Frank Ford Guitar Repair

Professional Workshop

You might find It hard to imagine Frank dealing with all of these topics in one weekend, but he is doing real-time demonstrations here and talking while he works. He'll accomplish as much in this class as he would in the course of two normal working days, and he is very fast. This is a great opportunity to learn by seeing this work done purely and cleanly, with no wasted energy.

Frank Ford -
Professional Guitar Repair
2002 Dates: Apr 13 - 14

Frank Ford is one of the great guitar repair and setup persons and a legend among west coast luthiers. For almost 30 years, he has run the repair department at Gryphon Stringed Instruments, where he personally checks and sets up most of the instruments that they sell. He also does all of the endless fret work and setup jobs that come into the shop. He has been a guest lecturer at ASL and at the Roberto-Venn school for many years and his teaching style is practiced, clear, and always interesting. Frank covers a lot of ground in two days of lecture and demonstration. He talks fast and puts in a lot of overtime to make this the most information-rich weekend possible.

These two long days hold the keys to high quality, profitable repair work. The study topics in this intensive three day seminar cover more than 90% of the work that a guitar repair person will ever encounter. Fret work and action adjustments are the meat and potatoes of the guitar repair business. Every guitar is a candidate for improved playability.

Along with sharing with you everything that he knows about the fine-tuning of frets and string action, Frank will demonstrate how he does a complete refret job, restrung and setup, in two hours or less. He will discuss and demonstrate solutions to the wide variety of neck and bridge problems that he deals with and he’ll demonstrate how he regularly completes a neck reset in less than two hours. Frank will demonstrate his systematic approach to analyzing and fixing the wide variety of cracks and finish problems that present themselves for repairs. He’ll also discuss practical aspects of running a successful stringed-instrument repair business, explaining his methods for organizing, scheduling and tracking the flow of work through his shop with an eye to satisfied customers and steady profits.

Study Topics:

Neck resetting

Bridge regluing & replacement

Pick guard replacement

Making nuts & saddles

General setup

Structural repair

Simple touchup

Recovering from your mistakes

The ethics of restoration

Working with customers

Time management & making a living

INSTRUCTOR'S BIO:

Frank Ford has been a full-time instrument builder and repairman since the fall of 1969. It was while he attended the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1962 to 1966 that he fell under the spell of bluegrass music and learned to play mandolin. His first mandolin was "pretty crummy," and before long he was tinkering with it. He built his first instruments in 1966 and 1967. Two years later, Richard Johnston and Frank founded Gryphon Stringed Instruments as a guitar building venture. They had built some 40 guitar and a few mandolins and banjos by the time they opened their first retail store in early 1973. Gryphon now employs twelve and occupies a building with about 7,500 square feet of floor space. They are retailers of new and used instruments, accessories, recordings and instructional materials. At least 15 music teachers call their store home. For the full Gryphon story, visit www.gryphonstrings.com.

Frank has been the South Bay area's CF Martin warranty repair guy for over 25 years. As a "general practitioner" in the area of acoustic fretted instrument repair, he's developed a reputation for being willing to work on just about anything. While much of his work is on delicate and expensive instruments, he really enjoys being able to make a modest guitar play correctly for a beginning student. In recent years Frank has created www.frets.com, one of the internet's most popular and useful fretted instrument web sites.

To reserve a spot in this class, print out, complete and mail in the registration form along with your tuition deposit. Tuition for this 2 day workshop is $350 - tuition deposit is $100.

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