Well, we're dead in the heat of summer, even though it is only late June. I continue to build guitars, but with this horrible economy and the remains of the gas crisis, orders have tapered off a little. As a sidenote, my daytime employer just asked me to go to four day weeks, so I will have full days in my shop to pursue some of the projects I've mentioned here, and others.
I approached a gallery on my "framed guitar as art" idea. They focus on local artists, and to be honest, the gallery was stuffed with unsold paintings and sculptures. Discretionary spending is at an all-time low as we make our way through this recession. I'm awaiting a reply. They scanned my website yesterday.
The Cigar Box Guitar idea is dead. No money in those, and it turns out they are rather time consuming to build.
So I reached waaayyyyy back into my woodworking past, and took another look at freeform bandsaw jewelry boxes, with a focus on exotic shapes, but also stringed instrument shapes, such as a violin, guitar, bass and other instruments as jewelry boxes. If you take a look on the Internet for bandsaw jewelry boxes, you will find a lot of people doing these, but the really difficult ones, such as Tony Ward in Australia produces are very rare. I am practicing now, bringing back the old talent, and have ordered a new bandsaw to allow me to do larger ones. I've probably made over two dozen of these in my time, but like anything, once you quit it takes a while to bring back the real perfection. I have one store already that is willing to sell them on consignment, and if all goes well, possibly some galleries and furniture stores will pick them up as well. They have to be perfect, as people will put their valuables in them, but as I build guitars for my customers, I think I can also do perfect jewelry boxes. So when one door closes a little, another often opens a crack. The extra day I will not work my day job will be spent producing salable items in my shop. It almost never is one door shut, one door open...you have to see the little slivers of light around you to really take advantage of the opportunities. But they are there, if you know where to look...
In the woodworking world, there are more people than ever building things, especially in this economy. Lots of people reclaiming pallets and other reclaimed wood, trying to maximize their profits on all kinds of wooden projects. But for me, exotics are still my main, although my last two guitars were made of 140+ year old oak!
So maybe if you're in SE Tennessee sometime, you might just run into one of my boxes, should they start to take off! And of course, I keep right on building guitars! Numbers 45 and 46 are spoken for. I'm wondering when I will hit number 50? That will most certainly have to be special!!
Tsunami
