Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by B Tal on August 12, 2009 at 2:14am

Hi Tom, Im a self employed chocolatier living in Bethlehem PA. Its a small operation im chief cook and bottle washer. I grew up in western PA on the edge of several hundred acres of woods and spent most of my time there with my great dane and pocet knife.

When I was 14 my dad took a sabaticle from being a middle school principal and took our family to Italy for a year. we lived in tuscany and got to travel and get exposed to some of the art treasures in that amazing country. That experience led me into pursuing art as a career. I went to PSU with the intent of graphic design after taking a metalarts/jewelry design elective as on of my studios I was hooked and talked the pres. of the arts college into creating a major in metal/ \fine arts. As a student I had the opportunity to show my work along professional artists in Santa Fe, New York, British Museum and the Smithsonian. I was also one of the first students to show as a professional vendor at the PSU arts fest. I also did a stint as a custom cabinet maker in Charlotte.

I did the fest thing for a few years and was asked to help an aquantence in his chocolates business for a season and ended up working there for 12 years. I decided to go it on my own and have done that for the last 5 yrs.

Ive always wanted to build a "standard" guitar and thru the years figured out that it was going to be an expensive project that may turn out poorly ( not about to build from a kit) I came across a Make magazine's cbg plans. I figured it was a good way to sort out scale and intonation on the cheap....little did I know...

I FOUND CBN!!

I built me 1st cbg and then 9 more, people notice them in my store and I now have orders for 5 more as of today.
So... The office for the Southside film fest is above my store and I knew of Max Shore's doc. so I contacted Max and tasked him to submit the doc. (not that I could get him in ) the jury loved it...I contacted this fFREAKk from York PA by the name of Shane Speal and asked if he would like to perform after the sreening and he shows up with Jerry Thompson and One String Willy!!! What a guy !... My next goal is to have a full blown cbg fest here, vendors, music, workshops.....

Ive met so many great people here from around the world and have been inspired by all of them.
Thanks Tom and sorry for rambleing.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Renn on August 12, 2009 at 4:12pm

Well, where to start.....I'm 36 and back in school. After, 15+ years of various menial retail jobs, I started working at a boy's school (read as residential facility for teen-age boys one step from the penal system). Found out that I really like working with those kids and decided to go back and get my special education degree.
Been married for 8 years, 3 kids (13 yr. old, 5 Yr. old, 1. yr old.). Been in and out of bands since I was 15. Mainly play bass, but am a passable rhythm guitarist, and fool around with mandolin and ukelele both. I've always been drawn to weird instruments and have a real DIY streak (I've built amps and effects pedals for myself and friens), so CBG building semed to be the next logical progression. I'm in the end stage of my first build, an electric, and tonight, while the tung-oil on the neck is drying, my 13 year old daughter asked if she could help me start building another. So, we spent a couple of hours in the garage, just hanging out and making stuff together. Now she's already trying to figure out how we can make a CBG cello to go with her "real" cello.

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Permalink Reply by stan bryars on August 17, 2009 at 5:52pm

Didn't see this one earlier

47 years old and recently unemployed for the first time since I was 13
During the school year it was catch as catch can and we took whatever weekend work we could or skipped school if the pay was good enough but in the summer I would always get full time work
Between 13 and 18 I s as a carpenter's assistant, commercial landscaper (lawn boy), fruit picker,oil and lube tech, general construction gopher, fry cook, and commercial fisherman (child labor laws were not what they are now and we considered that fun)
At 17 I joined the army as a tug boat and landing craft engineman

Got out in the 80's when you took whatever job you could get and liked it
Worked a very short time on a printing press(I'm sensing a theme here)as a gopher boy and roller wiper then as a foreman on an underground telephone cable installation crew

Went on a interview for a pest control company one day and didn't like the boss at all so i told him I would consider his offer
The next day at work a cavein trapped my head in a five minute air pocket for six minutes, so I considered his offer a lot more seriously

28 years later I am still a bugman/nuisance wildlife trapper, just unemployed and desperately looking after almost three months

Found a CGB link on youtube one bored night and started my fist one about 3o minutes later, Built it in about an hour or so with a drill,sawzall blade and a ginzu kitchen knife
Ugliest thing you ever saw but sounded OK
My guitar playing so helped me tweak it to sound good and criticized it so badly I had to build another to give to his cousin to make him jealous
Cousin also thought it was a joke, but was more polite about it
Finally found a real musician to give it to and now his mom is a little irritated with me
They have sent thousands on three real guitars for him, and the kid is an amazing player, but all he plays now is my CAO

All but my family think they are great
So I am mostly building now to learn and to give away
But my kids will have to buy them

I have a few ready to complete but buying tuners mostly is a problem with no money coming in

Personally I can not play a note and am not really even sure what a guitar sound sound like but have three guitars that I thought I would learn on in the past and I am seriously thinking about dismantling them for the parts

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Permalink Reply by stan bryars on August 17, 2009 at 5:56pm

stan bryars said:

Didn't see this one earlier

47 years old and recently unemployed for the first time since I was 13
During the school year it was catch as catch can and we took whatever weekend work we could or skipped school if the pay was good enough but in the summer I would always get full time work
Between 13 and 18 I was a carpenter's assistant, commercial landscaper (lawn boy), fruit picker,oil and lube tech, general construction gopher, fry cook, and commercial fisherman (child labor laws were not what they are now and we considered that fun)
At 17 I joined the army as a tug boat and landing craft engineman

Got out in the 80's when you took whatever job you could get and liked it
Worked a very short time on a printing press(I'm sensing a theme here)as a gopher boy and roller wiper then as a foreman on an underground telephone cable installation crew

Went on a interview for a pest control company one day and didn't like the boss at all so i told him I would consider his offer
The next day at work a cavein trapped my head in a five minute air pocket for six minutes, so I considered his offer a lot more seriously

20 something years later I am still a bugman/nuisance wildlife trapper, just unemployed and desperately looking after almost three months

Found a CGB link on youtube one bored night and started my fist one about 3o minutes later, Built it in about an hour or so with a drill,sawzall blade and a ginzu kitchen knife
Ugliest thing you ever saw but sounded OK
My guitar playing son helped me tweak it to sound good and criticized it so badly I had to build another to give to his cousin to make him jealous
Cousin also thought it was a joke, but was more polite about it
Finally found a real musician to give it to and now his mom is a little irritated with me
They have sent thousands on three real guitars for him, and the kid is an amazing player, but all he plays now is my CAO He has been really helpful in suggesting tweaks and mods to make it sound right and be comfortable to play

All but my family think they are great
So I am mostly building now to learn and to give away, have only completed two though
My kids will have to buy them

I have a few ready to complete but buying tuners mostly is a problem with no money coming in

Personally I can not play a note and am not really even sure what a guitar should sound like, but have three guitars that I thought I would learn on in the past and I am seriously thinking about dismantling them for the parts

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Permalink Reply by jon beel on August 17, 2009 at 9:31pm

well here goes,48 year old self employed biker metalcrafter live here in north devon uk got two girls 27 an 25,been bashing metal since i was about 10, 20 years for a living ,car mechanic,farm worker,truckdriver,cornmill worker,clock maker,forklift driver,motorcycle instructor to name a few things i done ,took me a few trys to find what i wanted to do in life,bin working for myself now for about 3 years after getting fed up with boss's taking the money for my skills,i make all kinds of stuff from big gates to furniture down to hammerd copper pendants,fishing lures and also the little dragons see my pic,now instruments,can just about play mandolin(slowly).
built my first instrument about 2 months ago(diddley bow) then the four string lap, 1 cbg an my electric strumthingy,now find it hard to think about any thing else.
SOD IT! note to self must get on with some real work.
any other builders in my neck of the woods?
SOD IT! phones ringing might be work.

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Permalink Reply by Keni Lee Burgess on August 18, 2009 at 8:06am

I was in the USAF from 82-86. I worked in electronics for a few years after, but I returned to my first love...cooking. I supported myself most of my life as a chef. I also was very active in the martial arts. Now that I am older I teach Tai Chi as a form of therapeutic exercise. (www.youtube.com/taichiforhealth) I have been trying to make money by playing guitar on the subway platforms, teaching and selling instructional video CDs. I too have made some great friends here at the Nation and hope to make some more. I am especially interested in working with anyone who is interested in mutually promoting our products. Enjoy.

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Permalink Reply by FatDog on August 25, 2009 at 8:51am

Hello,
I'm 33, from Venezuela. I have a full degree on Pedagogical sciences and another one on Filmmaking-producing (something might be lost in transalation with the titles).

I've made a living freelancing, contracted or hired during many years as some of the following:
Instructional designer, video producer-editor, and as a web designer-developer. I'm currently hired at an Ad Agency as web usability /developer. But, I'm finally starting my own web consulting firm this year, so for better of for worse, I'm going to be my own boss again and hopefully until the end of the road. (Can you tell I hate being employed, working office hours?).

I've also played in rock bands with more or less success (never made any real money with it) since I was 16. I've lived in Minneapolis, in Chile, Spain, and now I'm back home.

I'm also getting married this year, and in the process of buying land to build me a house, but that might take a while.

I love guitars and music. A "crazy" impulse to play banjo, and the fact that there are no banjos around these parts, brought me here.

BTW, building my first banjitar, and listening to the the first notes that came out of an instrument I BUILT, was the turning point for me to decide to build a house "the way I like it" instead of moving into a crappy apartment.

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Permalink Reply by BT Cohosh on August 25, 2009 at 10:07am

Wow! What a cool post!

I'm 40 years old; I teach English 2/3 time at our local university (mostly writing courses--I've got an MFA in poetry writing, of all things--and courses on Myth) and have recently (I've just started my first week) taken a second job as the director of the campus Wesley House (a campus outreach organization sponsored by the Methodist church). What am, really, is a dad. My schedule leaves me plenty of time to take care of my two boys (6 and 4), though they're both in school this year and I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with myself. Probably build too many CBGs. My wife works as a guidance counselor in our public middle school (she deserves combat pay), and has resigned herself to my eccentric hobbies (before the CBG thing I made about a thousand alcohol-burning backpacking stoves out of old pop-cans).

I've also been a swimming teacher, a teacher of swimming teachers, and a first-responder trainer.

I've got a weird need to tinker with things. I've switched all of my computers to Linux; I make my own wine and beer; I'm really excited about a Make magazine article that talks about salvaging electronics components from old CF bulbs to build a variety of stompboxes.

And then there are the CBGs.

Holy crap! Where has my life gone?

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Permalink Reply by Dena on September 6, 2009 at 12:38am

Having just joined, but been lurking for days, I guess this is a good place to start.

I'm Dena, wife to a good man and mama to 7 children. Two are grown, 22 and 18, and on their own. Of the 5 still at home 4 of them are teens from 17 to 13, the 'baby' is 11.

Dh and I owned a pipe organ business for 13 years. We traveled a great deal throughout the Southeast building and maintaining pipe organs for large colleges, churches and parks. For the last 3 years of doing that dh did all the travel and I stayed home with the kids. Just about 10 years ago we got out of that and dh went to work for a steel company and I decided to do what I love, art. I'm a folk artist with an at home studio.

I've always been around music, bluegrass mainly, but delta blues has been my preferred choice since I was a little thing. My daddy played back up in many a band and every music fest he could attend so I was exposed to all kinds of instruments and the people who play them.

When I was about 9 he took me to meet a friend of his named Chuck Carpenter and my love for banjo's took seed. That led to uke's, plucked psalteries and dulcimers. Which lead me to a hobby that I wish was my real job, ethnographer, though I'm just an assistant. I've enjoyed learning about my Appalachian background as it pertains to our musical history and traditions. From wailing to Fa So La singing, it's all wonderful.

I was looking at making my brother (who has his own bluegrass/country band) a gourd banjo and found the plans to make a CBG and thought to myself that I needed one for myself. Now all my kids want one too!

So here I be soaking it all in.

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Permalink Reply by Will Carter on September 6, 2009 at 1:05am

Hi Tom,
I am a hotel manager by day and a frustrated muso and sci-fi author at night!
I am married to a lovely lady who has Multiple Sclerosis, We took a change of life holiday and moved to the country for some rehab, a change in diet and stress levels and we both are feeling much better.

I got into making guitars with my dad when I was a kid (as he was an engineer) and like my hero Brian May from Queen I thought of nothing other than making the ultimate electric guitar. My father had a stroke about 7 years ago which changed my life and so now I make CBGs etc more as a homage to him than to make money (which I sometimes manage to do).

Without hyperbole this new hobby (2 yrs now) has completely changed my life and brought me a whole lot closer to a forgotten childhood dream of making musical instruments for a living. I started life as a metal worker and then became a case manager for law firms until I discovered that I hate lawyers...hotels always seemed the most civilised option and it allowed me to work my way around the world, I met a lot of famous musos over the years and have played guitar with most of them, all thanks to the unusual nature of hotels.

I love music and guitar especially - I discovered Shane Speal and Ted Crocker et al and together they really helped me get started on this most wonderful and rewarding of hobbies. I hope one day to be able to host a concert like is beginning in England. One thing I can say for Americans is their love of music is really second to none. It is unfortuante that there has not been CBGs in Australian lore - until now!!

Looking forward to the nation becoming a world of its own

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Permalink Reply by Tom Lanford on September 6, 2009 at 4:47am

Wow - Just saw some new posts on this discussion and realized it's been kicking around since July. Never dreamed I'd get so many responses and wonderful personal stories, when this was first started.

I've really enjoyed reading each one, and hope that all who have responded have enjoyed doing the same. I feel as if I've gotten to know each person just a little bit better, and I hope you have too. We most certainly are a diverse "family" to say the least.

As I write this, we're currently sitting at 1,120 members with the "magical" Labor Day mark coming tomorrow. Not the optimistic (overly, perhaps) estimate of 2,000 predicted in some earlier discussions, but certainly growing by leaps and bounds all the same.

Let me be the first (I think) to predict 2,000 by the years end. I think that is practical and feasible. But, no matter what the numbers climb too, let us all strive to maintain the friendly "family" feel we now have, the constant sense of adventure and creation, and most of all, have a lot of fun together.

Thanks again to all! Sincerely - T

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Permalink Reply by Richard G Caudill on March 23, 2011 at 1:10pm

Well  let me get in on this ,, Feel as if i already aquanited with several of u all thru forums chats etc.

enlisted io Navy just outa Hi school ,, wanted to b pilot ,, passed all till I got to my physcial ,, depth perception failed me out ,,, sssoo i became a aircraft mechanic ,, eventually did get to fly as a " back seater"  Hair was on fire !!!!!

then worked as a sales rep for Sears in Home inprovement ,, they lied to me

then went to Off shore    wrked there 2 years,, them cajuns are the happiest people i ever met !  .. and i don t care where u go ,,u can always find a "honky tonk" that'll serve u an adult bevearge.

Then fell into the trucking business by pure accident .. Good Lord put me into something that I really loved .

Always loved my job ,,plus was proud of who i did it for ,,always a good combination ..   Started as a driver ,, did everything but b president,, didn't get to do that ..  

Worked for em for 41 years  and retired ...     got into this cigar box on another  fluke ,,was watching u tube videos and drug one up.. I have been absolutely eat up with this building bug ever since ,, I have built 8 in last 3-4 weeks ,, got 3 on consignement   and have sold one for cash money !!!!    All u all that want ,, pls friend me as i"m like an old blue haired woman ,, gotta know what going on !!!

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