First Reflection

*February 16, 2024

I am just writing to look back at almost two years of starting the business. Why am I not waiting until I get to the two year mark instead? I feel like I am at a pivotal point in the business.

Guitars

Guitar building was something I wanted to try – it was more a curiosity of how the acoustic guitars were built. It was really from a time that I was playing on a guitar and just started to really look at it. The curiosity was probably more of “how hard is it to actually build it?”.

The intentions of building guitars were to be more of a hobby – something I can do in my spare time and not something I had to be committed to. Of course, I would need a job to pay for the hobby and I have had an expensive car hobby before so I know how hobbies can be a money pit.

With being pushed into registering a business name the month before I went to the course in Winnipeg at Hamm-Tone Guitars and Mandolins, I had put some thought into the situation. And that was, whether I do this on the side or as a business of any degree, there was going to be a lot of expenses to get things going in either scenario.

And one of the times I talked to Jeremy, the teacher, he suggested to stock up on wood if I could as prices would get more and more expensive. That’s why a lot of times I was purchasing wood. It has slowed down significantly now partially because shipping costs have sky rocketed and a few of my last purchases have been quite unsatisfactory. I have also moved onto other projects which will be discussed later.

Everything was new to me as I worked more with mechanic tools and air tools from working on aircrafts and cars. Sure, I have used a drill before in a different aspect. Drilling the holes on a headstock really need to be bang on and I’m still working on that one – drill bits have a tendency to walk.

The detail work such as chiselling and carving was new to me, I’ve never had to use a chisel before in a way I had to be cautious of the results. But as I built more and more guitars, I definitely saw an improvement on my workmanship and found better/more efficient ways to do certain jobs.

There is still a long ways to go but I feel I can produce a guitar that is pretty decent at this point. I know where I need improving but some things, you only get one chance per guitar, so it will take time.

Getting new tools and jigs also throws things off – biggest example I can give are the dovetail jigs I have had. The old ones I used before was what we had in the class but at some point, the bearing on the dovetail router bit I had was melting the acrylic templates. This led me to purchase a jig that was made of aluminium – and this jig was excessively expensive if you asked me.

I mention the dovetail jig because the dovetail (if you use that method to join the neck to the body) is the most crucial part. The neck angle and left/right angle all need to be addressed at this one point. It could take a lot of work to get the dovetail to mate correctly but even sometimes, I need to rework the two sides after I thought I got it to match up and align perfectly. Again, you only do this once per guitar so you can only gain so much experience points for each build.

I eventually joined the Guild of American Luthiers – they have quarterly issues and there is a lot of interesting information and some neat ideas that people use to build their guitars. I won’t deny that I haven’t tried some of those things – a little more visual appeal doesn’t hurt and it is experience with what can be done or added to the guitar.

Youtube videos of reputable luthiers have some interesting and useful knowledge they pass along. I feel the worst is that everything always goes right – nobody actually explains or shows when things go wrong and why it happens. And then there are videos that are absolute rubbish and just a waste of time and space.

When I research things on the internet the typical answer is “you must be doing something wrong” with no other information, no explanation or hint as to where to look or what you are doing wrong.

The next step is to start CNC’ing some electric guitars. I have been working with somebody that has a CNC machine and we just look at “the next project”. I fist approached him with routing the logos for guitars. At some point, I talked about building an electric guitar or two and I did pique his interest with crunching some numbers. He is currently building a new CNC machine for the upcoming guitar projects.

Snare Drums

I am sure that I have mentioned about the reason why I started to build snare drums but here it is again.

Sometime in 2022, I went to a Pretty Ugly show at Branch 5 to support Steve Clark and Jason Bozec who were customers of mine. At this point, I have already talked to them about sponsor guitars. I went up to talk to them before the show and Steve introduced me to Dave Ketchum. Dave said to me, “Let me know when you start building snare drums”.

This stuck in my head because I wasn’t sure if Dave was serious or not. And I didn’t want to be in a situation where I assumed it was a joke and he was actually waiting for a snare drum. I dragged it on for about a year and a half and eventually I thought to myself that I better get started on this snare drum.

At this point, I had already built about 16-17 guitars and felt it was time for something different. I did my research and got the general gist of it from Youtube videos but I only found out some other things afterwards.

Dave’s drum was finished around the Christmas season of 2023 and delivered to him before a New Year’s Eve show he was playing in the city.

Dave was already excited with how it looked visually from the pictures I sent him of the progress of the build but if it didn’t sound good, it didn’t matter how good it looked.

Dave took it for a test run as he was setting up his drum set for the show. He was impressed enough to play it for the show that evening. Even the sound guy was impressed with the sound of the drum.

My current issue is finding hardware for the mounting and snare hardware. Not being a drummer, I don’t know where to find hardware so I look around for cheap drums I can pull the hardware off.

I build snare drums using staves – think of a barrel construction. I would like to eventually try some with the lamination method. I went with the staves method because from what I saw on Youtube, I wouldn’t need need to purchase more tools, I just needed to build a jig or two.

There isn’t any consideration to build more than a handful of snare drums at this point – it may stop after the 4th one if there isn’t any interest in snare drums. Snare Drum 002 will be kept as a demo drum for people to try out.

Violins

The violin is something I would like to build in the future. I am not sure how long it will take to transition into building a violin from where I am now. I think taking a course would be best as there is a lot more fine carving for a violin compared to a guitar and I am sure there will be a lot more differences as I learn more.

Actually, the next target course would be the arch top course from Hamm-Tone Guitars and Mandolins. I feel that arch tops may be something people would be interested in. It would be something new to learn and is kind of a step towards violins as the soundboard would be carved on an arch top similarly like a violin’s top plate and back.

On the second week of January 2024, I had received a text message from somebody that had a violin that needed repair. I never got the name of this gentleman but he told me that he had this violin sitting in his basement for 3 years waiting to find somebody to repair it. As we texted back and forth, I told him that I was interested in violin building as a future goal and his reply was that he would give me the violin.

He came a few days later with a violin in a blue recycling bag. The neck was still attached to it even though he said that the neck needed to be glued on. I was a little perplexed over it but in another sense, relieved that I didn’t have to glue the neck back on.

From my experience of guitars, the violin didn’t seem like it was in that bad of shape. There is a crack that runs along the whole top plate – I don’t know if it was actually repaired properly but having the violin tested by Michael Costa, he said there was better tone but less volume compared to a violin he had on hand.

The finish on the top plate was pretty bad and I had initially thought of stripping the whole violin to bare wood. I got a good amount off the top but didn’t try too hard on the ribs and back as I wasn’t feeling it was the best idea. I French polished the violin body – the top may look a little off without having much coloured varnish over it but the back and ribs have a “reliced” look to it.

The second violin I had received was from the CNC guy’s friend, the milling guy. We were having a lunch meeting and I mentioned about working on a violin. The milling guy said he had a violin I can take. The bow was still pretty straight which was good: the one that came with the first violin was bent. I was hoping to use it for rehairing practice but wouldn’t make sense with it being unusable.

I did manage to get to work on rehairing from two bows Michael Costa had. It is a start but I have to start from somewhere.

Future

I feel like things have started to pick up for the business since mid/late December of 2023.

I get new customers, repeat customers and some people don’t call back but that is part of business. I hope the trend will continue and connect with more people that will spread the word that I do good work.

Recently, I have managed to get a dealer account for orchestra stringed instruments and stringed instruments parts and accessories: that would be violins, violas, cellos and basses and parts and accessories such as bows, strings, cases, bridges, rosin etc. This may help get a bit more business since we have an orchestra here in Thunder bay.

Now having a variety of projects I can or will be able to work on – acoustic guitars, electric guitars and snare drums – I can change it up here and there on what I build. As mentioned above, I do plan on expanding to do arch top guitars and eventually in time, violins.

This is for now but I will have to see how things turn out in the future.

thanks for reading.

Perry

Monkey Guitars