Beach, Beer, and Guitarbuilding

I was on the neanderthal subforum and chatting with Stan Covington and Scott DelPorte for a bit.
Stan had mentioned the Japanese way of a portable (but very functional) workshop at the beach.
Scott had mentioned that luthiers don't necessarily need a roubo, as we mainly work with thin veneers.
Meanwhile, my guitar building maestro/teacher is building in his ex-wife's hot, stuffy, dusty garage.

Has anyone thought of an outside, portable (enough to fit a hatchback) guitarbuilding setup?

I've been working on mine for a while, and may unveil it after testing/tweaking it a bit.
It'll involve sawhorses, a japanese-style planing bench/beam, a jointing bench hook, a portable-ish vise and some systainers (with chisels, folding saws, rasps, spokeshave, clamps, planes, glue, etc). It may take an additional year, as I move veeeery slowly.

In the meanwhile, I'd appreciate if anyone else has a setup...I'd love to see it!

Hi Matt,
I have seen some nice guitars come out of humble shops. Years ago, I met a guy in the Boston area who ran his repair business out of his van. He had a complete mobile setup and could come to your house and do setups or repairs on all your guitars. He wasn't building so he probably didn't have to do much in the way of thicknessing. I am sure you could fit all the tools you needed to build a guitar in a hatchback, especially since some specialty tools (like bending irons) are only used for brief parts of the process. You wouldn't need to take it with you every day. It seems like the bench would be the trickiest part. Maybe fabricate something that attaches to a trailer hitch so you have the weight of the car to help stabilize it.

You would have to give some consideration to how you keep the wood relatively stable due to environmental (temp/humidity) changes, especially during assembly of the body. Lots of instruments have been built without modern climate control, so you could probably find some good ideas if you searched around.

Make sure to show us what you come up with.

What happened to the beer?

The main problem with guitar making in just any old place is the humidity. You can get away with it if you're building solid body guitars. But,if building box guitars,you will have to build in a fairly DRY place,or you'll have cracked guitars coming back to you for refunds.

In the old days,when no one had air conditioning,this was MUCH less of a problem. Centralized heat also makes houses drier than the Sahara desert in Wintertime. This is a factual statement. So,you need to build in a DRY place,or pay the consequences. I know this from personal experience years ago,trying to build in a basement.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by george wilson

The main problem with guitar making in just any old place is the humidity. You can get away with it if you're building solid body guitars. But,if building box guitars,you will have to build in a fairly DRY place,or you'll have cracked guitars coming back to you for refunds.

In the old days,when no one had air conditioning,this was MUCH less of a problem. Centralized heat also makes houses drier than the Sahara desert in Wintertime. This is a factual statement. So,you need to build in a DRY place,or pay the consequences. I know this from personal experience years ago,trying to build in a basement.

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I couldn't agree more. You need to build a guitar in an environment that is similar to it's eventual playing environment or you are going to have trouble. Build a guitar at the beach if you want a beach guitar. Personally my shop is at about 40 RH if I am building acoustic guitars.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by george wilson

In the old days,when no one had air conditioning,this was MUCH less of a problem. Centralized heat also makes houses drier than the Sahara desert in Wintertime. This is a factual statement. So,you need to build in a DRY place,or pay the consequences. I know this from personal experience years ago,trying to build in a basement.

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No argument here, George. Since moving to Florida and spending almost an entire summer in an air-conditioned house, I've seen the other side of dry air. AC removes moisture, too. My skin looks 90 years old if I don't soak it in moisturizer. Never had that problem back in Chicago. But I never ran the AC that much either.

For some reason my basement workshop there kept the wood pretty stable. I ran a dehumidifier in the summer and simply turned it off in the winter.

No worries on humidity!

Alameda is a super pleasant microclimate that is smack in the middle.