Well, maybe not good news but neat news.

The bad news: I'm being laid off from my job. My last day is Monday 8/13. I've spent the last 35 years working as a systems engineer as a contractor in the Intelligence community. I have some very high level clearances (some that I can't acknowledge I even hold) and have worked on very black programs for goverment customers that don't exist publicly. I have been looking for a new job for the last 6 weeks and though I have had some promising interviews, no real offers yet. Guess I am just too old and cost too much money. Everybody wants young kids right out of college who don't have a clue as to what a full scope poly really means. Oh, well.

The neat news? I am working part time, while I hunt for a permanent job, for a well known luthier (yeah, this guy is an honest to goodness luthier, not just a "guitar tech) who custom builds some absolutely fantastic guitars, both acoustic and electric. I don't want to name him and risk upsetting the mods, but if you want to check him out, shoot me a PM and I will give you his website URL.

Today I worked on two bass guitars. One was an Epiphone Thunderbird bass with active electronics that didn't work. "Bob" (not his real name) thought the electronic preamp was faulty. 15 minutes with a DVM and I had found the problem: The negative lead to the battery clip was broken at the clip end! I pulled out the old one and soldered in the new one and the bass worked perfectly. I put it all back together, cleaned and polished it up, and set it aside for the owner to be notified.

The second bass was a brand new Gibson Les Paul bass that the owner just bought and brought it in to have the body refinished from TV Yellow to sunburst. "Bob" had stripped it and sprayed it (he only uses nitrocellulouse lacquer) and it looks fantastic. I reassembled the electronics, bridge and tuners, and did a setup. "Bob" had to make a new jack plate for it as the original was cracked. He showed me how he cut it from raw plastic, drilled and shaped it.

The deal we have is that I give him a call each day at 9:00 am and if he has stuff for me to do, I go in to his shop for about 4 hours (I worked 5 hours today). He is going to teach me some new skills and how to use his various tools. I have already learned more today about setting up a guitar than I thought I new.

The pay is not great, but it is better than no pay and as I told my wife, I had more fun at work today than I have had in my entire life. I wish I could earn a living doing this, but not much of a chance of that right now. It would sure be cool to do when I am able to retire, though.

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Bill

Sorry to hear the news Bill.

Most of the Engineering Team I'm affiliated with got the axe last month. Last day is end of this month. Being off-shored. Lots of great folks and by that I mean technically as well as personality. But it's the cost that the bean-counters look at and in a few months they'll realize the error but then it'll be too late.

Glad to hear the other news though! Dream job if you ask me!
I hear you about the pay...over the years we become accustomed to certain comforts!

The saying I hear a lot these days is, "One door closes and another opens."

All the best.

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-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Sorry to hear the news Bill.

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Gary

Sorry, Bill.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

The neat news was great You just have to enjoy this time with the luthier - I am sure you will get an 'ordinary ' job before too long. Sorry to hear about your old job. Perhaps you really get into your part time job , and find yourself to be more happy ? Yes - I know you and all of us need money. Wish you best of luck , anyhow....

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A-man

Bill, sorry to hear about your situation. Have you considered teaching? I'm an EE and have gone through a similar situation, but now I'm teaching and really loving it. It's true I miss the engineering paychecks, but inflicting knowledge on people is a blast! I recommend it highly.

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"Today Atlantis, tomorrow the world!"

Thanks, guys.

We've been working with our financial advisor for the last several weeks to figure out how we will pay the mortgage and bills and I feel we will be OK in the short run. We have enough in our IRA to pay for the house outright if we had to. The trick is to access our money with minimum penalties (I'm 58. You have to be 59 1/2 to withdraw without penalty except under certain circumstances).

But being able to work for "Bob" is really cool. Work building guitars for 1/2 day, job hunt the other half, play my guitar at night. Almost like a vacation.

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Bill

Not having any children, I am afraid I don't really know how to relate to them as a teacher. Besides, most of the stuff I have learned during my career, I can't tell anyone about and I have learned a lot of new skills, including digging ditches and pulling cable. I'm certified to operate a DitchWitch also, but the story behind that is classified also.

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Bill

Hey Bill, man that is terrible news, have you heard of divided by 13 amplifiers.
This guy makes some top notch amp all hand wired and charges
A lot. I don't know his story, but look it up. Might be inspirational.
Maybe it's time to come out with Bluesky Amplification.
Start off small champ sizes, deluxe sizes maybe between 5-15 watts.
I know you have the talent and professionalism that when I have
money I would order one from you.
Best of luck Bill.

C'mon guys how many of us would order an amp
From Bill? BlUeSkY 15 special, eminence cannibis Rex
15 watt, 57Deluxe specs with master volume Volume
Bass treble mid prescence controls, effects loop, 2 6V6 Tads 3 12ax7s
Rectifier tube. The gimmick is they're all Signature series.
The customer will have his own Sig series.
Just my 2cts
BST

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

My Husband went through a similar situation a few years ago at the age of 50 the place he worked at was moved to Mexico . My husband is the type that hates change..it was a tough time going back to school and heading a completely different direction. We were fortunate he got a job with the County so he can still retire before he dies..Now he is much happier than he ever was at his factory job and things all worked out okay, I sure hope they will for you also!

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Mona
"Music is What Feelings Sound like"

Bill sorry to hear about your job...but with those clearances something will turn up, didn't take me too long after I retired from the AF with my clearances (they really helped) and the teaching idea is a good one.

As for getting to work with the luthier on "Neat" stuff sounds like a nice change of pace, you'll be back to work soon enough, so try to enjoy the hopefully short "Vacation". I am keeping my fingers crossed for ya.

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

Count me in !

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A-man

At this rate, some off-shore socioeconomic rising star will complete the first manned Mars landing while we are re-training all our scientists and engineers to wrap hamburgers and french fries.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Well, to tell the truth, I have been thinking about doing amp repair/building for a while now. Not quite ready to design from scratch, but I have been studying a number of tube amp design books and finding a lot of sites on line with graphic calculators for things like coupling caps, bypass caps, tone stacks, cathode biasing, phase invertors, etc. They eliminate all the heavy duty math that calculating those things by hand requires.

I don't have the facilities to build an amp from scratch, but places like Ted Weber have the names of people you can contact that will build a Weber kit for you if you don't feel confident doing it yourself. In fact, I was recently in a local vintage guitar and amp shop nearby where I live and they had a Weber 5E3 Deluxe for sale for about twice what the kit itself costs. They also had a 5F6A Bassman clone kit (I forget the company) for sale at a hefty markup. That kind of thing I can do easy. I have most of the tools I need except for an audio signal generator, an O-Scope, and a dummy load. Weber makes a 200 watt dummy load that provides 2 - 16 ohm loads for about $150. I have found what appear to be older but decent audio signal generators and O-Scopes for around $75 to $100 each on E-Bay. Don't need anything fancy and the older BK and HP scopes work just as well as new ones for this purpose. I already have the most important item I need to build an amp:





Gotta have a nameplate.

I was looking at this as something to do when I retired, but I have had several other people tell me I should start doing it on the side now. Think I will have a little chat with my wife tonight about spending a few hundred dollars on test equipment while we can still afford it.

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Bill

Bluesky, are you familiar with ax84.com? There are numerous experienced amp builders on the forum there that can answer any question you might have about amp building. It's an amazing resource.

The thought of building amps continually tickles my brain. My dream is to get into volume production and figure out a way to profitably make affordable, quality, US made amps. But at this time I don't even have a shop.

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In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.