Official Luthiers Forum!

We are having our Set-Up class today continuing from our Fretting Class yesterday.

Today's class will teach students all about when the woodworking is done and your creations need to become what they ultimately are - tools for musicians. We will be learning to make bone nuts and saddles, learning about compensation, relief, action, the fret plane and all things pertaining to the final set-up of the instrument. I like to call this the human interface and as such it's super important especially if you sell or plan on selling your instruments to have them play effortlessly and like butter.

I'll be posting pics of our progress though out the day for your viewing pleasure... Feel free to ask questions and/or make stupid comments too, that's why I'm here...

Here's Professor Dave Collins starting off the first lecture of the day - more to follow.

Slotting the bridge, top, and plate:

Now we are discussing nut making, cleaning out the nut channel, thicknessing bone blanks, etc.

Lucky guys!

Love to have been able to attend

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

More pics before the most important part of the day..... lunch...

Hey Danny Bro! Yeah it's a very good time and I really enjoy these classes. Lots of fun and as you know OLFers are often pretty cool folks!

More pics, we are still making nuts here and moving onto saddles soon.

More pics:

Does the shop have the new Febreeze odor of ground bone?

Hey Doc! It smells like....... well you know up here this afternoon......

OK more pics. We are finished with our nuts and moving onto bone saddles (more stink....).

You guys realize that the rest of the country is anxiously awaiting the national tour. I think the Breakstone Collins Travelling Nut Show would be a resounding success.
Seriously though, is the guitar up to pitch when using the string lifter?
It was as though a light went on when I saw that!

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Can't wait until June. Looking forward to it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Yeah there may be some lightly used tour busses on the block soon....

Yep strings are tuned to pitch when using the lifters. It's easier to do then you might think except on slot heads, they have lots of downward pressure.

Us too buddy it should be a very fun time!

Final pics, man are we tired....

Everyone did fantastic and many thanks to our students and everyone who was interested in watching the threads over the weekend!

Thanks' for posting the pics Hesh.

I still wince when I see a shot of filing the nut down onto the strings! Like nails on a chalk board. I still have to work up to that technique.

And get Dave a plane for his birthday or something.

Oh yeah, It's great to see Steve get some strings on that project!

My brain and body are fried Very intense two days, I'll give a full report when I can think, can't say how many times over we got our money's worth. Thanks Hesh and Dave!

I came back to the hotel and played that size O for over an hour. Sooo Sweeeet! If I hadn't played it I would never have believed an acoustic could play clean with the action at 2/64 and 4/64. We ended up moving the action to about 3 1/2 and 5. My brain hurts but what a great opportunity. Thanks so much Dave and Hesh for your hospitality.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hey David! We often refer to filing down excess nut height on the guitar as part of the sausage making of a working plucked instrument Luthier.... We've actually had a client or two start to look like we needed to get a portable defibrillator when he was present when we were doing this on his guitar..... Some things should not be seen perhaps...

I actually offered to get a plane today for Dave but for faster work of non-level boards on student instruments when we don't have time to grind down the board manually. He prefers exotic and scary files though for bridges and didn't want my stinkin.... file.... The best way to get a tool dismissed forever more for use in our shop is for me to bring it up....

Looks like an informative couple of days there, Hesh. I'm still waiting on the West coast tour as well..

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Blue Ring Acoustics
blueringacoustics.ca

Back in Tennessee. Took both the fretting and set up classes, hats off to Dave and Hesh. Dave's methods are well thought out and not for the lazy. The fretting class is a process of continual refinement, with perfection the end goal, not for beginners. The set up class teaches how to make a perfect nut and saddle, how to hit your chosen action & intonation numbers, adjust the truss-rod, observe the neck after each adjustment and use that information to correct any issues. And then you test your setup. No detail is overlooked or too small to address. We had a nice variety of guitars to observe, Steves Martin was compression fretted perfectly (a real eye opener). I can highly recommend these if your really serious. Good to meet and spend a day with Alex Kleon

Also special thanks to my fellow luthier and road warrior Steve Smith.

Greg buddy it was a sincere pleasure to get to meet you finally and spend a couple days working on guitars with you too!

The fretting like anything else gets easier with experience as at some point you can just dive in and "get her done..." as you saw I did with the fret dress that I did the day before and showed you guys. Experience will fill in all the blanks as to when to pull here and push there with some finger tip pressure and it will especially make reading the neck and bluing much easier too.

Your class and the next one may be the last classes that we offer before changing the format somewhat. As you noticed we ran over both days and for some needing to keep a commitment that can be a bad thing. It's also pretty tiring..... We are not sure what the solution may be but it's possible that the 2 days may become 3 because the last thing that we want to do is cut the material that we cover short. We also may get a bit more rigid on where instruments that will be used in class need to be as a starting point so that everyone is on the same page when we start to save time.

I also wanted to share with you what my personal experience was since you noticed the level of detail that Dave goes to. I was the one that got him back into teaching after a ten year absence from teaching when he taught at the Galloup School of Lutherie. It took me all summer to talk Dave into putting together a one week "set-up for builders" class for me. He finally did, I attended and at the end of the week we were only half done... As such I came back the next week, and the next, and the next for five weeks.... When I finally stopped coming he called me up and asked me to apprentice... That lasted three years.... And then when I had hung out my own shingle an hour away I got called again to come to the city and help with the overflow of repair instruments and that lasted another three years.

As you can see we have a history of running over a bit... My first class ran over about 8 years.....

It was great to meet you and we want to come visit you and Steve (and John A.) too so maybe we can work that out in the future.

Take care buddy!

Hesh, the class was great with tons of good information and practical experience to be gained. Learning to read the neck better and put in varying degrees of relief from the treble to bass sides were eye openers. Dave took the mystery out of compression fretting for me and I'm confident I can do a good job when I get the next opportunity, although it will take me a bit longer I'm sure-ha.

The opportunity to work and learn from you and Dave for the two days was well worth it. The days were a bit long and I think some of that may be due to how well the guitars were, or were not, prepped when they arrived for the class, as well as the different levels of experience the attendees had. I don't think a beginner is going to benefit from the classes as much as someone that has done some number of fret jobs and setups.

As Greg said, if you're serious this is an awesome opportunity to take your chops to the next level.

Hey Greg, fellow road warrior, it was a great trip, thanks!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"