4, and A1-5 machines as well as the details for standard position and inverted machines. And, if you would like to learn more about the differences between these machines, please visit this webpage.

Another resource I want to remind you of that is often overlooked. It is the Product Information pages that are broken down by product type (i.e., necks, neck services, machines, soundboards and backboards, our signature kits, etc.). There's a ton of information here and many pages go to further links where particular products and services are dealt with in greater depth. You can find the Product and Information link in the box above Luthierie Camp on our homepage.

Have you figured what you are going to build in 2014? If you'd like to talk any of your ideas through with me, I'm always available at 805.365.7111.

Roger

You can probably tell from the books I've written that I love sharing my experiences in luthierie. The idea of doing a Luthierie Camp ran parallel to the development of my books - as great as written texts are, they are very one-sided; I write and you read, but there is zero interaction. Six years ago, after the publication of The Ultimate Bluegrass Mandolin Construction Manual and The Art of Tap Tuning, the "idea" to do Camps grew into a "burning desire" and Rosemary and I began looking for another home with an accompanying space that would enable Camps to become a reality.
 
In the past five years, we've brought almost 100 luthiers through our program. A few attendees were recognized musicians, some were professional luthiers, a few were well known manufacturers, three went off to begin their careers and earn their livings as mandolin builders, and the remainder came because they love the idea of building an instrument. In addition to full-time luthiers, we've had doctors, lawyers, dentists, veterinarians, bow-and-arrow makers, and the mix has been both male and female.

From our viewpoint, our Luthierie Camps are about as rewarding an experience as we can imagine - and all of us here agree on this - and the evaluations that Campers complete at the end of Camp attest to it being an equally rewarding and exciting experience as they can imagine.

"audit" program in which a Camper could attend, be present for all discussions, demonstrations, presentations, and meals, monitor all the building processes that fellow Campers are doing, but not build an instrument. So, basically the audit-camper is experiencing everything but the actual construction of his or her mandolin. Kali is opening one seat per camp for someone to audit the program, and because there is no kit included, or supplies and materials used during Camp, the audit seat is available at a greatly reduced price. Email her for details and pricing, or to get on the list for a 2014 camp.

The information is now in our 2014 Camp brochure that goes out with every order (and may take a while to get up on our web site). If you don't have an order on the way but would like a Camp brochure, I'll be happy to personally put one in the mail to you if you email me directly and write "CAMP BROCHURE" in the subject line (and be sure to include your complete mailing address).

Hope to see you at Camp...

The glue seam between tone bars and the soundboard should be fitted as well as possible, and there should be a consistent bead of glue throughout the entire joint. Violin makers often fit parts by "chalking;" they apply chalk to one part and then rub that part on the mating part to see where the chalk transfers. The transferred chalk indicates a high spot that needs to be lowered. This is an acceptable process, but is a bit time consuming. A somewhat quicker method is to sand-fit the tone bars, a method that is similar to our mandolin bridge fitting technique. This process is a rather simple way to get the tone bars to conform precisely to the soundboard's curvature.

To hold the tone bar securely and keep it from rocking, our luthier, Ken Roddick, uses the same clamping fixture we use for fitting one-piece bridges. He clamps the fixture to the tone bar he is fitting, places a piece of sandpaper (rough side up) on the soundboard, and works the tone bar back and forth until the saw cuts in the tone bar disappear. Then, he removes the sandpaper and carefully checks the fit of the tone bar to ensure there are no gaps. He carefully marks the inside edge and end points of the tone bar onto the soundboard so he know exactly where to place it when the glue is applied.

To rough cut the tone bar to its initial shape, he uses the small contour-marking tool shown in Fig. 5.27 of The Ultimate Bluegrass Mandolin Construction Manual.

Q: At a recent jam a banjo player showed me that he had a builder change his neck to a fast neck. It seemed a little smoother than mine and I'd like to try it. Exactly what is it and how is it done? Can I do it myself?

A: A "fast neck" is one that has been finished so that it is slicker and smoother than a traditional lacquered neck. Most lacquer finishes are prepared to a high gloss to provide a professional and highly sellable instrument. The high gloss looks good but an ultra-smooth finish clings to the surface of our skin and does not provide a smooth slide-able surface. (You'll notice that many guitar makers finish their necks with a dull surface for this very reason.)

Almost all violin (fiddle) necks are prepared with what appears to be an unfinished area on the back of the neck. Typically, this portion of the body has been finished like the rest of instrument, and then the finish has been rubbed off to get back to almost-bare wood. Violins are finished in varnish, and varnish can be prepared to be as smooth as lacquer. However, varnish presents a somewhat sticky feel - especially when warm - and to provide the musician with a smoother stick-free neck, the luthier will wipe off the varnish from the back of the neck and get the finish down to almost bare wood. Since the varnish was applied to the entire neck at first, the wood's cells are sealed, so even though this area has a reduced covering of varnish, it is still protected from the elements.

There are several ways to make your already-finished neck slick or "fast" as some call it - and yes, you can do it yourself. You can use diatomaceous earth (a natural white powder that comes from siliceous sedimentary rock and is used in pool filters as the filter medium) and use it as a pumice powder to dull down the finish on the back of your neck. Sprinkle some on a damp rag and just rub the neck as if you were trying to clean it. The surface will become a bit less shiny, but the neck will feel smoother. If you are doing a banjo neck (which you referred to in your question) you should remove the 5th peg so you have access to the whole neck. You will have some clean up to do because undoubtedly some of the residue will find its way to the fretboard and into the 5th peg hole, but it does clean up easily.

You don't really have to remove the neck from the instrument to do this, but you do want to work on a padded surface (a piece of carpet is great) so that you don't ding things as you move the instrument around.

If you want to reduce the finish further and get closer to the bare wood, you can use coarse steel wool to start and then work up to 000-grade steel wool to remove the lacquer finish from the back of the neck. This may take a while because the lacquer is durable and you will probably have to go through many coats of lacquer before you get to the wood.

Please do bear in mind that the process is not reversible. If you want to get back you a shiny neck again, you'll have to have the neck refinished.
Have a question? Be sure to send it in and we'll answer it in an upcoming issue. We won't post your name, and chances are, if you have a question, someone else probably needs the same answer!