dhanners623

I started reading your post and was going to recommend the Golden Age Restoration tuners, then got to the part where you said you don’t like them. I’ve had GAR tuners on five different guitars and have only had one set I didn’t feel was good. I switched them out for another GAR set that worked just fine. I will say that the set of GARs I stuck on my Farida OT-22 last fall has been excellent — and I’d say they were as smooth as Waverlys. (And I have a guitar with Waverlys, so I would know.) Waverly does now offer a 3-on-a-plate set. They are pricey ($275) but I will attest Waverlys are very smooth. Whether they are worth the money is a judgment only you can make. Were it me, I’d say give Golden Age Restoration another try. If you don’t like them, send them back to StewMac.

Murph asked us to define “old-time.” I’m not sure any of those fall in that category, except maybe “Midnight Special.” If you’re playing an old-time jam, you may only get a shot at calling four or five tunes, depending on how many people are in the circle.

I would be VERY hesitant to trot out any arrangement of a Beatles tune at an old-time jam. We like to think that when it comes to music, there are no rules (other than, “Don’t Suck”) but when it comes to bluegrass and old-time, there are, indeed, rules. Or at least some standards of etiquette, to-wit: http://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusicblog/came-across-this-list-of-jam-etiquette-guidelines/ or: https://www.blueridgemusicnc.com/listen-and-learn/jam-etiquette/

Glad you’ve got a solution! Not sure of their availability outside the US, but check out Crossrock cases. They are the poor man’s Calton. Got one (in yellow!) for my D-18 clone and it survived being checked as baggage just fine. VERY well built, sturdy fiberglass, and they have TSA locks. They cost less than a Calton. https://www.crossrockcase.com On edit, it appears Crossrock cases are available through Amazon UK.

A guitar buddy of mine in the Twin Cities who tours nationally and internationally said he’s used an outfit called ShipNex and had no problems. I checked their rates, and while they are more expensive than the USPS, they are cheaper than Ship Guitars. My friend says ShipNex’s insurance coverage is much better. All things being equal, I’d prefer doing it USPS, but Trump’s guy, Louis DeJoy, screwed it up. I noticed a definite difference in USPS international shipping times after he took the reins. Things just took much longer to get to me in Cyprus or the UK. I had one envelope containing an important document I needed sit in Chicago FOR A MONTH before it left the U.S. I’ll probably make a decision by the end of the week. Maybe have my J-35 by the end of the month….

Anybody here have any recent experience shipping a guitar internationally? If so, I’d be interested in hearing your experiences, good and bad. I’ve got to get my J-35 from St. Paul, MN, to Manchester, UK. Looking at UPS, the cost is roughly the same as a round-trip ticket. I found an outfit in California called Ship Guitars that uses UPS, but gets a volume discount that knocks several hundred dollars off the price. When I emailed Willie’s American Guitars in St. Paul to ask what they do — it’s a world-renown shop and ships internationally — they recommended the U.S. Postal Service. I checked and it is WAY cheaper than UPS (naturally) but my experience mailing/shipping things internationally via USPS over the past couple of years has not been reassuring. But the price difference is pretty big. Any thoughts?

Glad you caught the case so there was no damage to the guitar. Where, exactly, did it break? Did the plate that anchors the handle to the case come off? Or did the handle part break, leaving the plate intact? Would this work? https://www.allparts.uk.com/products/leather-replacement-handle-w-buckles-for-guitar-case

That does seem quite the wait. A radical thought: Buy a righty and take it forthwith to your trusty local repair shop. Have them convert it to a lefty (fill the saddle slot and re-rout it for a lefty), cut a new saddle, install a lefty nut, remove the pickguard and replace it with a lefty. You’d have a full-blown proper lefty in a fraction of the time. Were it me (which, granted, it isn’t) the extra expense would be worth the time saved. Then again, patience is a virtue.

Yeah, the wood is nice, but the top looks kind of naked to my eye. An understated firestripe in a teardrop shape would work….

Makes me never want to take a guitar out of the house again….

Any outfit with the words “private equity” in its name should be avoided like the plague. Actually, if the reaction to the pandemic provides any example, it should be avoided more than the plague. All my dealings with Sweetwater were pre-June 2021, when Sweetwater was acquired. I’ve purchased two guitars from them and three or four cases. Never had an issue, and I can’t recall any rep calling me, certainly not repeatedly. Maybe GCs differ by location, but I found the ones I went to in the Twin Cities merely ok. I was ever impressed by the staffs’ expertise. All in all, I preferred patronizing the moms’n’pops. In the Twin Cities, we had some great ones, including Willie’s American Guitars, Homestead Pickin’ Parlor and Twin Town Guitars.

I do love the sound of the DE-11. Quality and sound aside, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, I find Iris’ headstocks ugly as sin.

Congrats on a good purchase. Make some great music! And, yeah, Grovers on a Gibson slope is just wrong….

Shubb. Anything else is over-engineered and too expensive. The problem with Kaisers and other spring capos is that they’re not adjustable. It’s assumed one size fits all. Plus, Kaisers are ugly as sin. And people feel compelled to stick the capo (and clip-on tuners…) on their headstock when not in use. That’s lousy on a nitro finish, particularly a new one.

No. That is Joe Henry’s, on his Pre-War OM-BRW. Don’t know where he got the strap. This gives you a general idea of how they are constructed: https://umgf.com/vintage-style-guitar-straps-d-e-a-l-e-r-t169080.html Not sure where you’d find one, though.

The issue I have with those gizmos that sit right behind the nut is that they interfere with my fretting hand if I’m playing in first position. I prefer the choker straps that allow you to run the headstock strap like this:

Welcome to Gibsonville. Here is Frank Ford’s page on the ins and outs of strap buttons: http://frets.com/FretsPages/Musician/GenSetup/StrapButton/strapbutton1.html I sometimes use “choker” straps (the strap that goes around the peghead) but the shoestring thing always struck me as cheap. When I lived in Kuwait, I had a shoe shop make some bona ride choker straps to my specifications. You can buy similar straps online, though.

Congrats, but you make it sound like applying for Social Security online is some onerous task. I did it (long before your so-called “China virus”) and nothing could’ve been easier. I was even overseas at the time; my nearest SSA office was Rome.

We’ll work to come up with wisdom worthy of your valuable time….

Excellent job and, yeah, there are probably more chords in that song than I play in a year. You hit them masterfully. It isn’t everyday we see a song by Bertolt Brecht here….

One thing I’ve learned from moving to and living in four different countries in the past eight years is we tend to acquire too much stuff. I came to the conclusion that if I was unwilling to lug it through an airport, I probably didn’t need it. Sometimes, our possessions possess us. Oddly enough, my life went on (and was, in many ways, easier) once I started getting rid of stuff. No to go all Marie Kondo on you, but you have to figure out if it gives you joy. If it does, keep it. If not, get rid of it. That said, others prefer to be more settled and enjoy their collections.

Thanks for the kind words. It’s just the way I taught myself to play years ago. My late brother had an old Stella he left behind when he went to college, and I got a book of guitar chord diagrams from the library and taught myself. The Stella had no pickguard, so being left-handed, I held the guitar in the way that felt natural. Later, I discovered I had the guitar “upside down” (although that is a matter of perspective…) but by then it was too late. I already knew D, A and E and I was on my way. Not to sound Zen-like or New Agey, but the guitar really doesn’t care how you hold it.

Excellent job!

Another one on the J-35, strung with DR Sunbeams. I’m part of a Facebook songwriting challenge group; we’re given a prompt and then we write a song inspired by it. A couple of weeks ago the prompt was “Eagle.” So here is, “Las Luces de Eagle Pass.” It is still kind of a work in progress. It is based, in part, of my experiences living on the Texas-Mexico border years ago. This version is short and meant to be somewhat cryptic. A song doesn’t have to explain everything. A note on the lines in Spanish: Along the border, when bilingual people converse, it is not uncommon for them to switch between English and Spanish and back again, or vice versa. Sometimes, Spanish has the more precise word for something, and sometimes the concept is more clearly expressed in English. In this song, the switch to Spanish is intended to create some tension by putting the listener in an environment where he or she is unfamiliar and has to use contextual clues to figure out what is going on. I’m sure the guys who wrote “Louie, Louie” were worried about “contextual clues”….

Wow. Thanks. Ray Wylie has been an inspiration since the early ‘80s. Used to listen to him on KNON in Dallas. If you have any connections to Ray, feel free to drop my name….