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My worst case scenario

#121
Hey brother,
I've been busy & have not been on TB LC all week...so I just now saw this.


Holy crap... there is nothing I can say. This is terrible. I am sorry for the major loss you have had to endure.

If there could possibly be an "up" side to this at all....
In my life as an artisan/artist, I have found that some of my most unique, &intense work...has come through me during some of my worst times of emotional stress and/or trauma. You obviously can't do much in the way of actual work with your studio in ashes....but you can channel the pain and lay down some theme based designs on paper at least. Or write a song....a poem...etc....
In doing so, some of the pain is purged and transferred into the work.
This might sound like psycho-babble....but honestly, it works.

And once you are building again....a perfect finish detail on your tragedy fueled creation would be the "fractal Lichtenberg figure" technique...
Have you seen this? Here they call it "electro pyrography"
 
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#123
That is a cool technique, I spent a lot of time watching videos of that technique too.

I found the missing bass yesterday, seriously singed.
20160819_160829_zpseqxwjhgn.jpg
 
#127
The adjuster told me not to do anything until they get the inventory done. I couldn't help myself and started making an instrument inventory, probably more for me than anything else. So glad my wife pushed me to take good pictures of all of my basses (I will apologize to her later for how much grief I gave her over making me do that). It's both sad and cathartic to look over the pictures and write out the specs for each instrument.
 
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#128
Jisch said:
The adjuster told me not to do anything until they get the inventory done. I couldn't help myself and started making an instrument inventory, probably more for me than anything else. So glad my wife pushed me to take good pictures of all of my basses (I will apologize to her later for how much grief I gave her over making me do that). It's both sad and cathartic to look over the pictures and write out the specs for each instrument.
Click to expand...

I think that is exactly what you should do. Obviously information is power when negotiating and if they have documentation and you don't - You lose. If it is cathartic then all the better. Even if you feel your adjuster is a "nice guy"; you may not always feel that way:cautious:. Your build threads should be a great resource. Also, don't forget, there are tax consequences as well.
 
#130
Just for clarity: the adjuster I'm mentioning is what's known as a Public Adjuster, he doesn't work for the insurance company, he works for us. His pay is a percentage of the claim, so he's trying to get as much money as possible for everything. We had a long talk about the value of the basses yesterday, I think it will be ok. We have a second assessor lined up if we don't like the price from the first one. I finished the sheet and sent it to him, the assessor will use that as a base.

I'll let you know where we end up.
 
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#131
God, that's awful. The physical loss is bad, but I know how much emotional investment goes into building an instrument. I have often tried to imagine losing all my stuff as an exercise in detachment, but never been put to the test in reality beyond small scale loss to accident or theft. You will recover from this and go on to build more instruments. Best of luck to you.
 
#132
I had lightning hit within about thirty feet of me , luckily I was in a car, so it didn't touch me, but I saw exactly where it struck. I went back and looked the next day and saw a hole in the ground that was a glass tube formed when the bolt melted the sand in the soil. I later learned that these glass tubes are a record of sorts of the path of the bolt, people dig them up and collect them. The amount of force and heat involved is staggering, really glad nobody was hurt.

Edit:
Apparently these glass tubes are called "fulgarites", some are quite beautiful, ironic considering how destructive.
glass lightning tubes - Bing images
 
#133
I would LOVE to have one of those, but sadly (?) the bolt seemed to stay on the top of the ground. I still have no idea how the lightning got inside my house (it would have to go through 6" of solid concrete). I have no doubt it could do that, but I can't figure out how it did it as there were no conductors to follow. Lightning seems pretty good at following conductors, regardless of the size of that conductor.
 
#134
Gilmourisgod said:
God, that's awful. The physical loss is bad, but I know how much emotional investment goes into building an instrument. I have often tried to imagine losing all my stuff as an exercise in detachment, but never been put to the test in reality beyond small scale loss to accident or theft. You will recover from this and go on to build more instruments. Best of luck to you.
Click to expand...
You nailed it, the emotional attachment is tough. I have learned a lot about myself and others through this whole thing. It's been really eye opening on so many levels. The one bass that hits me hardest is the "single cut". It played beautifully and I really like the way it looked, but I've accepted that it's gone, onto the next build.
 
#136
I am definitely going to try and incorporate something from the dust into this new build. I can't describe the smell of my entire house. It's not a nice campfire smell, it's a nasty, burnt plastic/chemical smell. If I spend more than a few minutes in the house it permeates everything I'm wearing and my hair. I am sure I could sand down to the point where the smell was gone, but I'm not sure I could endure it or want to expose my (or my father's) tools to it. Hmm you got me thinking here though - maybe I can cut a section out of a burned bass and inlay it into the new one. Nice. I work for Orange Business Services and our logo is an orange square - I definitely want to inlay a square into this thing in tribute to my coworkers, maybe I'll take a hunk of wood out of the single cut to use as that inlay.
 
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#137
Jisch said:
I would LOVE to have one of those, but sadly (?) the bolt seemed to stay on the top of the ground. I still have no idea how the lightning got inside my house (it would have to go through 6" of solid concrete). I have no doubt it could do that, but I can't figure out how it did it as there were no conductors to follow. Lightning seems pretty good at following conductors, regardless of the size of that conductor.
Click to expand...
Rebar + moisture in the concrete? Plus, when dealing with that level of energy, I think 6 inches of concrete is like a sheet of paper... :)
 

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