Oh my, this day went to poop quickly. Rereading Xenophon's Hellenica. Was a child on first read through, and that was rushed in anticipation of moving on to the anabasis of Cyrus. Had to get the volumes through an inter-library loan as neither our public or uni libraries here carries them in a duo-translation format. Bookshelf beside our bed, safely tucked away.
My daughter whom is ten decided she would eat cereal (cocoa-krispies) in my bed and surf on her tablet. Not being normal, she puts the cereal in a styro cup and adds milk. No idea what happened as I wasn't there but somehow she manages to spill milk and cereal all over the contents on/in my bookshelf and of course on the Hellenica. Doesn't do a good job of either cleaning up the mess or hiding the evidence. Ants and wet chocolatey books. So frustrating.
I'm curious to see a picture of your workbench, if you wish to share via PM.
I've seen pics of other woodworkers, and luthiers in particular, with bicycle-chain-drive mechanisms for adjusting bench height. Is yours similar?
Sure, I'll get around to doing that but you'll be disappointed. The shop now consists of a couple of Erlewine shopstands (neck jig and angle vise) from Stewie-Mac bolted to the concrete. Hardly go in there anymore. Haven't worked on building acoustic stuff in forever - specifically because it is not financially viable for an independant/mom-n-pop to turn a profit. You love the craft but it doesn't put groceries on the table. Quite the opposite actually.
Getting good tone wood is next to impossible, especially when considering whom the competition is for acquisition. Cites law has all but put an end to getting good spruce, rosewood, ebony, mahogany, et al. The expense and legalities are tremendous.
Electric guitars are much the same, but you can still get good alder/swamp ash if you don't mind the expense. If I do anything any more it's craft a body and slap a uscg or warmoth neck on it and add a waterslide decal. Not exactly what being a luthier implies. All that went away a long time ago for me.
So my son appears to be pursuing a career in music (classically training in 2xbass) and I just learned what this is when I had to get his 'summer post' put into his instrument. Do you just work on guitars, or do you work on all 'fiddle' instruments. Not a bad buck in that.
Although I love them, the violas and cellos and double basses and such are not my bailiwick. My love starts and stops with guitars really. Essentially I grew up with guitar heroes, as silly as that sounds, and we idolized guys like Hendrix and Pagey and Beck. Later on it was about Holdsworth and EVH and then came all the silliness of the 80's and everybody had to play stunt guitar. If you couldn't whip up a Malmsteenian frenzy you lost out. On the other end of the spectrum guys like Scott Henderson and John Scofield and Gambale were tearing up the scene as well. Fun time period to be a picker. If I had to pick one constant source of influence it would be Ry Cooder. Absolutely loved that guys tone/approach. That has extended to a love for most cool slide guys like Derek Trucks (my fave) and Joey Landreth (also a fave).
I would love to rant old-guy style about how it seems that we're not raising musicians anymore and how the passion for the art is dead but that's not a discussion for this place
Apologies for the novella.
), and fell in love with the state. Not bad for a transplant 
