deytookerjaabs Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 I thought it'd be fun for everyone to chime in here. I'll try and lay out my observations which will hopefully jump start a lot of your own observations and stories, etc. Start with The Wood & The Pace.... Cold growth Maple, Tropical Mahogany, East African Ebony, even some Korina's floating around. That's all fine and dandy, but IMO far more impressive was the seasoning process. Pre-kilned stock that sat and acclimated to changing climate, over and over and over through the build process. Not kiln'd then out the door in a week as a finished instrument. The wood stock, then the cuts, necks, laminates, bodies, tops, etc would sit if not for months I'd say sometimes for years acclimating to climate adjustment after tooling from what I could tell in one tour back around '08. There's got to be some defective hunks of lumber out there, but very few came out the Heritage door from what I'd gather. How about those seams? Everywhere you looked there was either hand clamps or hand turned clamping setups. The pressure distributed? Who knows! No exacting hydraulics/pneumatics involved, each gap/seam simply depended on how tight some guy/gal wanted to turn the clamp. Carpal Tunnel? Probably some of that. Carving Resoloooooosion Rough cuts taken down by big old rough sanding belts or a mix of hand sanding/chisels depending on the instrument. This puts the appearance (and tuning for arches) more in control of the guy who's doing the rough sanding/carving. Big belly, flat belly, big dish, no dish, all governed mainly by sight lines and coffee intake I imagine. A bit different from taking 1000 grit to an already finished carve fresh out the CNC. Ye Olde Swing Arm Fret Slotter This machine cut some gems long before many of us were around. David Collins, Michigan Luthier, put a lot of effort into measuring fret spacing of 50's Gibsons has noted that although they all follow the basic rule of 18 along with tradition scale length, there was notable variation among fret spacing in them old guitars (versus new ones) which was likely due to, well you know, a big old stubborn rotor with saws. She Wants the SLOOOWW HANNNNNDDS How they set it all from the necks to the hardware? With a guy and a couple hand tools. Lining everything up until it looked good, mark your spot, drill that sumnabitch! Or, for the neck, hack, whack, fit, hack, whack, fit, hack, whack....oooh yeah, right there nothing like a good tenon hittin' that mortise. Wait, so you do that with trim nails? They just bind veneers and pickguards by hand the clamp'em in on a little cut of wood with trim nails? I mean, of all cursed things..... Then just hang them up and wait until an order comes in. What is this, and 1800's process??? Speaking of slow.... What did they do to make Lacquer finishes more production friendly? Modify to a poly base coat? Add some fancy catalystizationalaist process??? Nah, they just let it sit there until it's cured enough to sand. ....... Damn, that must take weeks!!! Well, there's more of this kind of silly stuff with the tools/process plus stories about the builders if you've got some, so chime in ASAP!! I know a lot of you went on lots of tours with explanations & details & research & better photos than a low quality video screenshot. There's hundreds of guitar builders/factories worldwide, what makes Heritage unique to you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polo Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Well done Sir!!! I sincerely applaud the passion that you've been exhibiting towards the golden era of Heritage Guitars. You're knowledgable contributions both here at the HOC as well as other corners of the inter-web have been really nice to see. If it weren't for folks like you...........the unique tale of what happened in Kalamazoo between 1985-2015 would be lost to the dust bins of history much much sooner than it deserves to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davesultra Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Great post!!! And so sad to see that these things are lost forever (it seems). All the things posted above, and much more are what made The Heritage different. Glad I got to experience them first hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElNumero Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Good positive topic. I think most of it was covered in the previous discussions but I'll tell you I was thinking today how blessed I really am. To have been able to afford a really nice collection of Heritage guitars, and designed and built by the guys who started this venture back in 1986. Through the years, having a conversation with Marv, Ren or Jim over a beer (or just even in the plant) was priceless. They would share stories about their experiences with artists as well as with just making one offs and custom orders, oh if only I had a microphone to have been able to record those conversations. Many HOC'ers will tell you the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pressure Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Jim was concerned that the Spruce top for my Millie might crack so that piece of already seasoned wood stayed in the shop another full year, with the heaters going on and off during the winter, until he was sure it was good and solid. It hasn't cracked yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deytookerjaabs Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 I stumbled on this older PG "Builder Profile" article the other day: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Builder_Profile_Heritage_Guitar .....check the comment section for feel goods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pegleg32 Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 46 minutes ago, deytookerjaabs said: I stumbled on this older PG "Builder Profile" article the other day: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Builder_Profile_Heritage_Guitar .....check the comment section for feel goods. That article is a great reminder and summation of what sets Heritage apart from the rest. I was surprised to see that I made a comment on the article, I had completely forgot doing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davesultra Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 Great article! Makes me sad to know those days are gone forever. Meng can take his CNC machines & shove ‘em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hfan Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 One of the best posts I have ever read here..pictures speak louder than words. It brought things together. Thanks for posting that. The end of an era I guess. Thank goodness all those great old Heritages are out there. I'm pretty bummed but I was expecting something like this. I wasn't aware of some of the other angles, more recent developments and changes to the company until recently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deytookerjaabs Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 There's a couple 2017 vids out there, ain't got the same "mojo" without the old factory but FWIW they haven't changed much about how the guitars a built other than all the common sense stuff like organized materials, work flow, proper ventilation/protection, etc, dunno about the wood treatment/seasoning part though. Still using mostly all the old tools and processes. Meng has stated multiple times there's no CNC machines in the works for Heritage either so that's good to hear. It'll be a challenge though, getting the little visuals things up to par while keeping human error to a minimum, experience is the best ingredient. Here's another old article, circa 2008, that's probably been posted before: http://www.encorekalamazoo.com/files-encore/past-issues/2008/encore-january-2008.pdf This one has a pic of the legendary Floyd Newton (RIP) in it too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.