Final post for the week and next weeks nomination

[Fred Finisher]

I will post a few tales today that will hopefully give you a glimpse of what it was like to work at CLF /G&L so long ago. I would also like to thank those of you who have responded to my posts this week because I was afraid that I might have found out what the sound of cyber crickets would be like. You guys have been very encouraging and I will now be following what goes on here in the future. When I return, I will tell of a prank with an unintended victim.

To be cont...

[Fred Finisher]

I think I would like to nominate Westsideduck for the Lunch Reporter duties if you are willing to step up. I did not see where you had done this any time recently. Please let me know if you are interested.
Fred

[westsideduck]

Great week of reports Fred, I,m impressed with the work you guys did in the finishing department and your dedication to put out the best looking guitars you could.

Now lets get down to the brass tacks, lets see those protypes!

My last question for the week, employee built guitars, we have all seen and heard about them, did these guitars just walk out the door after hours or did Leo let you guys build guitars for yourselfs and charge you for them ? and did some come through the finishing department for any custom paint jobs ?

[westsideduck]

Your a tough act to follow Fred but I'll do my best.

[meowmix]

HI Fred.

I have couple other finishing questions.
My Sunburst has some dark blotches. How do they form? It is by accident? Done on purpose? It does give it character.

There are holes in my guitar body. Filled with some wood paste or something. Was that for finishing?
Where do you hold the guitar when applying the finish? Has that changed over the years?

Thanks

Peter

[Fred Finisher]

Westsideduck,
Thanks for stepping up. Although the statute of limitations has long since expired for any less than honest behavior, I prefer not to go into any detail except to say that there were too many instruments that left the factory undocumented. Because there was no discouragement of people like myself who were building guitars on the side, Leo and George had no issues with employees buying parts at cost and using them in their own creations.
Fred

[Fred Finisher]

Peter,
The holes you are probably talking about are for the metal templates used to route the perimeter and cavities. Remember that back in the day, there were no CNC machines cutting out the bodies. As far as blotches go, I would have to assume they are human errors without seeing them.
Fred

[Fred Finisher]

Hello Again,
Lunch was an ensemble of fruit dipped in yogurt today. It was refreshing considering our current climate. Followed by another cup of Ethiopian coffee.
I want to tell the tale of when we were in the process of cleaning up old supplies etc. and about five bottles of MEK Peroxide were found. No one knew what it was for and had no use for it so it was decided by one of the ladies to have one of the guys pour it all into a single bottle until it could be disposed of. This was done and everyone went on with their day. After a while the same lady came flying around the corner asking me to come and look at what had happened. It turns out that the five gallons were put into a five gallon PLASTIC bottle. As you might have guessed, they are made for water not mek. This of course ate away the bottle and spread all over the stock room area and created a huge mess. Someone called the fire department to help with the clean up and the next thing you know we all ended up with our names on a HAZ MAT exposure list. I can't remember if we were also fined for the incident but needless to say it made for an eventful afternoon.
More to follow...
Fred

[sickbutnottired]

Great week, Fred. Thanks.

Duck has been leading the way with questions this week, and he always delivers the goods....PORN! So next week should be great, too.

Have a good weekend, all!

[Fred Finisher]

Another quick tale about an unintended prank victim.
One day it hit me that it would be funny to watch someones expression when they came to realize that the bar of soap they had been rubbing on was nothing more than a block of painted wood. I fashioned a block in the woodshop and painted it then lathered it up with soap so as to add to the realism. I then ditched the real soap and waited for the unsuspecting victim. Unfortunately, no one took the bait and it was nearing lunch time. George Fullerton's office was at the head of the finish department so as you might have guessed he became the unintended victim. As I saw him approach the sink, the unemployment line flashed before my eyes. Fortunately, he had a good enough sense of humor to find the real soap and act as if nothing happened although I was still sweating bullets about possible repercussions. Needless to say, I was more careful on future pranks.
Fred

[Fred Finisher]

Another quick tidbit,
One of the final assemblers who started out in the woodshop and was an excellent guitar player, had a habit of giving people nicknames and theme songs. He was a guitar tester so he almost always had an instrument in his hands. Depending on who walked through the final assembly area a different tune could be heard. You could always tell who was about to come through the door based on what Tom was playing just prior to the knob turning.
Fred

[KenC]

Fred,

I'm sorry that part of the sound of crickets was from me. I was traveling most of the week, and had no way of joining the discussion (my cell phone typing skills aren't that great). I did read - and thoroughly enjoy - all of your posts. It's great to have you in the G&LDP community!

Ken

[Fred Finisher]

Thanks KenC,
It has been fun recounting some of these old memories. I will also go back through the replies and answer any questions I missed.I did pull out my protos and I plan to clean them up a bit and shoot some photos. After that I will try to upload them because although I wouldn't consider myself a technophobe, my computer skills might show me to be a technodork. Hopefully I can figure it out.

[KenC]

Fred,

There was a very helpful Lunch Report a couple of months ago that focused (no pun intended) on photographing guitars. I believe Ken Baker posted it. I will see if I can track it down.

Ken

[Fred Finisher]

I will close with one last memory of Leo.
During the time I was there, we had very few problems with the finish. We did have a short period of time when we were experiencing finish inconsistencies and Leo did not like the answers he was getting from our lacquer supplier. We even changed suppliers for a short time till we realized that these guys were worse than what we had in the beginning. During all of our testing, Leo decided that the lacquer needed to be able to withstand being put in a freezer overnight without failing if it was going to be used by us. We ran several tests until the results were satisfactory because there had to be a good balance of plasticizers in the product so that it didn't crack or imprint over time. ( This might sound crazy to someone in California but a gigging musician who has his instruments in his vehicle in Michigan would beg to differ). Well during these tests, Leo decided he wanted to see how well a Gibson would hold up under the same conditions. When they showed me the results, Leo was beaming from ear to ear because the Les Paul Custom he was holding was as shattered as a 100 year old porcelain doll and he couldn't care less what it was worth because it failed our test miserably.
Fred

Thanks again for all the encouragement and I hope some of this info helped to answer a few questions.

[Fred Finisher]

I look forward to seeing it, I can use all the help I can get,
Fred

[KenC]

Fred,

I'm not sure how to link to Ken Baker's post, but if you scroll back through the old Lunch Reports it was April 26th of this year.

Ken

[blargfromouterspace]

Fred, thanks for some great insight this week. We've had guests this week so I haven't had as much time as usual to respond, but I've been reading!

Hope to hear more from you in the future

[yowhatsshakin]

Hi Fred,

Thanks for a wonderful week of LR's. I very much enjoyed your reports from the early trenches. The lunch report about instrument photography KenC is talking about can be found here.

- Jos

[meowmix]

Thanks Fred for the excellent LR.

[Craig]

Thanks KenC,
It has been fun recounting some of these old memories. I will also go back through the replies and answer any questions I missed.I did pull out my protos and I plan to clean them up a bit and shoot some photos. After that I will try to upload them because although I wouldn't consider myself a technophobe, my computer skills might show me to be a technodork. Hopefully I can figure it out.

This post should help: Tutorial: Posting photos.

If you still need assistance, I'll be glad to help, just send me a PM or email the photos to me and I will post them for you.

Thanks for a great and informative week of Lunch Reports!

[Fred Finisher]

You're welcome Craig,
This was like Toastmesters on line for me because I'm not used to doing this kind of stuff. Thanks for the link and I will try to do this tonight or tomorrow.
Fred

[louis cyfer]

fred, thank you so much, i have thoroughly enjoyed this week. i didn't post as much as i usually do, work got crazy busy, very uncharacteristic for late june/july. normally this is my slow period. not this year. i have more people than i know what to do with.

[yowhatsshakin]

i have more people than i know what to do with.

Just whip them into shape louis

- Jos

[oneeyedog]

Great posts this week Fred, thanks. There is a book waiting to be written here.............
john

[Fred Finisher]

Thanks John,
I think it would be best to leave the book writing to those like Gabe who have spent countless hours researching every aspect they could find. I consider myself like one of the blind men that was asked what an elephant was like after only feeling a part of it. My perspective and what I know is only a fraction of what went on. I do hope to meet up with Gabe in the near future so that we can go over some of these details and maybe shed some light on what I had first hand knowledge of.
Fred

[louis cyfer]

i have more people than i know what to do with.

Just whip them into shape louis

- Jos

i am. doing 10+ clients a day is quite a bit. very tiring. the economy must be getting better, i have never had this many people training in the summer.

[darwinohm]

Fred, I have been on vacation for a week. really enjoyed the reports last week and have missed the Ducks so far this week. I am leaving again in the morning for weekend gigs but will catch up with everything on Monday.-- Darwin

[Fred Finisher]

Thanks Darwin,
It was a lot of fun remembering those days. I recently saw some pictures on facebook that I had not seen before of Leo, George, Dale and even Doc Kaufman. I really regret not having a camera around back then. Westsideducks doing a good job of keeping it interesting this week.
Fred