Join Matt Chulka for an inside look into the heart of artisanal guitar craftsmanship with master luthier Dana Bourgeois as your guide. Dana Bourgeois takes viewers behind the scenes of the renowned Bourgeois Guitar factory in Lewiston, Maine, offering an intimate look at the meticulous process behind creating these musical masterpieces. From selecting the finest tonewoods to the intricate handcrafting of each instrument, Dana's expertise and passion shine through every step of the way. As he shares insights into his decades of experience and dedication to quality, viewers are treated to a firsthand glimpse of the unparalleled artistry and precision that defines Bourgeois Guitars. Prepare to be inspired as Dana Bourgeois unveils the magic behind these iconic instruments, inviting you to witness the harmonious fusion of tradition, innovation, and musical excellence. Shot and edited on Fujifilm X-T4 by Alejandro Montero.
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MusicTranscript
00:00Hello again, friends.
00:06Matt with Eddie's Guitars coming to you from Lewiston, Maine.
00:09Let's go check out the bourgeois shop.
00:14Let's go build some guitars.
00:44Okay, hi, I'm Dana Bourgeois from Bourgeois Guitars, and we're going to do a little tour
00:57of the Lewiston bourgeois workshop.
00:59We're going to start in, usually we start our tours in the wood room.
01:07We store wood in guitar cases and some guitars when they come in from Eastman up here.
01:18This is just one of our storage locations now.
01:21It's getting a little messy.
01:22We're sort of busting at the seams and looking for some more space, but everything is kind
01:29of categorized by type of wood.
01:32We have some Brazilian rosewood over here and Madagascar rosewood.
01:38Over here we have cocobolo, some macassarebony koa.
01:45We have more koa.
01:48We have mahogany, figured mahogany, maple, a bunch of Adirondack spruce just came in.
01:55We've got some figured maple.
01:57Over here, a special project, one of our guys found, literally found a log by the side of
02:02the road in northern Maine.
02:04We're calling it roadkill maple.
02:07Awesome, awesome.
02:11And over here, some Indian rosewood, torfied sitka spruce.
02:21This is some of the roadkill.
02:25I love it because it's just got the very beginnings of spalting.
02:28Yeah, amazing color.
02:30Lots of color in it.
02:31Yeah.
02:37More Indian rosewood.
02:39Actually, this is more Madagascar rosewood, different kinds of spruces.
02:43So, each week we build guitars in batches of 11 and on our way up to 12,
02:53which is a more, you know, a more even number, but we came from 10.
02:58So, you got to, you know.
03:01But each week we start that many guitars and it starts in the wood room.
03:06I'll show you the production manager, Mitch, prints this out, the starts.
03:15These are the guitars that we're starting and it lists the type of guitar,
03:20it lists the customer, here's one for Eddie's, and the woods that need to be picked.
03:29And so, we go through, you know, James Witkiss, who's our master luthier,
03:35does the first selection and I kind of go through and, you know, usually whatever,
03:43you know, what he selects is just fine.
03:44Sometimes I'll have a different idea of a piece of wood that I want to use instead.
03:52And a couple, so the batches move this way.
03:58We're usually doing a couple weeks ahead.
04:00So, this is going to move over here and these are tops and backs that were made.
04:07In the other room, I'll show you where we join everything up.
04:12And these are just off the top of the pile.
04:17These are rosetted tops that are ready for thicknessing.
04:22This is a beautiful piece of Italian spruce.
04:27Mahogany top.
04:30This is a Sinker Sitka with a little bit of blue stripe down the middle of it.
04:38Another Sinker Sitka and another Sinker Sitka.
04:42Beautiful.
04:44We don't really build in batches.
04:45We build or we don't like build like one batch of all dreadnoughts of the same type.
04:50It'll be a mix of stuff.
04:52Usually, there'll be some difficult guitars and some easy guitars in the mix.
04:56You know, you want to be able to get through each station without, you know, without falling behind.
05:05Spruce-wise, how much of what's in this room are for touchstone instruments, if any?
05:13What's some of that stuff and some stuff down here.
05:18We've got a whole bunch more out in the hallway.
05:21And so, we're going to bring it in here to acclimate it about a month before using it.
05:25Sometimes, we have a kiln out this way.
05:28If it comes in wet, we're going to put it in the kiln first and get it down to about 7-8%.
05:35And then, it acclimates in this room.
05:36This is a climate-controlled room.
05:39And in fact, most of the rooms have their own climate control.
05:44Instead of one big climate control unit, we have several rooms that have their own climate control.
05:51Makes sense.
05:52Which is a lot to keep track of sometimes.
05:55Sure.
05:56We started off in half the space we are now, and we've expanded in the mill.
06:04Tack on another room, tack on another room kind of thing.
06:07I wish I had a before and after from a few years ago when I was here, because that's just like totally different.
06:14Yep.
06:15Well, let's move over into this next room.
06:17Cool.
06:19Cool.
06:24Okay.
06:25So, here is where we glue up the tops and backs.
06:28Tops and backs are actually first sanded, you know, to glue up thickness on the wide belt sanders.
06:35And here's a batch that Jesse's working on for this week, his beautiful set of Macassar ebony.
06:43Wow.
06:44Beautiful figured walnut, coca bolo.
06:49This one is Madagascar rosewood, more Madagascar rosewood, and on and on and on.
06:56Wow.
06:57So, these are the backs and these are the sides that go with them.
07:04After they've been glued up and sanded flat, really the next thing that happens is over
07:13on the CNC, the tops are cut out.
07:17This is our main production CNC for doing things like bridges, fretboards, tops and
07:26backs, but there's nothing running here at the moment.
07:30But the top and the back will be cut to outline and the rosette channels will be cut.
07:35Sure.
07:36And then the rosettes get installed here and then the tops and backs get thicknessed to
07:42whatever the thickness they're going to end up.
07:44We don't thickness to a specific dimension.
07:47We thickness according to stiffness along the grain.
07:52How many tops will be joined in here on a daily basis?
07:55Well, we're doing about, well, we're doing 12 Lewiston series guitars a week and we're
08:03doing about 24 touchstones a week.
08:07So two for one, 24, 48 plates per week.
08:13Nice.
08:15And over here, we do the touchstone glue-ups over here.
08:19Sam is gluing up some braces.
08:25These are the brace, sort of over that way.
08:28We have a set of shapers and shaper jigs and we make the basic brace shapes here.
08:38Braces are glued up and they're pressed in place with a vacuum.
08:46LDBO touchstone?
08:51I think so.
08:54I can't see from here, but...
08:56I mean, these right here.
08:57Oh, those are, yeah, those are going to be, yes, touchstone LDBO.
09:01That's cool.
09:02Yeah.
09:03That's coming down the line along with the slope D.
09:06Oh, here's the missing link.
09:09How are you doing?
09:10Good.
09:11Good to see you.
09:12Appreciate it.
09:13Here's the missing link from glue-up to off the CNC.
09:21So these guys have been outlined.
09:26I guess these are just backs.
09:28If they were tops, you'd see the rosette channels or the rosettes in them.
09:36And they're down here in the stack.
09:38I think the rosettes are being glued.
09:45And then after the rosette goes in, the sound hole will be cut.
09:52So that all happens between here and here.
09:56Touchstones go out as, you know, finished voiced tops.
10:01And actually, the tops and backs for the Lewis and series guitars go to another room to get
10:07braced and voiced and glued up and we'll take you there.
10:13Do you literally just box them up and ship them?
10:16Yeah.
10:17We ship them face-to-face, too, in a bag.
10:20And then they are a very heavy poly bag that's heat sealed.
10:27So, you know, we are shipping by air, which means they take 10 days to get to Eastman
10:37in Beijing.
10:41Their climate control is really good these days.
10:44There's a bit of an acclimation period.
10:48Something you helped with?
10:49Yeah.
10:50We've been helping with a lot of their various, you know, facilities and tooling and techniques
11:00and that sort of thing.
11:06How is the CNC doing what?
11:10Yeah.
11:19So this is a real workhorse.
11:21Not only do we cut out the tops and backs and sides, we do, you know, inlay the headstock
11:26veneers.
11:27I believe this is radiusing, rough radiusing front boards.
11:33And we make the bridges, but we don't drill the pinholes until the bridges are needed.
11:44You know, so you can, like, pick the bridge.
11:46You might pick, like, a gorgeous color pattern on a Madagascar rosewood bridge that goes
11:51with something else and then say, oh, no, but it's the wrong pinhole spacing.
11:56Right.
11:57So.
11:58Makes sense.
12:00And as you can see, it's the same thing with the front boards, big variety.
12:07These must all be large sound holes because they have no inlays.
12:14These are pocketed for squares and diamonds.
12:18So you see various various pocketings.
12:25This one is going to be what squares and diamonds it looks like.
12:33So a lot of the stuff like the front boards will be made in the large quantity and then
12:38detailed, you know, selected for a particular guitar as the guitar is scheduled and then
12:45detailed according to the schedule.
12:52How big of a stash of just in general fingerboards do you keep on hand at a time?
12:58Oh, it depends.
13:00I mean, you know, we don't use, for example, a lot of Madagascar rosewood fretboards.
13:06So we might keep 50 or 100, depending on, you know, what the smart buy is.
13:13You know, as you're running low, you're looking around a couple of different suppliers and
13:16see who's got what sort of thing.
13:21Fretboards, we'll usually buy a year's worth and take delivery of them by the quarter.
13:27So that would be, you know, a hundred per quarter, let's say, or more than be more than that.
13:39125, we probably, and because there's always fall down, we always want more than we think
13:45we need.
13:46Sure.
13:47More like 150 per quarter.
13:51So anyhow, a lot of these things you figure out the hard way.
14:01I'm sure.
14:02Well, there's more to see.
14:11So these would be a little bit out of order.
14:12I'll take you into here.
14:15This is some, these are some logs that we're cutting up, making into mandolin tops.
14:21We're moving this operation out of here.
14:24So this is our kiln.
14:28Some various types, that's some walnut up there.
14:33What I wanted to show you was another new room that we've built since you were here.
14:37This is our dirtiest operation, which is sanding and buffing finish.
14:42Buffing compound gets in the air.
14:44So we built a new, built a new room, come on in, with downdraft tables for each sanding
14:57station and lots of dust collectors, you know, for each sanding station and for the, for
15:05the buffing stations.
15:08It's a good way to keep, you know, all of the, all of the bad air in one place.
15:15We sometimes clean this room, but the next day it looks just like this.
15:23What are you working on there?
15:24Vintage.
15:25Yes.
15:26Beautiful.
15:27And that looks like the primer coats are being leveled, getting ready for the top coats.
15:37So there's a lot of sanding involved in finish.
15:39Over and over and over and over.
15:42Yeah.
15:43A lot of patience.
15:44Yeah, man.
15:45Awesome.
15:46Awesome.
15:48You're welcome.
15:49Enjoy.
15:50Appreciate it.
15:53This is another kind of general room that's dirty, can get dirty out here.
15:59We keep it away from the assembly room areas.
16:04Up is over in here, which is where it always were, or it was always, in fact, from here
16:09over is the old factory.
16:11Yeah.
16:12Right, right, right.
16:14This makes a mess, but these guys can, if they get, they get a little thing, a little
16:18something they've got to buff up on a finished guitar, they can just walk down here.
16:22Gotcha.
16:23Gotcha.
16:24These are the two wide belt sanders.
16:28And we use, you know, these are pretty spent belts.
16:33We use these to thickness the tops and backs, and they're thicknessed at various stages
16:39in the operation.
16:40The raw wood gets thicknessed before it's joined up, and then after it's joined up,
16:43the joint is never perfect, so you thickness it again, and then you take it to whatever
16:48its final thickness is going to be.
16:51And we use one of these two belt sanders, depending on, usually this guy for the rougher
16:55stages and this one for the finer stages.
16:59Gotcha.
17:01And over here is our binding cutting area.
17:08Todd is our senior ace binder, been with us since he was that tall.
17:18I'm exaggerating.
17:19He was never that tall.
17:23We've recently sort of gone over a slightly different system with cutting binding ledges.
17:30Each one of these small routers, or laminate trimmers, is set up to make a specific cut.
17:37And it takes so long to properly make an adjustment for another cut that, you know, it's much
17:44better to set something up, get it right once, and then keep it that way until the bit needs
17:49to be replaced.
17:50Sure.
17:51So, you know, and as you can imagine, different bindings, different purflings, they all take
17:58a little bit different cut.
18:02We hold the guitars in place with these vacuum jigs.
18:08Oh, that's cool.
18:09And the routers fit on here and they're right up and down on the guitar as the guitar is
18:16moved into the router.
18:19I see.
18:20And the vacuum comes up through the bottom here.
18:26That's pretty brilliant.
18:27Did you build all this?
18:29Oh, yeah.
18:30Yeah, we built all of this here.
18:31You can't get this stuff at Home Depot.
18:32Yeah, I guess we can't.
18:35That's awesome.
18:36And this is like about the fourth generation, you know.
18:39Every time you wear something out, you know, it's no longer like really reliable.
18:44It's like, okay, now we can like introduce all the things that we thought about since
18:50we built the last one.
18:54And the other thing is that because guitars are wedge-shaped, you know, well, this thing
18:59is hinged and it locks over here.
19:02You can align the guitar so that either the top or the back is roughly parallel to this
19:08surface.
19:09I see.
19:10That's cool.
19:12Over here is where we route the tenons.
19:17It's another messy job.
19:18This place, on the wrong day of the week, is just a big pile of shavings.
19:25And so we keep it, like I say, over here away from everything else.
19:31And this is our newest toy.
19:40This used to be our buffing room.
19:45But it's now the plec room.
19:48So we have a number of guitars on deck here.
19:52We use the plec for two things.
19:55We level the fretboard in the plec before putting in the frets.
20:02And then we dress the frets at the tail end of the proposition.
20:06And the touchstones go in here, you know, for fret dressing as well.
20:13How long have you had this?
20:14We've had it for a year and a half.
20:16Okay.
20:17Pretty new.
20:18So our fretboard, as you know, is a compound radius.
20:25And the proper fretboard shape is an ever so slight S. So that's a very complex geometry.
20:35We used to have a swing sander that put the compound radius into the fretboard.
20:44But we did the rest of it kind of by hand, by measurement by hand.
20:48And the beauty of this thing is, you know, it takes all of that, all of the body English
20:54out of the operation.
20:58The one thing that the plec itself doesn't do is polish the frets.
21:03It makes a nice clean cut, but this is the final operation.
21:08Just put a, our necks are detachable, so it's easy to just take the neck off.
21:14Make sure there's no, you know, the body isn't at all in danger.
21:19And we put a stainless steel mask over the frets and just buff them on a big buffer.
21:25That's awesome.
21:26Bring that over for the...
21:28I didn't wipe them off, but...
21:31Awesome.
21:32Do.
21:33Now, these are all fretted now.
21:38The surface that comes off that machine is unbelievable.
21:41Yeah.
21:42Now, you know, we're a pretty low volume operation, so you can program it to go quickly and, you
21:49know, to make, you know, to make rough cuts that are fast, you can finish them off by
21:53hand.
21:54Right.
21:55We don't have a lot of time, so we just, we give it like the finest resolution that
21:58the machine is capable of.
21:59Nice.
22:00So, it's a really quick operation to get it, take it to the point where now it's ready
22:05to put the frets in.
22:07Very nice.
22:08Very nice.
22:09So, we'll start over here with the body department.
22:13Cool.
22:14How you doing?
22:18These are similar presses to the ones you saw in the other room for gluing up the bracing.
22:26And we have several batches worth of guitars going on at the same time.
22:32These I believe are this week's body builds, and then at the same time, they're gluing
22:38up braces for next week's body builds.
22:43Looks like we have a few, the sides are bent over here, and these are tools that we've
22:50also built in-house.
22:56We have different bending shoes, and the braces are, excuse me, the brace, the side is in
23:04between this sandwich.
23:07These are heated blankets, heated by a controller over here.
23:11You can program the temperature you want and the duration.
23:18And then, the cool thing is, when it's run at cycle, it turns the fan on, and the fan
23:25cools it down.
23:26Oh, yes.
23:27That's cool.
23:28So, these are universal.
23:30We can change this plunger here for the shape of the waist that we need.
23:36And I assume different wood species require different temperatures and lengths of time.
23:41Exactly.
23:42Yeah.
23:43And these are the various molds, you know, so we can interchange the mold.
23:47This is red knot.
23:48Can you give us an example of a really easy wood to bend versus a very difficult wood
23:53to bend?
23:54You know, the funniest one to me is, one of the easiest ones to bend is ebony.
24:00Really?
24:01Yeah, and you wouldn't guess that.
24:03Interesting.
24:04Figured woods are the hardest, especially mahogany.
24:09Brazilian rosewood can be a trick.
24:12I think partly because the only legal Brazilian rosewood had to have been harvested before
24:181991, and that's what is just so old and dry.
24:24It's just tricky.
24:25Unforgiving.
24:26Yeah.
24:27Unforgiving is a good word for it.
24:30That's one of the reasons why Brazilian rosewood is so expensive, because the fall down is
24:34pretty huge.
24:35The risk, yeah.
24:36You get a beautiful set, bust the sides.
24:38What are you going to do?
24:39Right, right.
24:41So I've got a lot of half sets, a lot of headstock veneers, that kind of thing.
24:51We also, just to keep these guys flat, there's a turn buckle down here that really pulls
24:59this thing down tight, puts a lot of pressure on it.
25:03It's a little slower to operate than some of the benders we've seen in high volume operations,
25:11but at our level, this is pretty good, appropriate technology.
25:17And then the sides get, the sides are pre-contoured on the CNC.
25:23We've drawn everything.
25:27So these guys have been shaped.
25:28These notches show where the linings are going to go.
25:34They're pinned into the blocks, front and back, on these holes.
25:38So everything registers properly.
25:42And after the sides are bent and the blocks are glued in, then we, you can see up here,
25:53we route a little piece of, we route a nice gap and put in a temporary wedge so that when
26:05you're running the router around, it doesn't fall into a hole.
26:09Gotcha, gotcha.
26:14So the blocks get glued on, and then the linings get glued on.
26:19These are the linings, and then the side braces get glued on.
26:22You can see Sam is gluing, fitting, meticulously fitting, and gluing the side braces.
26:30No matter how much precision, you know, you can introduce into this thing,
26:35those, these last fits have to be hand-fit, you know, because wood moves around.
26:40I mean, but you cook it, you know, you try to let it acclimate.
26:45It's a balloon.
26:46It's a wooden balloon.
26:51And then the finished rim assembly gets put in a mold, and these bolts on either end and these
27:05spreaders keep it, you know, give it a very exact shape.
27:10How long will they live in here?
27:15Just a day or two.
27:16I mean, they'll just get...
27:18These are in advance of having the notches cut and the back and top glued on.
27:26Usually, it's Wednesday, so they'll start gluing up this week's bodies tomorrow.
27:32So the first part of the week was spent getting everything ready, and then all the boxes will get glued up.
27:40These are our sanding disks for the different radii of the top and the back.
27:47And the side in the mold sits here, and this allows it to find its shape on a wedge, and then it's by hand,
28:00we kind of sand a spherical shape on the top of the lining that corresponds with the bracing.
28:12That's cool.
28:14Then the bodies come over here, and you just saw the machine where we route the binding ledges.
28:26So here's one, must have fallen behind for some reason, but this is like the trimming ledge.
28:35We just cut it back barely so we can sand the sides level without bumping into end grain there.
28:42And then after that, the binding ledges are cut on the machine that I showed you out there.
28:50Whoops.
28:54And the bindings are pre-bent and glued in and then leveled.
29:03This is a sinker mahogany, very dark sinker mahogany.
29:07It sure is.
29:08It's like a signature binding scheme.
29:14Very sharp.
29:15And you can guess what this one's going to be.
29:19Oh, yeah.
29:22That's a worthy back set, I would say.
29:27Yes.
29:28Yeah, this one is actually going to Eastman in China.
29:33Seriously?
29:34Yes.
29:37And, yeah, these, both Todd and Rob will do the 45 binding.
29:49These take, what, an extra week?
29:52We set them aside for an extra week to get through.
29:56Yeah, there's a lot of mitering in all of these corners and, you know, stuff goes wrong and you do it over again,
30:06that kind of thing.
30:07So the bar is high for these guitars.
30:09Check it out.
30:13Well, that's cool.
30:20And then over here is where the necks get made.
30:25These are the various neck styles.
30:28You can see there's some maple ones here.
30:32We don't do very many styles in maple.
30:36Sometimes we have some walnut necks kicking around.
30:40Cool.
30:41Yeah.
30:45But for the most part, it's, you know, it's scale length, head style, heel style.
30:50And so the right, and then we grade them, you know, A, A, A, B, plus, B minus.
30:58And they kind of, you know, depends on the grade of the guitar, the price range of the guitar.
31:07Here's some of our neck stock.
31:09These will be cut into necks.
31:10Two necks will come out of a neck blank.
31:15Primarily Honduran mahogany?
31:17Yeah, mostly Honduran.
31:19Here's a piece of maple that's going to be a two-piece.
31:24It'll have a black line down the middle.
31:27Different fretboards.
31:29We do a lot of Madagascar, excuse me, Ziricote.
31:36And this is Brazilian, I guess.
31:40And some Madagascar rosewood fretboard.
31:43These are just, this is just the raw materials.
31:47Different, and these are the machined neck blanks.
31:56That's cool.
31:57Or fretboard blanks, excuse me.
32:00This looks like Madagascar rosewood.
32:03Long scale.
32:07And they're not trimmed to width until we know what guitar it's going to be.
32:12Same thing with the headstocks.
32:15Here's a fancy one, you know, so they're all different.
32:22They get different bindings or no bindings.
32:25Different materials.
32:28So the right neck, fretboard, and headstock veneer get glued up into,
32:41depending on what stage these guys are at, do we have a rough, yeah.
32:51I mean, it basically looks like this.
32:54And then it gets finished sanded.
33:02The heel caps are attached once the body is made.
33:10So this is trimmed just to the right.
33:12There's a little bit of variation here.
33:15And these are mostly finished necks, I believe.
33:20Well, these all have work to do.
33:24I don't see any finished, here's a finished one.
33:27This is all ready to be, well, for its heel cap to be added.
33:32And then it'll go to the finished department.
33:34And the production number of the guitar is on both the body and the neck.
33:42And this is how the bolts go into the fingerboard extension from inside.
33:48Yes.
33:51Here's a cool.
33:52That's cool.
33:53Whoa, yeah.
33:55The dragon?
33:56Yeah.
33:57This is the year of the dragon in China.
34:00This one's going to China.
34:01Cool.
34:05Very cool.
34:07So necks are set here, given the first neck set.
34:13Sometimes they need it again by the time they go through finish.
34:17And then the heel caps are established.
34:20And then Monday morning, a batch of guitars goes off to finish.
34:24And I'll show you what that looks like.
34:29When we expanded, we pushed our sanding and buffing department way out there.
34:33So it's kind of a long haul.
34:35I mean, really, it should be here.
34:37But that's what you put up with.
34:43These look like bodies that are ready for getting ready for top coat.
34:48They've got their primer coats.
34:51Those could be the necks that go with them.
34:55This is a satin lacquer on the necks.
35:02This is an earlier batch.
35:05These guys just came in to finish on Monday.
35:07Today's Wednesday.
35:10So they'd get stained if it's mahogany, then get their sealer coats,
35:15and then grained filler.
35:18And then they get their primer coats probably on Friday.
35:22So these are guys that are all mahogany.
35:25The ones that don't get the stain are a day ahead of them.
35:30Gotcha.
35:31Gotcha.
35:33Two brand new spray booths as of last summer.
35:40I guess most of the guys in this department are sanding today.
35:47Tomorrow will be top coat day for one batch.
35:55And then it'll be primer day for this batch.
35:58Gotcha.
36:00And these are guitars in cure.
36:04Remember this room.
36:06Getting ready to be sanded, and buffed, and then assembled.
36:15This rack here is all usually colored guitars.
36:20They could be black.
36:21They could be the White Rabbits.
36:22They could be the Sunbursts.
36:25Gotcha.
36:26And so once they make it to this room, roughly how long do they have to go,
36:31on average, before they're complete guitars?
36:35Anywhere from a week to two weeks.
36:36Okay.
36:39Right now, we have a surplus of guitars in here.
36:46We had some finish syncing issues with Indian Rosewood guitars,
36:53and there's a bunch of redos.
36:57There's a couple of White Rabbits coming along.
37:01I was going to say, a lot of dramatic stuff in here, man.
37:04Yeah.
37:05Well, this is kind of a fun room, because once you get the finish on,
37:07yeah, everything pops.
37:11That's cool.
37:21I don't think they're going to be doing any spraying, so.
37:25But anyhow, this is the air.
37:32This is the blower that pushes the air out.
37:35Gotcha.
37:36And then the makeup air comes in on the ceiling.
37:39Gotcha.
37:41How many bodies can you spray a day in there, or?
37:46Oh, gosh.
37:47I don't know.
37:49Sometimes we're doing several batches.
37:52Like, what do you do, three top coats?
37:54Yeah, three top coats.
37:55So it's kind of 11 guitars, and then by the time you're done,
38:01you can put the other coat on.
38:03I see.
38:05You keep recycling them, and it probably takes, I'll bet, a couple hours.
38:09Yeah, about three.
38:10To get, yeah.
38:11And do, like, 28 bodies at a time.
38:14Oh.
38:16In each booth.
38:18You got big old carts that fit 14 each.
38:23So what is this you're doing here?
38:25This is Indian, Indian oil.
38:27I mean, physically, what are you wiping, and?
38:30I'm checking for any air bubbles.
38:32Okay.
38:34Imperfections, I don't want to spray over them.
38:36Gotcha.
38:37Gotcha.
38:38Yeah, these guys are getting ready for top coats, so they've got to be,
38:41everything's got to be right.
38:44Last chance to fix.
38:45This is where dust is the enemy, I guess.
38:48Everything is the enemy.
38:49Yeah.
38:50Fair enough.
38:52Fair enough.
38:53I guess that includes us, so maybe we have it.
38:57Okay, and one more stop on the tour.
39:02And this is our setup department.
39:05Over on this side, for the most part, we do the touchstone setup.
39:10And over on this side, we do the Lewiston series setup.
39:15The bridges get glued on here.
39:17The tuners get installed.
39:21Neck goes on the body.
39:24The saddle and nut get made.
39:31The rough string up, and they go back out here to get plaqued,
39:36and just kind of like just a final go over before they get shipped.
39:44Bridges being glued.
39:47So they set up overnight.
39:50They probably don't need to set up quite overnight,
39:52but that's a safe way to do it.
39:54Again, we're a low production, so it's not like we have to,
39:58I don't know, 100 a day or something.
40:02And the touchstones go through basically the setup to the same standards.
40:10The only difference is that we don't have a compound radius on the touchstones.
40:15Is it a 16?
40:17Yeah, and then the last thing is the pick guard and the label.
40:21Finish-wise, do these come back to you pretty satisfactory?
40:25They are now.
40:27They're taking less work to clean up the insides and dress the frets
40:35and make sure that the tuners don't stick, that kind of thing.
40:40Taking less time than they did early on.
40:44This is all new stuff for Eastman.
40:46They're using our neck joint.
40:48They had to retool a bunch of things.
40:50They're using our finish system.
40:55Tuning machines that they never used before, that kind of thing.
41:00Well, they've been really solid since we've had them,
41:07but the SIGs that we just got were just like, wow.
41:12Yeah, well, they keep getting better.
41:14James and I took a trip to China last fall.
41:19Yeah, that's what he said.
41:20We got a lot of hands-on.
41:23It's one thing, we meet bi-weekly with their management by video conference,
41:30but it's another thing to talk to the guys at their benches
41:35and show them exactly how we shape a nut or a nut slot
41:39or deal with a certain kind of thing, like fit the pins.
41:45And it sounds like they're very responsive to catching on to that.
41:52Yeah, absolutely.
41:54They are good craftsmen, really, really good craftsmen.
41:59There's a lot more handwork in their guitars than in our guitars.
42:03Interesting.
42:04Believe it or not, less automation.
42:07Yeah, wild.
42:09So it's not like we're, I mean, we get a lot of criticism
42:17for exporting jobs to China.
42:21Since we started building these guitars, our workforce has grown by 50%.
42:26I was going to say, take it from somebody who's been away from here
42:29a couple, you know, handful of years and then comes back and sees all this.
42:33All the growth.
42:34Holy cow.
42:35Absolutely.
42:37And, you know, we're able to bring a guitar that is, you know,
42:43it's not 100% of the quality of the guitars that we build here,
42:47but it's half the price and it's way more than half the quality.
42:51Yeah, no doubt.
42:52No doubt.
42:53Kind of a no-brainer.
42:54The one thing we can't do is customization.
42:58We're building them set models.
43:00Everything we do here, as you know, is customizable.
43:05And that's another one of the trade-offs.
43:07Sure.
43:08And the pipeline is longer.
43:10You know, we're now planning for next year's production.
43:15We're making prototypes for the couple of new models
43:18that we're going to be introducing next year.
43:21That sort of thing is, you know, where if we dream up a prototype,
43:26we can probably go from paper to starting the guitar in a couple of weeks,
43:32you know, here, and then get it into production,
43:37you know, just as soon as the guitar has gone through.
43:40Right.
43:41Takes about eight weeks to get a guitar through.
43:44So we're talking maybe three months from conception
43:47to putting something in production, as opposed to a year.
43:51Right, right.
43:52But, you know, the trade-off is a different kind of efficiency.
43:58Sure.
43:59And roughly what kind of output is the Eastman facility
44:05putting out with the Bourgeois guitars?
44:07They're making about 50,000 guitars a year under the Eastman brand.
44:12And this year, there'll be about 1,200 touchstones.
44:16Wild.
44:18And, you know, now that we've really gotten things smooth out,
44:21we're, you know, opening up more dealers, you know,
44:24for just the touchstone line.
44:26Sure.
44:27And we expect to expand that considerably next year.
44:32Yes.
44:33You know, opening up new world markets, that sort of thing.
44:36Sure.
44:37Excellent.
44:38You know, we might sell three Bourgeois guitars a year in Australia,
44:44but we could sell a lot more touchstones.
44:46Absolutely.
44:47Absolutely.
44:50So this used to be the woodroom?
44:53Yes.
44:53Once upon a time?
44:54Yeah.
44:55Or this half of it, anyway, was the woodroom.
44:59Yeah, incredible to see the growth.
45:03Yeah, and it's gotten messier as it's grown.
45:05It's kind of hard to keep it under control, but...
45:09Cutting more wood makes more dust, I guess.
45:11Yeah.
45:25Dana.
45:27Dana.
45:28That one.
45:29That's...
45:30That'll be the one.
45:31Cool, thanks, man.
45:32I'm going to give you a little bit of a tour,
45:34and I'll let you know if I have any questions.
45:36Yeah, absolutely.
45:37You're welcome.
45:38Any questions, I'll...
45:39Yeah.
45:40I'm going to pass it on.
45:41Yeah.
45:42All right.
45:44Thanks, man.
45:45See you next time.
45:46Thanks.
45:47Bye.
45:48Bye.
45:49Bye.
45:50Bye.
45:51Bye.
45:52Bye.
45:53Bye.
45:54Bye.
45:55Look at this, how that's named and then look at how that one's named.
46:01There's a modified dog.
46:06Oh yeah, tight beeswing figure, there's some, one's even better than that in a pile up here
46:13too.
46:14It would be suitable for tops, potentially?
46:15Yeah, we have a few sets.
46:16It actually sounds pretty good for tops.
46:17Here's a better example.
46:18Oh shit, yeah!
46:19Beautiful stuff.
46:20We have a pretty good stack of this stuff right now.
46:24Yeah, that's beautiful.
46:26Yeah, it's interesting.
46:28We've been sitting on a good stash of that stuff for a while.
46:42okay so these would be the hog tops nice right now pretty nice sets they're
46:47almost identical nice but here we have a the only stuff we have a nice in and
46:54that's really nice beasley I will say
47:12probably put this nice point you see the guys like right to lower about there
47:26and there people said let me grab a few more down
47:32this is lighter stuff yeah it's gonna look like that weird
47:42so a few lights up that'll probably be a parlor
47:49good at this brownish
48:01we'll inlay a patch like for example it'll be a brace here brace here we'll
48:08inlay a patch out of this some kind of a cut off wood goes from the edge to the
48:15brace okay under the brace and you won't see it and then we'll usually bring you
48:24know brain paint the other side
48:31and just to give you a tonal comparison
48:45this is a little bit better set I think out of curiosity with you based on
48:52having it what you're hearing would you say this might be more appropriate for a
48:57small guitar versus a bigger guitar or even a listing for the same thing
49:02I'm listening for the same thing at that for the most part in a top I'm thinking
49:10okay what's the target of useful weight flexibility figure style guitar needs to
49:16like the light you know needs to respond fully to a light touch yeah so you don't
49:24want a heavy top yeah you know a flat picking guitar you want to be able to
49:29keep digging in and get more and more so weight actually works to the benefit I
49:35see well you try this gonna be flat picking guitar you know then when you
49:40think versatility it's gonna be say an OM that someone might use for a little
49:44flat picking a little bit you know a little bit of finger style you kind of
49:49want to get somewhere in the middle sure not too heavy not too light but I'm
49:56like I'm looking for quick full response no matter what sure with the Brazilian
50:07Roser I'm just gonna look I'm listening for sort of like the reverb quality in a
50:15way you know it's kind of like I sort of think of it it's like putting your amp
50:19on you have a reverb on too
50:24yeah
50:37but that's flaws here the side I think
50:45that is the inside you're gonna show up on the outside this one this one really
50:55wants to be a smaller guitar but like both of those so absolutely or you just
51:02want the back
51:15oh this one is in the tongue bottom I tried looking probably on that side
51:23probably have a great part of the other set
51:27I'm gonna see the pots of half out there let's get sanded again but not too much
51:32yeah they usually I think you need to go darker or whiter
51:39sanded
51:42I mean if that keeps its color okay yeah
51:47that's cool yeah that's really nice fidelity to that grain yeah
52:00throw it back on
52:11I don't like that
52:22so it's a dreadnought yeah that's that's nice
52:34Wow
52:38that's fantastic too they're all good
52:43oh yeah they are
52:47Oh
53:03what do you think
53:07look at a couple of these real quick yep
53:11that's pretty fun
53:20that's up looks good to me
53:24I'll have Jeff's in confirmations over when you get back for any changes we
53:28make
53:31who right aren't yet okay so you pick one for the double double out one for
53:37the champ champ do you want another one it's not all though and for the oh okay
53:43so we need a 60-second thing that I love about this like right in where it feeds
53:49a lot behind me
53:53yeah
54:03there is some
54:07this is the stuff yeah I like that band right up there
54:14I mean honestly you can fix six of these and they would be totally fine but this
54:22is the same stuff we had on that natural rabbit there was that fretboard summit
54:25well you're gonna top just like totally pop I think I'll finish on it
54:31yeah I mean if you look at this one
54:43then medularity though can't tell if it's bear claw yeah really it's just
54:47crazy medularity we could try those first just keep those as an old well we
54:54have some others oh yeah that's the kind of stuff you get
55:13we're all pretty nice
55:16like this you just have a little extra character
55:24can you definitely put our name on that one
55:28you
55:39did you want to see this one a nap that's you know that's what I was on
55:45the ass yeah that's insane
55:49getting that
55:52damn
55:58Oh
56:03don't you're not looking at camera with your good man