Siminoff Lutherie Camp 10/2009 ... link to my web log concerning

[BadeInBulverde]

I mentioned sometime back that I would be attending Roger Siminoff's Lutherie Camp in October 2009 ... well the time has arrived. I will be logging my impressions and experiences on a web log and rather than post a number of threads or entries on this board I will simply provide a link over to my web log and those that are interested are welcome to read/subscribe ... that way I won't be filling this board with entries many people may not be at all interested in ... so ... the link to my web log is Bade's Lutherie Web Log (http://bademillsaplutherie.blogspot.com/)

I hope some of you will be interested ... I'm fully jazzed!! :mandosmiley:

[Richard Singleton]

Thanks for the link to your blog, and the very entertaining and informative descriptions of your experience at the Siminoff Lutherie Camp. Great pictures, too!

[BadeInBulverde]

Hi Richard ... glad you are enjoying the log ... it has been an incredible experience!

Beyond the learning experience just having the opportunity to talk to Roger over the course of 5 days has been very entertaining and informative ... tantamount to an extended "interview" .... and then "little incidentals" like having the opportunity to see, hold and "gently gently play" Lloyd Loar's personal F5 are real treats ... not sure where else one could get this total immersion of F5 mania!

Bade :mandosmiley:

[re simmers]

Thanks for sharing this. What an experience. I would love to attend. Every mandolin picker should see this. It is incredible.

Thanks
Bob

[Jill McAuley]

What a great blog! Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences - a very interesting and enjoyable read altogether!

Cheers,
Jill

[Michael Lewis]

Very nice job of reporting.

Roger got a lot of us started, but not in quite so deluxe a manner as this hands on class room intensive. Congratulations for getting such a great start, and may any problems you encounter be very small. I recall some times of frustration while trying to figure out what Roger meant from some of the descriptions in his book. Eventually figured out how to do everything.

Roger is a great instructor, very knowledgeable, and a great personality. You and the other members of the "camp" are very fortunate.

[Skip Kelley]

Thanks for the pics! It looks like you guys had a great time! Great job on the mandolins and be sure to post pics when you are finished!!

[siminoff]

This was a incredible week and I want to thank Bade Millsap for his kind and time-consuming work in preparing his web log; I hope you take a minute to read through it. His day-by-day photos and text are evidence of his creative spark. During the five days, campers went through every stage of construction, including several methods for many phases (for example, for rims we went through steam bending vs heat pipe bending vs electric blanket bending, and so on). After learning how something was done, campers went back to their benches and constructed an F5 (Bade built an F4) and by Friday morning, all had an assembled white-wood instrument, leaving things like fretting, binding, inlay, and finishing to do in their home shops. Here's a photo of six "happy campers" and their instruments. Ken Roddick (our production manager) is on the left with a prototype 1978 Gibson F5L, Kali Nowakowski (marketing director) is next to him. I'm on the right with Loar's Loar, and next to me is my wife/partner/editor, Rosemary Wagner.
Roger

[siminoff]

Ooops... Here's the photo.
Roger

[HogTime]

Bade,

Great job on your blog! You took so many pictures, I'm surprised you had time to finish your mando. :)

I'm building one of Roger's F5 kits, also. Ironically, it is almost to the same point as what the class had at the end of the week. Mine took about 4 months of very part time work, however. :) I've been RVing for several months and am anxious to finish it off starting early Nov.

Roger is a great guy to learn from. Fortunately, I live only about 30 minutes away from him and am able to get advice easily.

Good luck on finishing your F4,

[walt33]

I couldn't find a reference to this camp on Roger's website. Is more info available, such as cost and registration info? Thanks!

Walt

[siminoff]

Walt,
This was our first Luthierie Camp and was the test-bed for Camps to follow, and we didn't want to present the Camp in our website until we felt we had perfected the program. We are developing the web site content now and expect to have it added to our site within a month or so.
Roger

[BlueMt.]

Bade, It looks like you had a great time, thanks for taking us along. I've started out to build a mandolin several times and have a copy of Roger's book from the first printing. Now that I'm retired I guess I should take the plunge.

[Rick Turner]

Roger, looks to me as though you don't have much to worry about...

Good job!

[Elmo]

Hi All,

I was fortunate enough to be one of Bades fellow campers in the Siminoff Luthierie Camp. I absolutely loved it! I left a more detailed description of the past week on Bade's blog. -Roger you Rock!!!!

-Mike

[kevincoffey]

Bade,

This is wonderful. Is there some way of downloading the pictures (which are great) so that I can put them on a DVD or CD so I can keep them?

What a great shop and you did a fine documentation.

Kevin Coffey

I hope some of you will be interested ... I'm fully jazzed!! :mandosmiley:[/QUOTE]

[BadeInBulverde]

Hi Kevin

The gallery of pictures is "public access" on PICASA at this link MandoCamp2009 (http://picasaweb.google.com/BadeMillsap/Mandocamp2009#) and I "believe" you can download from there to Picasa (a free windows based photo manager from google) on you own computer ... DOWNLOAD Picasa here (http://picasa.google.com/) ... at least I THINK that will work for you

Thanks for the interest! :grin:

[kevincoffey]

Thanks, I'll need to do some investigating: I have a Macintosh.

Kevin

[siminoff]

Thanks to all of you who have been asking about our Luthierie Camp. As of today, Nov 5, information about the Camp has been posted to our web site and is a main link from our home page at www.siminoff.net.
Roger