Grem

Yep It would stand to reason, yes. Yep. Don't worry about that. Larry ain't worried about that for sure!! The song is a nice tribute to a mna that has helped all of us out at one time or another. He may come back after a while. You never know. Until then, we need to just move on.

After I got the new StewMac guitar built first problems I ran into was the nut and frets. Seems that the B and high E strings had almost a sitar type ring to them. At first I thought it was frets, but it wasn't that. Then I was able to figure out it was the way the nut slots were cut. With a down slope towards the fretboard. Also there was several dead spots where frets were unlevel. I was hoping to be able to get away with leveling the frets, nope! So I started with the leveling of the frets. I had never done this before and I had misgivings about my ability to pull it off. Watched the videos, learned there are as many different techniques out there as there are luthiers!! Everyone had a different approach. So I decided to just go for it. It ended up being much easier that what I was thinking. And the results were better than I thought. However, I now see why that the frets need to be recrowned after!! And after I recrowned the frets I realized why they needed to be polished! Like I said, this just never ends! LOL. But the real trouble started when I went to replace the nut. See pics:

Yes!!! LOL! I learned that too!! I haven't ruined any guitars...yet! But I have come awful close!! Real close!! I am going to list SOME of the tools/stuff I have bought since I started that "one" guitar build.

You know that already!! LOL I bought a custom guitar that a friend built. It was his first build. I played that guitar on stage exactly as I got it from him for years. Well it always had one semi-dead spot on the upper register on the high E string. I always worked around the flaw. So no that I know more about how to work on frets.... Yeah, you know it, I couldn't leave it alone. Well taking that neck off of the guitar opened up a can of worms I had no idea how to handle it!! The story of that neck alone could fill pages of this forum!! I mean one thing lead to another and another and... on and on!! LOL!! @craigb That's was the one time that I really considered bringing it to a pro. BUT... I persisted and kept at it. Took my time, learned by watching a lot of Youtube videos, and my persistence paid off. That guitar is now in the best playing shape since I have had it. I even installed a few options in the electronics that weren't done when it was first built.

Glad I am not alone in the 'hard to see" crowd!! Thanks for the link. I will try those out as I have found I need more than one visor. One for the garage where I do the dirty work, and upstairs in my studio where I tweak them.

Yes I understand. Gotta have the response your looking for. Especially that over blown sound that's so soulful! In the video you can hear a few squeals from the sax setup. Not sure it was causing it. Could have been the sax mix/pup getting picked up by a nearby mic. He may have had to set the sax input mic/pup near the edge (max sensitivity) to have enough output for when he blows it soft.

No, I didn't. It has passed through my mind more than several times!!

I went with a "Natural Look' finish. I used a product called Tru Oil that is a great sealant and it has some other oils in it to help with the finish/shine. To get it looking good wasn't easy. The level of difficulty for the whole project has gone from about a 6 to 1,000 (that's on a scale of 1-10)!! You hit on something there Jonathan, I had no idea what I was getting myself into!! LOL Truth be told, I have traveled willingly down a rabbit hole! At times I am patting myself on the back, impressed with my ingenuity. Other times I can' believe how I got myself into this situation!! Again, truth be told, today something happened. I couldn't believe how I didn't figure out what the problem was before I did damage that will now have to be fixed!! Talk about highs and lows!

I got the StewMac S-Style guitar build kit. Opened it and was really surprised at the quality of the wood and the hardware. Neck looked good, but I couldn’t play it because the frets were too sharp. And I do mean sharp. I took everyone’s advise and used Tru Oil for the finish. I wanted a natural wood look and this proved to be the best and easiest solution. Before I started sanding I used a wood rasp to take more of the upper bout out. It was thick and squared in shape which I didn’t like. So I smoothed that upper bout out and then had to sand it all out. I also thought I would put some dark stain on the body to bring out more of the grain. I would apply stain then wipe it off before the stain gets soaked up all the way. But this wood had lots of very small “pores” in it that I didn’t notice until I applied the stain. When I wiped the stain off, it did bring the grain out more, but it brought out the pores too. Really bad. So I had to sand all that out. I did a lot of sanding. I forgot how many coats I put on the body. It’s upwards of 15. After each application of the Tru Oil I would sand with 0000 steelwool. It looks really good. Grain has some depth to it. I then took cooper sheeting that I got off Amazon and lined the whole pickup cavities including the jack socket. That was a job I tell you. I also lined the inside of the pickguard too. It does help. It really does. Glad I did it.

Let me state from the beginning that I have never wanted to build a guitar from scratch. I have learned from this build that it takes many years for someone to learn all the skills needed to really do that from scratch. All I ever wanted to do was to work on my own guitars. I mean I could already change the strings, rewire pickups, replace volume and tone pots. Even had replaced quite a few nuts and bridges. But the results were exactly what I did. Let’s just go ahead and call them what they were, hack jobs at best. Every job I had ever done was with one thing in mind from the start, I need to get this done, now! So now that I have aged and mellowed, I can surely work on my own guitars with some patience and do the work that I am capable of! Two things I learned real fast: 1. My eyesight is nowhere near what it used to be. Even with reading glasses I still can’t see what is needed to do this kind of work. 2. I had not mellowed near as much as I had thought! No, I over estimated that quality of mine by many miles.

Yep, you need to be writing scripts for movies. Or even games!!

Yeah your right!!! What was I thinking!!

You can see he has some sort of Pizeo mic hooked up close to the reed. Don't kow if it's on it though. Now that was cutting edge. Was it psychedelic music or just regular pop/jazz?

Is that AI generated?

Wow!! That will be a chore in itself. I thought that they would know someone or recommend contractors. Get references!! Make sure they legit legal wise. So it's gonnna be your gaming room tooo!!? Oh yeah!

Speaking of Steve Winwood, I never saw this version:

First time I saw Eric was when he went out with Mark Knopfler playing with him on stage. He was on top of his game. I know I have said this before, but it's worth repeating. When I went to see Eric that first time, I wasn't expecting much. He was on MTV all day long with the stuff off Journeyman. And I got to admit, "No Alibis" is one of Eric's best. A top fav of mine. So I went to see him. All through my years reading about music and guitar players I had read all the stories about Eric being called God and all the bs stories about people thinking how great he was. I am going see him, and I flet there is no way in the world he is gonna live up to all this hype. It's impossible. No one could. When he played "Wonderful Tonight" the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. I turned to tell my wife and she said hers hair was standing up too. Then I looked around at the crowd and saw that he had everyone in some kind of emotional spell. I looked down at him on the stage and wondered WTF did he have!!? I knew how to play that song, I knew the notes, I knew the lick. But I ain't never played it like that. I have never been moved by any musician like that. Ever. Not that he needed it or wanted it, but he earned my greatest repect that night. BTW, the best lick in rock guitar history happens around 3:58 on the outro lead of "Let it Rain". F'n genius.

I saw that! They meant serious besiness when they put that together.

And the fact that he had his own mixer up on stage with him. Looked like it was going to that Acoustic amp behind him with the full range speakers. Appeared to be 2x15" and the horn. That was cutting edge for the time.

Duh!! Yep it went way over my head. This is the CHF. I ain't thinking that hard around here!! LOL!

Yeah, I am with ya on that one. Stay outta right feild Craig!!

Great video of them in thier heyday. I didn't realize the sax player used a wah-wah!!