A little bit about me… (Part Deux)

When I got to San Diego, I realized that I was on my own. My parents gave me $1,000 as a gift to start my life out… my dad also told me that he had a bill for $23,000 for my life up to that point. I imagine that he billed me a  grand a year for all the years I lived at their house…So I started my life out 24k in the hole, not bad since I was on my way to making a little more than half that my first year.

I quickly realized that all of the guitar knowledge that I had cultivated would thrown out the window. My job description…make parts. I had to learn the ins and outs of woodworking, table saw, band saws and shapers were my tools. and I wasn’t making parts for one guitar at a time, but many hundreds of guitars for the months ahead. Back in 1990, we made 10 guitars a day with 25 workers both in the factory and office. I decided that even though it wasn’t what I set out to do, it was a stepping stone, and I might work for the company for a year or two. In my time, I became very capable on most aspects of woodworking from joinery to wood bending.

Every month we would receive a unit of lumber to chop up into backs and sides and misc. parts. we would inevitably have to ship a portion back to the lumber company because the material was not what we would use for our guitars. I was only at the company a year when I said to Bob… Why don’t I go to the lumber yard, sort thru the material and we could get what we need without having to pay for return shipping. after one trip to the local yard, my unit of lumber came in, and the yield was excellent, and another line was added to my job description… Grading lumber. In time, the local lumber yards were not able to keep up with our consumption, and my trips to find material became a cross country search and eventually it took me around the world. I traveled to the East Coast to grade Mahogany for necks backs and sides. I would spend a week at a time grading 30k -40k board feet of lumber to get 10k. that would keep us for a couple months. the trips became more and more frequent eventually taking me to the jungles of Hawaii to grade material for the Koa line of guitars. it was there I met a good friend that would eventually throw me a life line.

Another aspect of my job was to sort tops. The guitar top is a pretty important part of the overall sound quality of the instrument. At that time, tops would be separated labeled and stickered for dying. We would glue up and sand out a number of tops each day, and after processing, the tops were pre-sorted for the various models. The best looking tops would be left for Bob to inspect, He would make the final decision on any tops that would be set aside for the “top” of the line models. I watched him do this do this weekly and In time I had a pretty good idea about what kind of top would be the best in his eyes. Over the years I had seen just about every kind of guitar top, and had a pretty good idea about how it would sound when it was strung up.

My one to two year commitment to the company ended up being nearly 11 when it was all over. I traveled the world, met many interesting people, and got to ride a wave of success of a company that was un paralleled. Near the end I was no longer doing the things that I loved which was aspects of building guitars, but managing people. I remember one of my employees telling me that he was going to his see his parole officer, and taking a drug test after work… he added that he may not be in tomorrow morning. It was a heart wrenching decision, but I finally came to the point where I couldn’t do it anymore and with tears in my eyes, I tendered my resignation to Bob. he asked me this one question that I still remember “What are you going to do, you’re a guitar builder.” however at that point in my life I had lost my love of the instrument and my will to do anything that had to do with musical instruments.