Yet you are perhaps my favorite example of amazingly talented and creative people doing things with wood!
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My first bass resurrected (including back-story)
- Thread starter JIO
- Start date
Yet you are perhaps my favorite example of amazingly talented and creative people doing things with wood!
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
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- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
- 222,163
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Yup. For me it is clear that there are people with real skills and then there is me. My father was a skilled woodworker. I always aimed high yet had terrible results. I always thought of myself as a Wood Butcher. But in 1984 I made myself a 5-octave psaltery.It turned out reasonably well…I actually FINISHED it! That was my graduation project to become certified as a Wood Abuser, one step above Butcher.
That’s why I like tuning in here on TB…there are some great projects being done by people of all levels. But JIO, you are as close to being a Luthier as one can get without actually being one.
Thanks, but you are once again too kind Steve - I feel the same as Nex!
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- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
- 222,163
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Well yah.., they would be welcomed to learn here at LC anytime but outside of that... oh well...
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
- 222,163
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
The key to the Luthiers Corner is creative initiative and education. If the fire burns inside to do something creative - this is the place where you can feel supported and will inevitably be enlightened. It may start with a 'kit', it may start with 'modding', it may start with resurrecting a basket case, it may start with a ground-up build... but however it begins - the creativity, talent, expertise and support is here. Aspire away!
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- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
- 222,163
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Saw this 'cool-cats from 1966' pic on another tb thread. The bass player is someone we know. @GretschWretch He's playing what looks like a Tempo (or one of the other names that bass was branded) I'll assume "Knights" is Knights of Columbus? '66 was the year I bought my Tempo. By the time I was playing in my 1st 'combo' in High School ('71), I was playing a new '68 EB-3. 
'66 was the year I bought my Tempo. By the time I was playing in my 1st 'combo' in High School ('71), I was playing a new '68 EB-3. 
Since @JIO, who clearly has too much time on his hands, has outed me, I suppose I should give the backstory on the pic. The bass was unbadged and was purchased from WoolCo, which was the strip mall version of F. W. Woolworth. This is the bass I did not learn about truss rods and intonation on. The rhythm guitarist is playing a Japanese instrument probably purchased from Lafayette Electronics.
Some of the names in the caption should be recognizable. The drummer, who is disrespecting me by being almost as tall seated on his throne as I am standing up, is James Stroud, who has had an award-winning career as a producer in Nashville. The rhythm player, Wayne Greene, has been a folk/Americana fixture in the DFW area for many years. His brother Terry (now Teri) Greene has been a longtime blues fixture in the Houston area. I myself linger in obscurity, as a bass player should.
The "Knights" is the school mascot name for Woodlawn High School in Shreveport, LA, a school which did not exist prior to 1961. The school has an interesting history of football quarterbacks. It's first five either did or could have gone AFL/NFL professional. I got to see both Terry Bradshaw and Joe Ferguson play, as well as Bradshaw in college.
Some of the names in the caption should be recognizable. The drummer, who is disrespecting me by being almost as tall seated on his throne as I am standing up, is James Stroud, who has had an award-winning career as a producer in Nashville. The rhythm player, Wayne Greene, has been a folk/Americana fixture in the DFW area for many years. His brother Terry (now Teri) Greene has been a longtime blues fixture in the Houston area. I myself linger in obscurity, as a bass player should.
The "Knights" is the school mascot name for Woodlawn High School in Shreveport, LA, a school which did not exist prior to 1961. The school has an interesting history of football quarterbacks. It's first five either did or could have gone AFL/NFL professional. I got to see both Terry Bradshaw and Joe Ferguson play, as well as Bradshaw in college.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
- 222,163
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Thanks for clearing a couple of things up... but was that unmarked bass the same model as this Tempo?
There are differences. Both the headstock and tuners on my bass were different from yours, and the edges on my bass were more rounded than yours appear to be. Also your five-screw plate appears to be a bit more pointy than mine, and mine had the gold-foil pickup. It is hard for me to speculate on badging or branding, since at that time and place the only badged Japanese basses we ever saw were new Kingstons in pawn shops. Every other headstock was bare.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
- 222,163
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
I too have to jump in on the "I'm not a luthier" train. My father-in-law often refers to me as a luthier and I always say "I build basses, I'm not a luthier." It's funny, because even Matt at Texas Toasty often says he is not a luthier, he's a guitar builder.
Dictionary Definition states a luthier is "one who makes and repairs stringed musical instruments". That technically covers pianos, harps, guitars, violins, fiddles, banjos, etc. I can not, nor have I ever, worked on or built any of those aside from a few guitars.
But, like most of you, I'm my own worst critic. Something my wife gets angry with me about.
Dictionary Definition states a luthier is "one who makes and repairs stringed musical instruments". That technically covers pianos, harps, guitars, violins, fiddles, banjos, etc. I can not, nor have I ever, worked on or built any of those aside from a few guitars.
But, like most of you, I'm my own worst critic. Something my wife gets angry with me about.
- Jun 30, 2010
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- 222,163
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Close, but mine had the clover-leaf tuning machines with the larger diameter shafts, more Fender-ish headstock, different truss rod cover and no string tree. From the nut down though, your example pretty much nails it.
Pretty much like this one.
It was a popular platform then as there were a few slightly different versions of the same basic bass.
- Jun 30, 2010
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
I think one can be a luthier specializing in one instrument or another. If I made my own necks, I'd flirt with the title. There are fledgling and way above fledgling luthiers here in the corner which makes this a cool place to hang.
Agree. Almost template necks and bodies with variations in the pickups, pickguards, and hardware. I don't know why, when the Japanese hopped onto the guitar boom bandwagon of the sixties, they chose to flood us with so many models (compared to USA) with so many nuanced variations in the details.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,622
- 222,163
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Not unless some maniac has come up with a way of putting strings in them.
So there's an upside.
