Gardening for guitars

Tannin · September 2022

An odd thing to pop up on the weekly gardening show on TV.

https://fb.watch/ffIF_KqwRE/

Not a bad job she has - first a factory tour and then she gets to jam with Lloyd Speigel! ( reckon I'd freeze up with nerves.)

Sorry about the Facebook link, I don't think this is up anywhere better (e.g., You-tube).

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PS for @guitarjack66 re this question in another thread -

guitarjack66 said:

Tannin said:

Oh, as a matter of off-topic detail, I believe that the Maton pickup system has been installed in much the same way for many years. It was originally developed by Brad Clark in collaboration with Tommy Emmanuel (back before Clark left to found Cole Clark guitars about 20 years ago) and has been updated a half-dozen times in the years since then. Like most good makers, Maton offers the facility to update old guitars to the latest pickup if desired. Last time Cole Clark released a new pickup, they offered it to existing owners free of charge. I haven't bothered updating mine though - I never plug in so what would be the point?

I had no idea that Cole Clark was begun from a Maton employee/luthier/manager leaving to start up their own range of guitars. Very informative. In fact I had no idea Maton were older than Cole Clark.

Yes, Cole Clark started when Brad Clark left Maton. He left Cole Clark as well, more than 10 years ago, and headed off to China to start a company making acoustic pickups, the name of which I forget at the moment. You see them around here and there. Err ... "Supernatural" I think. Tokai uses them, so does Auden. Anyway, Cole Clark has long since gone in a different, all-acoustic direction under the leadership of Miles Jackson, one of the original investors (he talks in the video).

Yes, Maton is much older than Cole Clark and most other guitar companies around today, but younger that the real old-timers. A few notable guitar makers are listed below. (Mostly because it is cold outside today and looking a few of these up to post here is an excuse for not going out and cleaning out the duck shed.)

1833: Martin
1895: Gretsch (but hard to date exactly)
1902: Gibson
1924: Kremona
1932: Rickenbacker
1935: Ibanez
1940: Yamaha (making pianos since 1887 but guitars came later)
1946: Maton, Fender
1947: Tokai
1952: Guild
1957: Esteve
1959: Takamine
1965: K. Yairi, Alvarez, Alhambra
1967: Larivee
1972: Godin (aka Seagull, S&P)
1974: Taylor
1977: Cordoba
1979: Dowina, Lowden
1985: PRS
1989: Collings
1990: Breedlove, Furch
1992: Brook (approximate)
2001: Cole Clark

guitarjack66 · September 2022

Maton are as old as Fender? Fascinating.

Tannin · September 2022

You could sensibly say a little bit older Jack, but for all practical purposes call it the same age. Like most of the other companies above you could pick any of several dates as the "official" start date. Bill May started making guitars in the 1930s. Does that count? Or do we count from when he started selling them in the early 40s? Leo Fender made amps before he made guitars, and he made lap steels before he made the Broadcaster, which came 4 years after Maton's factory started. Which of those do you count as the first?

Pinning a date on Gretsch is even more difficult. Lowden has started up and stopped again so many times I get dizzy. Many of the companies listed above started as one man making guitars in a backyard shed as a hobby. Does that count? In the end, I've just plumped for (so far as I can find it) the earliest date at which a given maker was no longer just a solo luthier - eg., the day they formed a company and put on staff, or opened a factory.

Others (e.g., Yamaha, Kremona, Ibanez, Fender) started out making other things (pianos, violins, toys, amplifiers) and switched over.

In other words, take every date above with a big pinch of salt.

(PS: It warmed up a bit as the afternoon wore on and having cleaned out the duck shed I can now put my feet up. Today is the first day of spring here, and they will start laying anytime now. We let them free range for most of the year and they roost on the dam, but come the laying season we put them away at night. Otherwise they hide eggs all over the bloody place.)

guitarjack66 · September 2022

Tannin said:

You could sensibly say a little bit older Jack, but for all practical purposes call it the same age. Like most of the other companies above you could pick any of several dates as the "official" start date. Bill May started making guitars in the 1930s. Does that count? Or do we count from when he started selling them in the early 40s? Leo Fender made amps before he made guitars, and he made lap steels before he made the Broadcaster, which came 4 years after Maton's factory started. Which of those do you count as the first?

Pinning a date on Gretsch is even more difficult. Lowden has started up and stopped again so many times I get dizzy. Many of the companies listed above started as one man making guitars in a backyard shed as a hobby. Does that count? In the end, I've just plumped for (so far as I can find it) the earliest date at which a given maker was no longer just a solo luthier - eg., the day they formed a company and put on staff, or opened a factory.

Others (e.g., Yamaha, Kremona, Ibanez, Fender) started out making other things (pianos, violins, toys, amplifiers) and switched over.

In other words, take every date above with a big pinch of salt.

(PS: It warmed up a bit as the afternoon wore on and having cleaned out the duck shed I can now put my feet up. Today is the first day of spring here, and they will start laying anytime now. We let them free range for most of the year and they roost on the dam, but come the laying season we put them away at night. Otherwise they hide eggs all over the bloody place.)

No problems with predators for your chickens and eggs? Foxes or Snakes perhaps?

Tannin · September 2022

No foxes in Tasmania, which is why we have nearly all our native mammal species. Foxes are a cast-iron disaster. They are the single worst feral predator in Australia (and a number of other places) and have caused more extinctions than any other species, yes, even cats.

The ducks are very good at retreating to the water when they need to. Their main fear is raptors. We often have Wedge-tailed Eagles overhead, plus visits from White-belied Sea-eagles, Brown and White Goshawks, Brown Falcon, Swamp Harrier, Collared Sparrowhawk. The ducks are a bit too big to be really at risk from any of those bar the Wedgie and the sea-eagle, but they keep a sharp eye out and hit the water anytime one comes close, just in case.

As for snakes, yes, we have quite a few of those in the season (November to April, roughly, too cold the rest of the year), mostly Tiger Snakes. We haven't seen them taking eggs but we are a little bit careful at the appropriate times. Since the Tasmanian Native-hens moved back in (flightless rails, look a bit like a moorhen, can't fly but run like buggery) the snakes are not such an issue. The turbo-chooks (as everybody calls them) gang up on a snake and harass it loudly until it goes away.

They blew me away about 6 months ago. I heard a ruckus out the kitchen window. The turbos were shouting at a snake, quite a big one, only two metres from the house. It was trying to take refuge along a wire fence and in the grass growing up it. I like snakes, but not so close to the house, so I stepped outside and started banging the fence with a broom. Now the turbo-chooks are wild birds and keep their distance, they are not domestic ducks (though they pretty soon worked out that 4PM is a good time to line up and get some free duck pellets) and here I was right next to them waving a scary five foot broom around and banging it on the fence. By rights they should have taken fright immediately. Nope. Call me a fool if you wish, but I am 100% certain that they knew exactly what I was doing. So far as they were concerned, I was simply helping chase a dangerous snake away and on their side. So I banged and yelled, and the native-hens darted in and out threateningly, making a hell of a racket as they do, and pretty soon the Tiger Snake decided that enough of that was more than plenty and slipped off down to the dam, when it could disappear into the water and get some peace and quiet.

We have Eastern Quolls - a very fierce little marsupial predator a bit smaller than a cat - but they don't go for the ducks. Mice and grasshoppers are more their thing. Mostly the birds ignore them, except when the native hens have youngsters, in which case the quolls get chased of pronto! (Quolls move very, very fast, but even a quoll can't outrun a native-hen. Watching them try is spectacular!)

guitarjack66 · September 2022

Tannin said:

No foxes in Tasmania, which is why we have nearly all our native mammal species. Foxes are a cast-iron disaster. They are the single worst feral predator in Australia (and a number of other places) and have caused more extinctions than any other species, yes, even cats.

The ducks are very good at retreating to the water when they need to. Their main fear is raptors. We often have Wedge-tailed Eagles overhead, plus visits from White-belied Sea-eagles, Brown and White Goshawks, Brown Falcon, Swamp Harrier, Collared Sparrowhawk. The ducks are a bit too big to be really at risk from any of those bar the Wedgie and the sea-eagle, but they keep a sharp eye out and hit the water anytime one comes close, just in case.

As for snakes, yes, we have quite a few of those in the season (November to April, roughly, too cold the rest of the year), mostly Tiger Snakes. We haven't seen them taking eggs but we are a little bit careful at the appropriate times. Since the Tasmanian Native-hens moved back in (flightless rails, look a bit like a moorhen, can't fly but run like buggery) the snakes are not such an issue. The turbo-chooks (as everybody calls them) gang up on a snake and harass it loudly until it goes away.

They blew me away about 6 months ago. I heard a ruckus out the kitchen window. The turbos were shouting at a snake, quite a big one, only two metres from the house. It was trying to take refuge along a wire fence and in the grass growing up it. I like snakes, but not so close to the house, so I stepped outside and started banging the fence with a broom. Now the turbo-chooks are wild birds and keep their distance, they are not domestic ducks (though they pretty soon worked out that 4PM is a good time to line up and get some free duck pellets) and here I was right next to them waving a scary five foot broom around and banging it on the fence. By rights they should have taken fright immediately. Nope. Call me a fool if you wish, but I am 100% certain that they knew exactly what I was doing. So far as they were concerned, I was simply helping chase a dangerous snake away and on their side. So I banged and yelled, and the native-hens darted in and out threateningly, making a hell of a racket as they do, and pretty soon the Tiger Snake decided that enough of that was more than plenty and slipped off down to the dam, when it could disappear into the water and get some peace and quiet.

We have Eastern Quolls - a very fierce little marsupial predator a bit smaller than a cat - but they don't go for the ducks. Mice and grasshoppers are more their thing. Mostly the birds ignore them, except when the native hens have youngsters, in which case the quolls get chased of pronto! (Quolls move very, very fast, but even a quoll can't outrun a native-hen. Watching them try is spectacular!)

Quolls are quite vicious as I've seen on the telly given their size. What about the old Tazzie Devil? Many about nowadays?

Tannin · September 2022

Our next-door neighbour has devils living under his house. (20 acre blocks, so not so close.) The quolls we have are the Eastern Quoll, quite different o the larger and better known Spot-tailed Quoll and Northern Quoll. Eastern Quolls are more ground hunters, spend less time climbing, and are more sociable.

Quolls (of any species) are said to make excellent pets: affectionate, intelligent, and easily house trained, but sadly quite short lived. Unfortunately, our primitive laws make it almost impossible to keep a per quoll (all species are endangered) and dead easy to keep a cat (non-native, not remotely endangered, and very destructive of all native life). Go figure.

Our quolls are wild. We put out kitchen scraps for them (chicken bones, for example) and they come in under the flood light at night and give us a show. Great fun to watch.

BillDL · September 2022

I really enjoyed that video. It was long enough to get a feel for how they build the guitars, but was fun and kept short enough without too much technicality to appeal to guitarists and non-guitarists. I do wish interviewees wouldn't start their sentences with "So, ..." though.

I watched a documentary a number of years ago that highlighted an auto-immune or cancerous skin condition that was spreading among Tasmanian Devils and gradually destroyed the skin around their noses and mouths. It was nasty looking.

guitarjack66 · September 2022

Tannin said:

Our next-door neighbour has devils living under his house. (20 acre blocks, so not so close.) The quolls we have are the Eastern Quoll, quite different o the larger and better known Spot-tailed Quoll and Northern Quoll. Eastern Quolls are more ground hunters, spend less time climbing, and are more sociable.

Quolls (of any species) are said to make excellent pets: affectionate, intelligent, and easily house trained, but sadly quite short lived. Unfortunately, our primitive laws make it almost impossible to keep a per quoll (all species are endangered) and dead easy to keep a cat (non-native, not remotely endangered, and very destructive of all native life). Go figure.

Our quolls are wild. We put out kitchen scraps for them (chicken bones, for example) and they come in under the flood light at night and give us a show. Great fun to watch.

I wish cats were a non native species over here too. Horrible creatures.

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