Cost of our HOBBY

Every day I check the mail box. Looking for one order from Gitty and one from a company in Thailand. The company inThailand sells really cheap capacitors, pots, boards, etc. However, it takes ten days or more to arrive. More usuallly. Gitty takes far less, it just seems like ten days since I am anxious. I am awaiting two sets of tuners. two sets of strings and twenty five grommits for strings.

Read an article today about tools needed to do a professional job of building CBGs. It was from someone who does this for a living. They listed real tools, band saws, drill presses, plainers, belt sanders, scroll saws, table saws, several sets of drills and a power screw driver, dramill tool, chisel set, rasps, files, and a lot more. They said a cheap set of these tools could be bought for around $1200 to $1500 and suggested one invest that just to get started.

Really?

Raise your hand if you can invest that much right now. Ok, a few of you have decent jobs, the rest of us are ordinary blue collar stiffs.

I've given up chex mix and chocolot, and ginger ale to support my weekly thirty something to forty dollar purchases.

My breakfast cereal bowl ends up in my shop, I moved my computer to my shop, and a dorm refridgerator. Beverage cans overflow the trash can.

My new second hobby is shopping antique stores, flea markets, yard sales, and junk places for tools and supplies. The last two cigar boxes I got were from junk dealers and the draw knife for doing guitar necks from a flea market. I call shopping going to Lowes. I hit the hardware isle at Wal Mart and even find myself in the electronic isle of Goodwill looking for amps and tube radios or old guitars to turn into resonators, or cannobalize.

I even watch the road side when driving down the road for hub caps or parts. Its obsessive.

The cost is far more than money, its time, its personal time, family time, its every waking thought, all our energy, its our every thought like time. Its worse than football, worse than sex even. Its an addiction. We'd almost steal to feed it, we'd beg, we'd have no shame, and we'd grovel with the dealer using every trick to get him or her down one more dime.

We have no shame.

It cost us our very soul, our dignity.

The cost is great, but the reward is worth it when our creation is done, when that first note rings out, the beauty shines forth, the marvel and miracle happens.

We again become a proud parent, we have created, have birthed, have brought forth, have enriched the world.

AH, is there anything like it my firend?

 

 

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Comments

  • CBG is about awakening inside you confidence.   Kids just build and imagine. A bit of dust and a bottle can become a road once the dust is leveled on which the truck, the bottle, drives down. Most adults cannot see that. Two tin cans and a taunt string become a communications device  - that really works! Thats the key, shooting for something that works, not something pretty or masterfull. Once you have a working tin can, then dress it up and make it pretty.

  • "What is the trick to building something amazing?"

    There's no trick to it.

    If you are passionate about what you are doing - whether building a musical instrument out of an old cigar box, training for a marathon, putting paint on a canvas, or interpreting an old song in your own way, actually any endeavor - do it so YOU know it's the best you can do, and you will be amazing.  That's part of the human spiri:.  Always strive to do better.  Not neccessarily better than the other guy, but better than where you've gone before.

    A rather odd question from you Bug.  You proved how amazing you are on the Beatles Tribute Album.  I'm certain you've inspired countless others to further heights.

  • What is the trick to building something amazing?
  • It's therefore what you do with them that counts.
    I've seen a couple of people's shops and I was supprised
    at what comes out the other end.
    There's a great video on YouTube of a man
    Making a violin by hand with hand tools.
    Every cut is a work of art. Craftsmanship
    Is the word for all you guys building CBGs.
    Tools just need to be sharp ,not good.;>]
  • Shane, 19 years!  Wow.   -

  • I've been building these for 19 years now.  I'm now doing it professionally. 

    ...my shop would horrify you.  Cheapest of the cheap saws, drills, etc.  Yet, they do the job.

  • My builds all have a unique home-made rustic feel, warts and all - my only power tool is an electric drill, all the rest is honest hand made, hand sawed, hand shaved,sweat! ...knocking out 100 cbg's on production line machines is just not the same! (-;

  • The trick is to buy the tools for "Home Improvement" projects so that your wife reeps some benifit from the purchase.

  • It wouldn't work like that, Bug. I started looking at pillar drills for wood, then decided that I may want to drill metal as well - thick metal.  Narrowed it down to this:

    http://www.axminster.co.uk/jet-jet-jdp-17f-floor-standing-pillar-dr...

    and then went and bought a new bass and amp instead.....which may become 'as well' in time :-\

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