i've always been the type of person that enjoys working with wood,
fixing and modifying all kinds of things
learned to play trumpet and other brass horn instruments from 8 years
old, then in 1968, when i was 15, took up guitar and started playing
with a few friends
however, i was more the kid you went to to fix almost anything that
was broken, already being an accomplished model builder, mechanic
and general tinkerer
i moved to southern california in fall of 1971 from new jersey nursing
a 1958 MGA across country with only $100 in my pocket for the entire
trip, and started my first job here in a recreational vehicle water
pump factory in orange county
in early 1972 I landed a job at cbs musical instruments in fullerton.
for those that don't know, all fender guitars, amps, roger drums and
rhodes electric pianos were made there
starting
in the amp cabinet shop, i worked my way up through guitar woodworking
shop from selecting neck and body wood, blanking the main parts and
learning most of the jobs in that section of the factory. i even did
a short stint installing grill cloth on the amps, a horrible job except
it was next to the amp testing room full of wonderful older fenders
where i'd spend my breaks playing away in
then, despite my lack of seniority i lucked out and bid into the guitar
final assembly area for the rather high pressure and messy job of
fret filing and neck hardware installation. at the time, fender produced
roughly 400 guitars per day and there was only two work stations for
fret dressing and neck hardware installation
yes, i could dress frets and install hardware on about 200 necks in
an 8 hour shift with a zero reject rate on piecework-incentive pay.
on a good day I could dress frets on 50 necks an hour. granted, we
all know fender quality went to crap from 1968 to late 70s, but personally,
i always took pride in my work, and still do
then i really, really lucked out and got one of the 8 jobs doing guitar
final setup and testing, the coolest job in the plant, with the possible
exception of amp testing where you just played all day
averaging about 50 guitars per day through 1974 and 1975, i probably
hand filed nut slots, set neck, set intonation, string height, tuned
and tested in excess of 20,000 fender guitars and basses, again with
nearly zero reject rate from the two final inspectors, guys that had
worked there from the 1950s
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i have to admit i was a pain in the ass employee though, regularly complaining
about quality to the foreman middle managers responsible to keeping
those 400 guitars a day going out, despite occasional production problems
like stratocaster bridge holes being a bit off the mark making intonation
a real challenge and the like
now each setup tester liked to do certain guitar models. i preferred
strats without tremolos, tele thinlines, tele customs and jazz bass.
some of the older guys liked mustangs because the time standard was
longer on those because the tremolo on mustangs required more time for
tuning and intonation. that all worked out between the testers fine,
but one day ...
management decided to evenly distribute types to the testers and time
study everyone, meaning we could not choose the guitars each wanted
to test and the lead man was charged with distributing the guitars
so i whipped through my first six guitars in my carpeted rack, lead
man did not replace and took a walk back to the string lady station
and grabbed a couple of guitars, after all, it was against the rules
to just stand around
the lead man was not happy, calls over the foreman and shop steward,
as this lead man and i had already butted heads a few times and that
was the agreement if there was any problem
i tell the foreman that if he forgets this distribution and time study
crap i'll setup and test 100 guitars that day, he agrees with a smirk
on his face figuring i'd couldn't do it and get them through final inspection
at that rate
6 1/2 hours later, I left a pickguard mounting screw out of a black
strat with beautiful action I had set aside so it would get rejected
as the 100th guitar i had setup, sat down played it for the last hour
and a half, sending it to final inspection in the last 2 minutes of
the shift
almost goes without saying, that my *bad* attitude got me fired in time
over other really rinky dink rule violations by summer 1976. somehow
i thought never being late, never being absent and being a highly productive,
high quality worker was enough
youthful radical long haired hippie mistake
in the early 80s, i did considerable guitar repair work out of the fret
house in covina, including acoustic repair, and did setup and repair
for several other music shops in the san gabriel valley, california
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