Les Solo

Sometime last year, I started watching countless Instagram videos of a British Colombia craftsman

This is my spalted maple top. 

There are many like it, but this one is mine.

who makes guitar bodies (and tables and cutting boards, and necklaces, knife handles, etc.) from driftwood collected in the Kootenays of southeastern BC.  Logic told me that I could do something like that, and, on my Holiday wishlist of 2018, I firmly placed my wish for an unworked guitar kit where I could live out my luthier fantasies and design my own electric guitar for a fraction of what it would cost for a similar instrument.

I picked out a Les Paul style guitar.  For those who don't know, Les Paul's are manufactured by Gibson, and a standard guitar in this style starts at $1,000.  Way out of my price range.  Even Gibson's lower end Epiphone Les Paul guitars start around $500.  Formerly competitors, Gibson bought Epiphone in 1957 and today many of the solid body models with high end components can be found cheaper as Epiphone models with extremely capable parts.  Think of it as NEEDING a Land Rover, or being happy and satisfied with a really nice Subaru.  Anyway, at $500, still a bit much to ask someone to get one for me.  I guess I could save up, but where's the fun in that.  I wanted a challenge.

After discussing this with a high school friend who had better pick-ups (read: guitar mics) than what typically comes with a kit such as this, I committed to build one of my own, and, last December, was blessed with a kit from my family, purchased from Solo Guitars: a Les Paul style guitar with two humbucker pick-ups, mahogany body and spalted maple veneer, and a bolt-on neck.

Nicked to imperfection. 

Raw wood is already gorgeous, but I had in mind a color scheme for it.  I was think about a blue burst top with a red-brown body and neck.  While the kit comes with all the hardware you would need (i.e. tuning pegs, bridge, electronics which would need soldering (more on that later) and strings), naturally, you'd have to own or buy the wood-working tools necessary to really put your stamp on this, now, one of a kind instrument.  I flooded my Amazon wishlist with an orbital sander, buffing pads, wood stain, wood glue, wood sealer, lacquer, clamps, and all kinds of wires and soldering equipment.  Come January, with all of that collected, it was time to start.

Except, that, upon further review, there was a chip in the veneer on the headstock.  I called the company, who indicated that they'd look for a scrap to send me so that I could repair it.  No luck.  Instead they gave me a 10% discount on an additional purchase at their store.  Um...hm...ok.  Thanks for nothing.  I went back to Amazon and bought a veneer sampler to see if I could custom cut a piece just to fill that spot.  Problem solved.

With that completed, I stained it...and stained it...and sanded it down, and stained it some more.  I wanted to have the pattern created by the spalted maple featured, but have the look of a "burst" where the color gets less intense in the middle, but more concentrated around the edges.  This was a slow process.  However, by the end, things were looking good.  I accented with (Amazon purchased and gifted) feather decals designed to echo the mother-of-pearly inlay present in the provided guitar neck.

I used a TruOil gunstock finish to seal the guitar and make it a bit more shiny while protecting the color.  I also wanted to keep that spalted maple top obvious and preserve those lines, otherwise, what's the point of having such a fancy veneer.  The TruOil was, again, easily found on Amazon.  However, it needed some serious time to dry, and this process took the longest.  Also, I couldn't do it in the house.  TruOil produced enough vapors that using it in a highly ventilated space was recommended.  For me, that meant the garage with the door open.  I needed to wait for the weather to give me several days over-45 degrees (F) so that it would properly dry between applications.  I know Trump doesn't believe it, but the last month gave me several of these late-February Global Warming days where I could apply the oil, buff out any bumps, and let it set.  The last day was this past Friday when I was able to put on the last two coats in 65 degree weather and begin on installing the hardware.

Soldering wasn't an issue with me.  I had some really thin lead-free flux-core solder (from Amazon) and plenty of colored wiring (also Amazon).  However, installing the pick-ups proved difficult as the mounts weren't the right ones (they weren't curved to the body, again, Solo, thanks for lack of attention to detail).  Also, the pots were pre-soldered, and confusing.  All wiring diagrams used uniform wire colors, and between the new pick-ups and the pre-connected potentiometers (pots, a.k.a. guitar dials)  things got confusing quickly.  The pick-ups given to me by a friend were infinitely more complicated than the cheap-os that came with the guitar.  Finding a proper wiring diagram and color code for the wires proved impossible, even with the power of the internet.  All in all, I was able to get the basics put together, but the wiring had me beat.  It was time to call in the professional.

It sounds like I was throwing in the towel, but really, everything else was done.  Think about it as if  you try to do some plumbing or electrician work at home, you mess things up so that you're forced to call the repair guy.  If that's not you, it's definitely me.  Yes, it'll cost me a little extra, but at the end of the day, it's going to an expert who will make this thing sing.

I brought it to HelpMyGuitar in Scotch Plains.  It's a small shop, but I've used their services before.  The gentleman behind the counter was responsive to my interest and flattered my by answering so many questions I had about this kind of work.  He's an expert and a perfectionist and, in addition to figuring out my wiring problem, he's going to replace the pots with ones that will be more reliable and "set-up" the guitar which involves manipulating the neck, pick-ups, bridge and so-on to ensure that it's absolutely playable when he's done.

So, that's where I am now.  I should get it back at the end of the work-week and will let you know how it turns out.  Until then, I guess I'll play my acousic electric, or my bass, or my acoustic, or my son's Fender Fat Strat knock-off.  In other words, I've got plenty to practice on to ensure that this new guitar was well earned!

Cultural Issues

Where's the blogs?  It's been weeks and you haven't written anything!!

The problem is, I've run out of interesting things to say about current events.  It's hard to be a blogger who strives to educate on environmental inefficiencies or political whimsy when the news media has done it already ad nauseam. 

Should I write about Brother Michael Cohen's testimony?  Trump's failed summit with a known track record of human rights abuses? More Grateful Dead?  Beyond their song "loser" it's hard to associate any Dead song with this President.  I'm not sure he likes music anyway.

And, maybe that's it.  Maybe what's bothering us most about Trump is his seeming lack of humanity because he had no depth.  He has no cultural stake in this world.  He's here to make money and push an extreme vision of the Republican agenda, with or without the party's help.  His one known cultural luxury has been golf, which, I believe, is seen as a rich man's game.  Hell, you get your own slave to carry your clubs!  How great is that?  What a throwback!  It's winter, and so, his affinity for the sport has taken a back seat to, well, the rest of his job (unless you count this story in the WashPo), but, I expect to hear the jets scramble once the weather improves and his majesty takes the chopper over to Bedminster, NJ for a quick 9. 

But, it seems that this disconnect with culture is unique with our Commander in Cheeto.  Every other President in modern history has been able to relate to the people through culture, both winning and losing the respect of the populace.  Just looking back at Ronald Reagan, the Hollywood superstar (just ask his co-star, Bonzo) rose to fame in and around WWII.  Yes, he served in the War, but the short film he narrated for the military won an Oscar! While he was never nominated himself, his volume of works earned him a star on the walk of fame in 1960.

George Herbert Walker Bush loved baseball.  He played at Yale, got to meet Babe Ruth, and, as VP in 1984, got to play in an old-timer game with former MLB players.  But, he was an avid fan of all sports from Tennis to when he performed the coin toss in Superbowl 51.  He and his son shared their love for the Astros and Texas Rangers, a team that the younger Mr. Bush was able to purchase in 1989 (with other investors).  Speaking of "W," avid painter?  Look, it was 9/11, it was Chaney, it was many things, but afterwards, the man settled down and has been a prolific painter and fisherman since. 

It's easy to gloss over Clinton's sax performance on Arsenio, or Obama's brackets during March Madness, yet, it wasn't like that was Bill's first time with the instrument, and Obama was known to love to play and watch all manner of sports and the arts.  These looks into their lives allow us as the public to get to know our politicians better and it makes them more human.  Among other things, that does separate them from our current president.  He's disinvited more champion teams and players than those that chose to meet him...and then cancelled.  He's skipped both of his opportunities to congratulate honorees at the Kennedy Center.  And, when he does pay attention to culture, he's frequently whining about how unfair it is to him.

This is a problem.  I realize that I'm cherry-picking here but revenues from sports and movies/TV greatly exceed US energy revenues in the US (2017).  The doesn't even include concerts and live theater, or other things we do for entertainment: vacations, eating out, travel, etc.  Culture is what brings us together as a society.  This president has no culture.  And, even when he makes the attempt to connect, he gets it wrong...like when he served college athletes, potentially the most physically fit demographic in the States, some of the worst food the America has to offer, and then brags about paying for it himself.  That's very big of you accepting responsibility for poisoning the youth of tomorrow with toxic amounts of sugar and saturated fats.  "They sure don't make them like this back home...oh, wait, yes they do."

Look, we've had Presidents with unpopular policy decisions in the past, but even they had redeeming qualities of character.  This President has none of that and I think he knows it, which is why he doesn't connect or resonate with but a small part of the American populace.  While he makes the occasional attempt at a cultural connection, when he fails (and he's failed miserably) he becomes spiteful and belligerent, berating whomever refused to avail themselves to the King, to take the knee and kiss the ring, as long as it doesn't happen during an NFL broadcast.  You may not think it matters, but if you really want to reunite the Country, culture, not politics, may be the healthiest way to do that.