I was fortunate enough to meet Kevin Sjostrand in person at Healdsburg in 2009.
Unfortunately I haven't been doing much building the last two years for various reasons. Settling my parents estate resulted in a change in my shop arrangements, and I had to put a lot of my bigger tools in storage. I also had some health issues slow me down (mainly a couple of back surgeries).
I did some stuff with solid body electrics during the time when the majority of my shop tools were in storage. This was fun, and I got pretty good at fretting and setups, but now I have a half a dozen strat and tele clones laying around that I don't know what to do with :p~.
I'm fortunate enough to live within short driving distance of the forum member you all know as 'runningdog' (Rick Davis - proprietor of Running Dog Guitars). I took a class with Rick a while back and built one of his 'Concert Jumbo' guitars under his tuteledge. It was an awesome experience and I learned a lot, although I've probably forgotten far too much (a refresher may be in order.
).I'm not currently building anything, but I am in the process of re-topping the OM I built back in 2007. It really didn't need it, but it was very heavily over braced and the top was way too thick and heavy. It never really opened up and is still pretty dead sounding, especially on the bass strings. There were a few other minor issues I wanted to correct as well, so I am taking the plunge. I've got the bridge removed and am currently working prepping the new top to be shaped to match the original. Once I do that I'll be taking the router to task and removing the old top. That'll be an exciting evening of fun.
For lack of anything better to follow, I'm going to try using the procedure outlined by John Greven on his site.
http://www.grevenguitars.com/GrevenGuitars.html (click "Extra's/Re-Top How To" to see his video).
Once I get the OM put back together and get it off to the finisher, I'll be able to resume the project I had started when I had to pack up the shop. I got the idea after chatting with Robbie O'Brien at Healdsburg. I have the makings (back/side sets, neck, fretboards, hardware, etc...) of three guitars, with the sides already bent in the shape of a standard martin "D" (the bending was the last thing I did before I had to shut down). I made some molds to store the sides in, and have yet to brace the tops and backs.
My project is to build all three of them side by side, with some minor differences, so I can compare them after the fact and hopefully learn something from the process. Two of the guitars will be EIR/Red Spruce, and the third will be Mahogany/Red Spruce (wood I got from John Hall several years ago now - thanks John). I think I'm going to go for making one of the EIR guitars as close to identical as possible to the Mahogany, with the back/side woods being the primary difference, and then some variation in bracing and perhaps top thickness on the other EIR guitar, then comparing the results. I have three red spruce tops I got from John Arnold that are all from the same billet, so they should be similar enough to serve my purposes. I have no background in engineering or design, and have no intention of doing any formal scientific testing.. just the ear test I guess. It should be fun and interesting. If anything useful comes from it, I'll be sure to post what I find here. If I were better at blogging and such, I'd do something online to show my work, but I know me, and I'm pretty sure it would get neglected.
Anyway, I'm blabbering again, I just wanted to re-introduce myself. I should be popping in and out of the forums once in a while (here and the OLF). I look forward to catching up with what everyone is up to, and getting my hands back on to my tools....
Jim