PrairieDog

I have a little different question on this timely topic. I just picked up a used, super cheapo (house brand) acoustic guitar on a lark (Okay, it was green, it’s the holidays, and looks festive propped up against the tree). Still, after the 89 bucks worth of fun is expended, since it plays surprisingly okay, we are thinking about passing it on to our niece. At 14, “shiny new” is more important than “authentic” relic-ing (give her a few years). It has a couple of 1 inch deeper scratches in the finish, but not into the wood. So in this case a good buffing won’t hurt anything. Any recommendations what to try to even them out? I’m sure it has a poly finish.

Okay, I admit the tinsel has gone to my brain. In the middle of the mad dash yesterday making sure I had enough for under the tree, this happened. I went into a Music-go-round to check out a super early Hawaiian Radio Tone which was a no go. But I admit I paid the 89 bucks for this just for the dang color. Since it is in good shape, and makes sound, it will either be the backyard guitar, or we will pass it on to the 14 year old niece. In the meantime the Gibsons and Taylors are unruffled by the new kid.

Why not? Nothin’ wrong with that.

We discovered this year, as I try to scrape the rust off my fingers as my better half is just starting out: picking out Christmas tunes is a ball! Good for retraining my ears, and it’s been great watching them on the square-neck conquering each carol, growing more confident by leaps. Merry old dogs, man, merry old dogs.

Merry Merry back at ya! Great job! It’s my first year here, so what a treat! Looking forward to the tradition continuing.

Nice!

A build that recent you might have luck calling Gibson CS. A google came up with several vendors (Reverb, musician’s friend, zzounds) with references from the 2000 aughts-2012 for this guitar mentioning only ladder bracing, and nothing from 2020. I checked the wayback machine briefly for the 2020 catalog and didn’t see any Arlos that year, or even 3/4s in the hits I got. I wonder if whoever told you 2020 either has the serial number wrong, or just mis-stated the bracing? In my googling, I think I came across the Reddit post with the reference to x bracing you may have seen, and I think the wording there was awkward. The thread morphs into LGs as a class. I can read it as he was saying the full size LG2 was reissued in 2020 as an X braced as distinguished from the earlier 3/4 s which were all ladder. But again, the context is kinda confusing.

These all look great. Folks are going to be lucky to have them!

Nod, when we started thinking about amps, I searched the forum to see what people used, and it was your posts about your Bose that got me comparing it to the Fishman. (I think we will go with the Bose plus, on your posts, and since it has a battery so we could have little yard jams with our friends. We are out in the country so won’t offend anyone). The thing we have is a karaoke system. It has 3 line-ins (two mics and another source) and two line outs. I could either mic and/or line in the guitar. The specs look at least in range with the other two. I was worried it was missing some filter or something since it ‘s intended primarily for vocals, and would feedback or get hum/noise from an instrument going in, and if it was insurmountable or how to control it. The makers “say” it will work with both guitars/keyboards, so we’ll try it out. Btw, even for being aimed at “fun” it is a actually a nice little vocal system. Because it is meant for parties and entertainment it uses a catalog of hundreds of presets, (there are tons of “vocal trick” presets if the kids want to sound like Taylor Swift or Leonard Cohen) and massive levels of auto pitch tuning. But you can ignore all that fluff in the pro mode where it has at least decent settings for straight vocals. At least good enough for the barn where I could only scare the cats, chuckle.

Thanks! I was suspecting that was the case, but again, last time I played seriously reel to reel tape decks were go to tech! 😆 Maybe not quite, but tbh, I left all the sound work to the wizards who knew where all the cables went and did not pay nearly the amount of attention I should have. Dang ignorant youth.

Asking for help/indulging a recovering beginner with a little hive knowledge? A couple of our new guitars (the J45 studio, and the Taylor 714) have pickups so we are now curious about getting a little practice amp. I’d been looking at the Bose SP1+ and the Fishman 60 (and getting rightly confused) when I realized we already have one of these “party” Karaoke systems tucked away. It has an effects mixing “studio” unit with presets feeding out to a 40 watt speaker. Besides the mic inputs, there is a line in for an external music source (it’s supposed to turn any song into a karaoke track by dampening the vocals). They make a point of saying you can plug in a guitar or keyboard into it to use live with a couple of maneuvers to calibrate the studio unit to the guitar input. I was wondering if we could try this first just to fool around with to see if an amp is really anything we need. First I realize it is kind of a toy, and it is not a real acoustic guitar system, so I won’t judge the sound results too harshly, but…. 1. Is there any chance any of you have ever used one of these things, or something like it? And how did it work? Any tips? 2. Are there any red flags/cautions/concerns/suggestions about trying this at all? (I assume it wouldn’t hurt the electronics in the guitars, but politely set acoustic guitars are not likely to hurt the speaker, right? We are old people playing for each other, not looking to crank it to “11”. Right now, we only play in our music room, so we’re more looking for the options for effects rather than volume. If this works, we’d get real acoustic amps, and put the party toy back in the closet, I’m hoping we can try this before we make a trip into the cities and waste our and GCs time buying something we end up not using. here is a link to the specs for our older unit https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0270/7573/files/Singtrix_SpecSheet.pdf?2679494644682061627 thanks all for any help!

Very cool!

Back when I was a teen, I used to crash on and off at a house that had a partially disassembled hog as the centerpiece of the living room. Sad story, my buddy dumped his bike with his pregnant gf. They lived, but… so they broke up. Anyway, my buddy always thought he’d bring the bike back, but it just bummed him out every time he started, the memories were too hard. So there it lay on it’s side, slowly dripping fluids into the floor of the rental house. Always stuck with me, the sadness, and what the landlord thought when they moved out. Some years later in my first house, I pulled up a corner of the old living-room carpet hoping to find hardwood. Found gorgeous, pristine amber golden maple. Got all excited thinking “wow, won’t even have to refinish!” Went to work ripping it all out, got to the middle of the room and there: a dark, oily stain about 4 feet in diameter. I sent up a good thought to my buddy.

Okay, hold on there, cowboy… 🙂 While I may not own a mega corporation, I do own my own business and we are among the biggest in our, granted tiny, field. That being said, we do make a point of doing things differently, because we can and choose to. We work with public agencies, and some private interests, doing environmental research. Our employees are our biggest asset so we treat them as such. Without them we would be dead in the water. To the point we will pay them before we pay the owners in the occasional cash crunch. In an industry that churns through the kids coming out of college and paying them minimum wage for hard grueling work, and usually only seasonal positions, we start our new hires at a real living wage for our area. And even our techs are hired on with the promise of a year-round full time job, if they aren’t just looking for summer work. (Many are going to on grad school.) Because I started working fifty years ago, back in the good old days when companies took care of their workforces because it was the right thing to do, our firm offers the full range of benefits the big guys do, and most other independent shops don’t. We take it a step farther by paying 100% of our Silver level health plan, with no copays once the reasonable deductible is met. We offer vacation, sick and paid family leave, an above average match on their 401ks, and meaningful holiday bonuses or profit sharing most years. And because we are out in the boonies, when they have to be in the office we offer a shortened day, and paid travel time, and work from home arrangements where possible, so our employees can have a life outside of work. Our goal is to keep good people employed at good jobs they feel good about doing. We are in the consulting business so we don’t purchase goods, but we do work with our community and offer discounted rates to marginalized groups who need our services for permitting reasons but can’t afford all the costs. We also have a pro bono program for special projects that just need to be done but don’t have any other funding source. Being good corporate citizens and doing our work exceptionally well with exceptional people is our business model. Not always terribly profitable one, but it keeps us in kibble, and guitars. 🙂 Oh, and before I get blown off, this is not “virtue signaling” (when did doing right become a bad thing), it is just a case study that it is possible to run even a small business and treat your employees right if one adjusts the expectation of what the company is for, and what is “success.”

yep, and that was a powerful marketing campaign. I can’t tell you how many folks I run into out here who still say “I only shop Walmart because I’m supporting American made!” I feel a twinge of guilt for poking their balloons when I suggest they read the labels . Target at least tries to offset the effect with other programs to boost local economies and their employees with decent wages and benefits, even for part-time folks. I’m not sure how many customers understand those low prices at Walmart are only possible because the states (aka taxes) are making up the difference for all the employees who have to tap public assistance to make ends meet.

Well, I think that is the point of the discussion… building semiconductors and car parts *used* to be American jobs, as well as mining and milling the materials to supply all the manufacturing. Look to the rust belt and mine country for the economic impact from moving those operations overseas. Prompted by this thread, curious, I went and reviewed the rules for a “Made in USA” labels. Except for textiles, where the yarns/fabric can be foreign origin as long as they are finished here, they are pretty strict about what counts as a Made in US product. That is why your truck sticker says “assembled in Indiana with parts from XYZ.” They can’t use the Made In label unless the product is created from substantially US materials/parts and manufacture.

I think the rule is, it’s fair game if it’s something that never was or would be made in the US. If they started making Reber grown-up confections here, I’d be on it, but Germany it is (at least through a US retailer).

That is why I try my best to not engage in the exploitive offshore economy. I don’t feel I’m entitled to a good deal at the expense of slave labor wages, if not actual slaves, and working kids. When I walk through the pet store, I often wonder what the third world thinks of us as they spend 12 hours of their day churning out bumble bee costumes for our dogs, chuckle.

Or we all could come to grips with what something ‘should’ cost, and how much do we really need? If Americans got over the wasteful churn of cheap, closet stuffing, “fast fashion,” and discarding usable products just because a newer version comes out, it would go a long way to solving both the import and climate problems. How many shirts can we really wear at a time? We could put the Rust Belt and American manufacturing back to work making quality items, if folks just sucked it up and wore their clothes/used their stuff until it actually needed to be replaced, not every 6 months when some CEO decides to change the style. Sure, there’d be sticker shock buying new at the price of a living wage. Still, shelling out 30 bucks on a tee shirt that can hold up for a few years, is the same or cheaper than spending 10 bucks every year for the new color. I figure folks who curate vintage guitars, still sporting their Eric Clapton tees, get it, chuckle.

It’s not the aesthetics, but the gasses in a closed up place like a case. They will eat at strings and other metal bits, like if you have electronics in your guitar. And can damage the finish depending on the interaction. The chemicals used to create plastics and polymers are extremely toxic/caustic until they are stabilized “temporarily” into a matrix to make various materials (all polymers are temporary, some plastics are stable longer than others). Off-gassing is the natural decay back to the chemicals original states. Once it starts, it’s a cascade and there is no good way to undo it or stabilize it, short of stopping the process briefly by cutting away the bad parts. It’s like flesh-eating disease. It infects the adjoining areas and keeps spreading. Even if you can do surgery, the plastic has already reached it’s end life and will break down eventually.

Nod, it is a bummer. Most plastics break down eventually, unless they are formulated to be archival, super expensive. Some are more stable than others. So it really depends on what plastic Gibson was sourcing when, and used in which lots. Kinda a crapshoot. (Old, degrading plastics, excavated from archaeological sites, I do know about. just didn’t think about it happening in guitars). The one e-minor posted above does look kinda cool, if you didn’t know where it was headed…

I saw another thread asking about this, (maybe it was you in a different room) and got curious, wondering if it could be mildew. So in researching it, I learned this could be a very bad thing if it is gassing-off. So yeah, you probably want to get the pick guard off and not shut up in the case with the rest of the instrument. The gasses can wreak havoc with other elements of the guitar. But in all truth, I’m no expert, so take it to the shop and ask. I’m just relaying what I read out on the interwebs.

I’m nothing if not generous. Always happy to oblige 😆 A result of my search, friends were always more than delighted to come over and help me with the overstocked Scotch/bourbon section of the liquor cabinet. They got to partake of some pretty nice bottles.

Thanks for the coaching, but really not needed. I used to work in a liquor store, and all my friends partake. I promise I’ve been tutored by/with the best. I’ve tried all the brown stuff: Scotch, Whisky, Whiskey, Bourbon, Bourbon Whiskey, peated/unpeated, NAS, aged, more aged, buy a house with aged, singles, blends, room temp, cold, neat, ice, water, holding my nose, even in cocktails. Nope nope nope nope. Tannins are just not my friends. (Can’t stand oaked wines either.) Anyway, not really the point of my story, but it’s all good, I can keep up with my bottles of Patrón, and Mount Gay.

So, I confess I can’t drink/swallow Scotch. I know. But it is what it is. I’ve tried just about every attainable high end because I “wanna be one of the gang.” But turpentine and burnt rubber just doesn’t grab my palate, lol. However, years ago in my search I came across something called Macallan Amber: a special edition maple/pecan infused Scotch liqueur (not to be confused with the 1824 version) Okay, now that I can drink! At least it looked kinda like whiskey in the glass, if you ignore the syrupy element flowing down the sides. Of course, real Scotch drinkers choked on it, so they discontinued it rather quickly. I managed to scrounge up six last bottles, and I’m down to my last, which means it is being hoarded. And I’m resigned to figuring I’ll probably die without finding a “special” enough occasion to crack it open. Epilogue: after checking on the whiskey sites tonight to make sure I had the details correct, apparently it’s now going in my will and insured along with the guitars 😂 (Oh, why did I have to go and drink those other five bottles??)