Hi, what prompted me to share this post was that whilst collating/reorganizing “stuff” accumulated over many years around my workplace, I recalled a post by Infirmary Citrus President suggesting the need for a hypothetical manual that could possibly fully cover the A to Z of the building and modification of Cigar Box Guitars.
It occurred to me said that I have that very thing here, whilst looking at the treasure trove of data collected on most of the popular stringed instruments for well over fifty years.
What is seen in these photos does not include my CBG collection of plans templates and saved information.
Besides my collection of The Guild of American Luthiers publications dating back to issue one, I think around 1975 [I just received my latest copy], I still have copies of publications whose illustrations are black and white ink drawings, and date prior to 1975. Still relevant but now using more modern technics and tools. Plus books by the dozen.
That’s a lot of valuable information. Lots of ideas from many different luthiers and repair persons and, lots of different ways of accomplishing the same goal on many different instruments, from many different workshops.
Now, newcomers, and us older guys, have the internet with all that information at our fingertips at the tap of a button. My need to be informed and to collect data has not changed, just the way I do it. Instead of shelves full of journals and books, I have a desk covered in external hard drives. Ha-ha.
Possibly the best reference book you could have is one that you create for yourself, so start now.
Footnote: I had a hard drive die on me recently with 10,000 photos and other data lost, I have not lost any books or Manuals yet. Ha-ha. Oh, I managed to get them back and onto a new drive. Scary.
Wakey, Wakey, Cheers Taff
Replies
Hi Tim, I fear you may be right about the scanning, I think I'll leave the originals to posterity. Haha.
I had forgotten to mention that in the photo the top shelf should be full, the gap at the end is the amount of Guild journals I sent to my son, along with a heap of books from the bottom shelf, to help and encourage him to get started. He is now building guitars in Adelaide.
This collection has shown me how creative instrument builders and repairers can be, judging by the many, many ways the same challenges are overcome by so many people in so many different ways.
Understanding how something works and why, goes a long way to helping solve problems for oneself, I think.
Cheers Taff
was going to make a joke about scanning all that information for posterity.. but it would probably take you another 50 years to do it...lol
Wow, what a library!