We Can Always Talk About The Weather
On the first of September I found myself sore and exhausted.
Maybe this had to do with carrying in the piano and a combination of beach hiking and exercise.
A lot of things were going through my mind, mostly stuff about the guitar and how I was going to get that root canal done.
I had the expectation that there was a slim chance my brother would come out to visit but slim it was.
The tooth that has been bothering me had to be taken care of somehow.
I avoided the usual dental office I go to and found another one on the other side of town that I felt more comfortable with.
I ended up buying dental insurance and wouldn't really know how effective the insurance would be in dumbing down over exorbitant dental fees til October.
The dentist indeed confirmed I needed at least one root canal.
Strangely enough the pain from the tooth has all but subsided by the end of the month.
I figure either a cavity or some other gunk has blocked the root from being exposed.
Which gives me an advantage because should the insurance suck teeth then I won't have to force myself to pay into it this coming month.
Fuck the aesthetic no one can see that tooth unless I bite their face off in a rabid frenzy of lunacy.
Clearly that isn't going to happen despite hanging out in fields staring at the moon on full moon nights, I still haven't quite lost my human half.
I did some experimenting with the bending iron for the guitar and realized there would be no way to effectively bend the ribs without clamping it down.
I called Dave asking if he had large enough clamps to cover the bending iron and perhaps buy some more kerfing because what I had was clearly not enough for the soundboard and backplate.
He was slow to answer but eventually the same day he picked up and my grandmother and I stopped by.
She was impressed with his shop, noting that it was big, and he was meticulous.
I noted three guitars he seemed to be building, and I could see how he could do that, having the available space, the experience, while waiting for one section to glue you could work on another guitar section.
I very much doubt I will ever be at the production level like that and I wouldn't have the space to handle that kind of operation.
Besides the bigger your operation the more people are going to turn up at your front door.
And I'm sure thats exactly how Dave thought of me at first, another annoying snooper trying to figure out what hes got going.
Fortunately I'm not that kind of asshole, and I want to avoid that kind of treatment as well.
Dave went through his stash and sold me these industrial size clamps, rusty as hell but they looked like they could clamp a foot or more down.
The Kerfing that I would need he also threw in all around $65 which was okay.
I was asking him about finishing, if I should go french polish, lacquer, or one of those aerosol spray lacquers.
He went on to say that basically it would take me years to learn how to use and make french polish.
He was right I didn't have years to learn how to polish, a couple of months, maybe even six, but no more then that.
The point he made was that with the aerosol cans you can put on as many coats as you like, it dries quickly, is easily sanded and reusable.
He didn't have to say it wouldn't take me years to learn.
At the end of our visit my grandmother and Dave traded small talk and I dare say it was almost like being a chaperone to two teens.
I left happy but I think the adventure from driving me around all day wore her out.
And she slept most of the next day.
If only I had my little burro around this could have been avoided.
Anyway the clamps worked out perfectly and the bending iron is still clamped to the worktable.
I was worried about the clamps putting torque onto the workbench but its not nearly enough to keel it over on its side.
I ran the bending iron on scrap and I broke it right in half.
I didn't think through the difference in pressure from it being unclamped to clamped.
The next day I took a chance and used the actual rib blanks I cut from the same material.
I spent six hours bending with small breaks every hour or so and it got easier.
I started at the waist and let it cool clamping it to threaded rods from the solera.
It worked and I moved onto the upper bout and lower bouts.
This too was easy enough and at the end of the day I used as many clamps as I could to keep the ribs from rubber banding.
The next morning when unclamped the ribs still managed to rubber band though kept some of the shape.
It meant a couple of things, I needed to keep bending it deeper, clamping it to the threaded rods might not be enough for it to keep the shape, and it also might mean that I still needed to reduce the ribs.
I didn't want to have to reduce the ribs because even with a power sander theres a chance I could be off, it would also mean that the ribs if too hot to the iron would burn off and break.
The next day I worked on the same rib making deeper curves and then clamped it to the solera again.
As of now it remains clamped to the solera waiting for final shaping when the soundboard and endblock are down, along with the kerf.
After that I worked on the neck, and I had good reason to fear working on it.
The heel came off twice in two different places.
Once when carving to hastily and the other when I turned around and hit a chair.
A quick glue job fixed the problem but it was a setback.
I finally glued the head stock to the neck and that too wasn't easy.
It came off the neck once and I had to clear a path on the neck side to fit the machine tuners.
I used a hand drill to fit the machine tuners, and bought a taper to ream a tight space for them.
I also began rough sanding of the fretboard I spent another six or so hours doing that.
The Fretboard is one of the last parts to be glued on, and I still have the problem of it not sitting flat on the neck.
This is both because the neck surface isn't completely flat and the fretboard neck side isn't flat either.
A days worth of sanding would get a good fit.
I sanded a deeper gap for the rib slots on the neck and its taxing to say the least, I used a small credit card covered with sand paper.
I also added a heel extension near the soundboard that took a few tries because of clamping issues, The most effective clamp ended up being rubberbands for this task.
I'm still putting off assembly because I want to be absolutely sure it will all be in the best condition it could possibly be.
The little tasks that still need to be done alone don't amount to much but together its quite a lot before final assembly.
On the 17th I'd been 120 days into the project and by then I'd gone through all the hide glue.
As with all Saturday's this month I cleaned the shop then walked to the beach to get some fresh air.
On one Saturday towards the end of the month a brief storm hit the beach pelting me with rain.
It lasted about 30 minutes to an hour and when the sun finally came out I dried out pretty quickly.
Otherwise almost of my energy has gone towards the guitar construction.
I'd have liked to spend more time with my Yoga and other exercise but its important to me to finish it.
I took a step back from writing though I did spend a few hours here and there writing into the draft.
My grandmother had been unusually mean all month and I felt like she had my back up against a wall.
She scared me at some point forgetting that I had a car.
I had that car outside the house for 4 months from April to July.
It really worries me that she could forget something like that.
That means that whole four months didn't register with her.
Even more she completely forgot my birthday and I had to remind her.
I didn't feel bad about it, even my close friends didn't remember my birthday.
I've known them for onwards of 10 years and I know there birthday's by heart.
Maybe its my perception of them being close friends when really I'm not much to them.
Anyway my birthday ended up just being another day and I wouldn't have it any other way its too early to celebrate without having this guitar finished.
I did hear from another old friend who I've kept in touch with on and off since 2006.
Shes a nice person but we are on completely different paths in life.
She really wants to make a film career and lives out in LA.
Both of those things are completely opposite of my goals.
To me LA is a mosh of doped out drug addicts and wannabes who have no clue how they even got there.
And Film is just not based in the reality of things.
Its fun and creative but you'd really have to work hard to bring all these elements together to make a good film.
I wouldn't like the idea that putting all this time, and energy into a film project and not getting the result I wanted.
Its to up in the air and uncertain.
She also doesn't know history, to me this is just a crime.
To me history is a very, very important thing and to not know the past you can't really create a better future.
I've resolved to accept that we will always just be good friends.
To add romance or love into it would really be misleading and not fair to her.
I think most women would easily get bored of me anyway.
I don't do a whole lot of entertaining things and vacation time for me is usually a weekend climbing on a rock somewhere.
Not some touristy trip to a far off island resort.
I also did some research on a show I'd recalled from the 90s.
That show VR 5 was a one season show that ended rather oddly.
In the show this woman works as a telephone operator and the other half she spends in a virtual reality world.
I don't remember a whole lot from it but I do very distinctly remember the ending.
She ended up in a wheel chair with her mind stuck in the VR world.
Whether it was intentional or not this is kind of symbolic.
When we spend so much time in front of our tvs, and our computers we are paralyzed from the reality around us.
I wanted to rewatch the show but its impossible to find even in TV streams.
I also found a "Removed by US Court Order" message on one potential stream.
Which provokes thoughts about censorship.
So I am absolutely sure government censorship takes place, forget conspiracy theories, I think of it like this.
If I turn on my TV to a channel where somebody is calling me by name, telling me to do something, lets say criminal in theory and I am the only one watching this particular channel on TV.
I go out I commit this criminal act but now since I am the only one who can recall this and I did not record it well then the rest of the world is completely censored from what just caused me to do that criminal act.
Its a bit of an out there idea but in a simpler context anyone who never watched VR 5 in 1995 can never known what I saw on that show, since no tapes or dvds are available.
Its funny that we can say whatever we like but there are always consequences for something you say.
I've been detained more times for saying the most radical thing on my mind then to actually
do something wrong.
At least we can always talk about the weather and of that I can't complain.
Lastly one of my goals for the year was to get rid of my credit card debt completely.
It was really at the bottom of the list and I expected to have it completely paid off by July.
This month I made my last payment on a card I've had sustainably maxed out since 2007.
It was a stupid idea to begin with a lot of the crap that I purchased during those years that was a total waste.
Its a bitter sweet end to 6 years of accumulated debt, bitter because it should have been paid off years ago, sweet because I'll never see "Credit Card payment" on my checking account anymore.
I wanted to do something different for my birthday should I have the guitar finished.
I'd been planning an extended 20 mile hike for the month.
But since the guitar is not finished I can't just up and leave like I want to.
Its been a productive month, but its also been a challenging month, lots of mistakes on the guitar, my grandmother constantly bickering with me, and a couple of other mishaps that made the month a little more difficult then usual.
Fortunately those beach days were enough to relax me and help me keep gravity of the reality of it all.
Keepin' it □
-Astral Samurai
Maybe this had to do with carrying in the piano and a combination of beach hiking and exercise.
A lot of things were going through my mind, mostly stuff about the guitar and how I was going to get that root canal done.
I had the expectation that there was a slim chance my brother would come out to visit but slim it was.
The tooth that has been bothering me had to be taken care of somehow.
I avoided the usual dental office I go to and found another one on the other side of town that I felt more comfortable with.
I ended up buying dental insurance and wouldn't really know how effective the insurance would be in dumbing down over exorbitant dental fees til October.
The dentist indeed confirmed I needed at least one root canal.
Strangely enough the pain from the tooth has all but subsided by the end of the month.
I figure either a cavity or some other gunk has blocked the root from being exposed.
Which gives me an advantage because should the insurance suck teeth then I won't have to force myself to pay into it this coming month.
Fuck the aesthetic no one can see that tooth unless I bite their face off in a rabid frenzy of lunacy.
Clearly that isn't going to happen despite hanging out in fields staring at the moon on full moon nights, I still haven't quite lost my human half.
I did some experimenting with the bending iron for the guitar and realized there would be no way to effectively bend the ribs without clamping it down.
I called Dave asking if he had large enough clamps to cover the bending iron and perhaps buy some more kerfing because what I had was clearly not enough for the soundboard and backplate.
He was slow to answer but eventually the same day he picked up and my grandmother and I stopped by.
She was impressed with his shop, noting that it was big, and he was meticulous.
I noted three guitars he seemed to be building, and I could see how he could do that, having the available space, the experience, while waiting for one section to glue you could work on another guitar section.
I very much doubt I will ever be at the production level like that and I wouldn't have the space to handle that kind of operation.
Besides the bigger your operation the more people are going to turn up at your front door.
And I'm sure thats exactly how Dave thought of me at first, another annoying snooper trying to figure out what hes got going.
Fortunately I'm not that kind of asshole, and I want to avoid that kind of treatment as well.
Dave went through his stash and sold me these industrial size clamps, rusty as hell but they looked like they could clamp a foot or more down.
The Kerfing that I would need he also threw in all around $65 which was okay.
I was asking him about finishing, if I should go french polish, lacquer, or one of those aerosol spray lacquers.
He went on to say that basically it would take me years to learn how to use and make french polish.
He was right I didn't have years to learn how to polish, a couple of months, maybe even six, but no more then that.
The point he made was that with the aerosol cans you can put on as many coats as you like, it dries quickly, is easily sanded and reusable.
He didn't have to say it wouldn't take me years to learn.
At the end of our visit my grandmother and Dave traded small talk and I dare say it was almost like being a chaperone to two teens.
I left happy but I think the adventure from driving me around all day wore her out.
And she slept most of the next day.
If only I had my little burro around this could have been avoided.
Anyway the clamps worked out perfectly and the bending iron is still clamped to the worktable.
I was worried about the clamps putting torque onto the workbench but its not nearly enough to keel it over on its side.
I ran the bending iron on scrap and I broke it right in half.
I didn't think through the difference in pressure from it being unclamped to clamped.
The next day I took a chance and used the actual rib blanks I cut from the same material.
I spent six hours bending with small breaks every hour or so and it got easier.
I started at the waist and let it cool clamping it to threaded rods from the solera.
It worked and I moved onto the upper bout and lower bouts.
This too was easy enough and at the end of the day I used as many clamps as I could to keep the ribs from rubber banding.
The next morning when unclamped the ribs still managed to rubber band though kept some of the shape.
It meant a couple of things, I needed to keep bending it deeper, clamping it to the threaded rods might not be enough for it to keep the shape, and it also might mean that I still needed to reduce the ribs.
I didn't want to have to reduce the ribs because even with a power sander theres a chance I could be off, it would also mean that the ribs if too hot to the iron would burn off and break.
The next day I worked on the same rib making deeper curves and then clamped it to the solera again.
As of now it remains clamped to the solera waiting for final shaping when the soundboard and endblock are down, along with the kerf.
After that I worked on the neck, and I had good reason to fear working on it.
The heel came off twice in two different places.
Once when carving to hastily and the other when I turned around and hit a chair.
A quick glue job fixed the problem but it was a setback.
I finally glued the head stock to the neck and that too wasn't easy.
It came off the neck once and I had to clear a path on the neck side to fit the machine tuners.
I used a hand drill to fit the machine tuners, and bought a taper to ream a tight space for them.
I also began rough sanding of the fretboard I spent another six or so hours doing that.
The Fretboard is one of the last parts to be glued on, and I still have the problem of it not sitting flat on the neck.
This is both because the neck surface isn't completely flat and the fretboard neck side isn't flat either.
A days worth of sanding would get a good fit.
I sanded a deeper gap for the rib slots on the neck and its taxing to say the least, I used a small credit card covered with sand paper.
I also added a heel extension near the soundboard that took a few tries because of clamping issues, The most effective clamp ended up being rubberbands for this task.
I'm still putting off assembly because I want to be absolutely sure it will all be in the best condition it could possibly be.
The little tasks that still need to be done alone don't amount to much but together its quite a lot before final assembly.
On the 17th I'd been 120 days into the project and by then I'd gone through all the hide glue.
As with all Saturday's this month I cleaned the shop then walked to the beach to get some fresh air.
On one Saturday towards the end of the month a brief storm hit the beach pelting me with rain.
It lasted about 30 minutes to an hour and when the sun finally came out I dried out pretty quickly.
Otherwise almost of my energy has gone towards the guitar construction.
I'd have liked to spend more time with my Yoga and other exercise but its important to me to finish it.
I took a step back from writing though I did spend a few hours here and there writing into the draft.
My grandmother had been unusually mean all month and I felt like she had my back up against a wall.
She scared me at some point forgetting that I had a car.
I had that car outside the house for 4 months from April to July.
It really worries me that she could forget something like that.
That means that whole four months didn't register with her.
Even more she completely forgot my birthday and I had to remind her.
I didn't feel bad about it, even my close friends didn't remember my birthday.
I've known them for onwards of 10 years and I know there birthday's by heart.
Maybe its my perception of them being close friends when really I'm not much to them.
Anyway my birthday ended up just being another day and I wouldn't have it any other way its too early to celebrate without having this guitar finished.
I did hear from another old friend who I've kept in touch with on and off since 2006.
Shes a nice person but we are on completely different paths in life.
She really wants to make a film career and lives out in LA.
Both of those things are completely opposite of my goals.
To me LA is a mosh of doped out drug addicts and wannabes who have no clue how they even got there.
And Film is just not based in the reality of things.
Its fun and creative but you'd really have to work hard to bring all these elements together to make a good film.
I wouldn't like the idea that putting all this time, and energy into a film project and not getting the result I wanted.
Its to up in the air and uncertain.
She also doesn't know history, to me this is just a crime.
To me history is a very, very important thing and to not know the past you can't really create a better future.
I've resolved to accept that we will always just be good friends.
To add romance or love into it would really be misleading and not fair to her.
I think most women would easily get bored of me anyway.
I don't do a whole lot of entertaining things and vacation time for me is usually a weekend climbing on a rock somewhere.
Not some touristy trip to a far off island resort.
I also did some research on a show I'd recalled from the 90s.
That show VR 5 was a one season show that ended rather oddly.
In the show this woman works as a telephone operator and the other half she spends in a virtual reality world.
I don't remember a whole lot from it but I do very distinctly remember the ending.
She ended up in a wheel chair with her mind stuck in the VR world.
Whether it was intentional or not this is kind of symbolic.
When we spend so much time in front of our tvs, and our computers we are paralyzed from the reality around us.
I wanted to rewatch the show but its impossible to find even in TV streams.
I also found a "Removed by US Court Order" message on one potential stream.
Which provokes thoughts about censorship.
So I am absolutely sure government censorship takes place, forget conspiracy theories, I think of it like this.
If I turn on my TV to a channel where somebody is calling me by name, telling me to do something, lets say criminal in theory and I am the only one watching this particular channel on TV.
I go out I commit this criminal act but now since I am the only one who can recall this and I did not record it well then the rest of the world is completely censored from what just caused me to do that criminal act.
Its a bit of an out there idea but in a simpler context anyone who never watched VR 5 in 1995 can never known what I saw on that show, since no tapes or dvds are available.
Its funny that we can say whatever we like but there are always consequences for something you say.
I've been detained more times for saying the most radical thing on my mind then to actually
do something wrong.
At least we can always talk about the weather and of that I can't complain.
Lastly one of my goals for the year was to get rid of my credit card debt completely.
It was really at the bottom of the list and I expected to have it completely paid off by July.
This month I made my last payment on a card I've had sustainably maxed out since 2007.
It was a stupid idea to begin with a lot of the crap that I purchased during those years that was a total waste.
Its a bitter sweet end to 6 years of accumulated debt, bitter because it should have been paid off years ago, sweet because I'll never see "Credit Card payment" on my checking account anymore.
I wanted to do something different for my birthday should I have the guitar finished.
I'd been planning an extended 20 mile hike for the month.
But since the guitar is not finished I can't just up and leave like I want to.
Its been a productive month, but its also been a challenging month, lots of mistakes on the guitar, my grandmother constantly bickering with me, and a couple of other mishaps that made the month a little more difficult then usual.
Fortunately those beach days were enough to relax me and help me keep gravity of the reality of it all.
Keepin' it □
-Astral Samurai
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