Hi there, it's me again.
It has actually been a month since I asked you all to please give me two or three weeks to catch up on the backlog of repairs before bringing any new work in. My answering machine has been playing receptionist.
I've tried not to turn anyone away, except for one or two big jobs that I've booked in for next month. So I've still had a few new jobs as well as the ongoing stuff, and I'm not quite as caught up as I'd hoped.
So. Done lots of neck resets, refrets, gluing jobs, broken and flooded guitars, as well as trying to get up to date with all of the smaller stuff. Getting there.
I have a few badly damaged and/or flood disaster victims that I have to make big decisions about - some of them are possibly not fixable. I probably have to review my optimism reflex, and also learn how to tell the patient the bad news. I've always been bad at this. My default setting is to try to fix things.
Back when I was an apprentice, I leaned a lot from my "master", but one of the things I struggled with (and which he was brilliant at) was the ability to look someone in the eye and say, "sorry, it's not fixable".
And of course, telling them that it's not fixable six months later only delays the disappointment.
I still have quite a few lacquer finishing jobs on the go, as well as a few twisty ones that I'm either still trying to figure out or trying to get obscure parts for, but I made good progress these last few weeks.
If you can give me one more week that would be splendid. I'll be taking new work in again from Tuesday 28th March.Yay!
There is an old adage: "if you want something done well, take it to the busiest guy you can find".
Oh dear...I just made a "sales-pitch"...
Andrew
