Meet The Couple! Scarlett and Bart!

 Ever wanted a matched pair of Barker Basses?  Well, you're probably not the only one who hasn't had this thought.  Try it out.

The details:  Scarlett is a fretted four, (both are B1s).  That's a translucent red, so you see the grain of the cherry front quite readily, er, reddily.

Bart is a lined fretless.  The grain is present but it takes a little more attention to note it.  But with red strings and a red (RED!) tailpiece one can be forgiven for not noticing the other details. 

Both sport stock Duncan pickups.  Both give you the incredible sustain and the ergonomic joys of any other Barker Bass. 












 

A matched set.  His and hers?  Maybe your current gig has an array of styles that could benefit from your doubling with this pair.  Or you're in two bands with differing genres?

Perhaps you're a collector.  There will never be another pair like this, be assured. 

Their serial numbers are consecutive, of course:  She's 101, he's 102.

Contact Lee if you're interested in more information. 541.923.2571. 

Meantime, if you're wanting to experiment with the theme here, try this for your computer wallpaper.  And wonder who copied whom....

Barker Basses in inventory, ready to find a new home

 Our first example is the value leader, as some folks call the, um, less expensive example of their products.  And this is.  And they're wonderful basses, if I do say so myself.  I own two Barkers, play both regularly, and one is a Brio. 

It's a stock instrument:  alder front and back, alder chambers, with a walnut/alder stripe on the front.  Four strings, frets, and our custom p-bass pickups.  Basic, reliable, fun to play, easy to handle.  The list price is $2595.  Street price $1995 plus shipping. 

And for something completely different (thank you, Monty) here is a B1four, the original Barker Bass, the one that brought the words "quality construction" (or equivalent) into all the early conversations.  Cherry front, alder back, alder chambers.  Side dots for subtle locators.  Strung up with LaBella black tapewounds.  Sweet and expressive.  List is $3895; street price $2995 plus shipping.  It could be on its way to you tomorrow.

There are two ways to pay for a Barker Bass:  Paypal or a check in the mail.  Either works fine. 

There will be more examples of in-stock basses appearing here regularly, plus updates on custom builds (just for variety).

An Afternoon in the Shop with Lily

She's 7--the second oldest of our universe of six grandchildren.  I got to hold her the day she was born.

We decided on a play date the last afternoon of 2012.  Over quesadillas and rice and beans we talked about what we might build or do.  Once we got to the shop, she decided she had an idea.  Ok, I admit it, I posed the picture.

Birdhouse.  You've got to start somewhere.  If she said, "scale model of a Frank Lloyd Wright house" or "prototype air powered elevator" I would take a run at it with her.  Process and time together were everything, product not much.

We did some sketching, which she caught onto right away.  I did the tablesaw cutting and we got into some hand tools.

And learned, in about 30 seconds, how to spread glue.

And how a vise works.

And back to the sketch pad at her improvised desk.

But that's only half the story.  First thing in the shop, she had sat at my desk.  I suggested she was the boss.  That stuck.  So periodically, in the construction/playtime, she would declare a break and go into her office and then call me in for a conference. 

I was taken to task for something that I did that wasn't safe.  I was made mayor of the Carry the Wax Club.  (I had to learn to carry the wax container by the handle with my other hand underneath in case the box fell down.)  I had to demonstrate my competence at this in order to become mayor ("because mayors own the town, you know.").  Later I got to be president and received a special binder clip to wear on my collar as an emblem of my station.

Once I had to come into the office as Lily, talking to the boss.  There were some things I had to learn to do better.   (I've not had a boss or a conference in over 30 years.  This required great imaginative effort on my part!  She seemed quite at home as the boss.)

But back to the shop.  In addition to the obvious hand tools, we also

• used the drill press in 3 different processes, including  boring with a pilot bit/countersink
• used two different air staplers
• cut shapes on the band saw
• sanded putty with an orbital sander
• used a screwgun to install the removable cleanout panels and to attach a metal bracket to one of the avian residences

I was amazed.  All this was done with my hands on her hands, or vice versa, but she was very attentive to what was going on.  For instance, with the drill press, she drilled a hole and the bit plunged on through.  That sends three signals:  your ears hear the splitting sound, your eyes see the chuck go down more quickly than it had been traveling, and your hand feels the plunge effect.

Next hole:  she slowed down her rate of feed when she got to what she thought was the end of the hole.  And she was right.

I have taught adults woodworking, and I don't recall ever seeing learning like this.  Quite the contrary, in many cases!

When we started our first bandsaw task, she said, "Grampa, aren't you going to wear safety glasses?"  Before I could concoct a mumbly answer, she was tapping the sticker on the upper wheel housing:  Caution!  Wear Safety Glasses.

We spent over four hours together in the shop on December 31.  As I look at my new wall calendar which shows the entire year on one page, I can see some wonderful opportunities in 2013.

New Retro Instant Vintage Barker B1 Bass

Mr Holly enjoyed looking at my wall of Barker Bass Mistakes.  Bass bodies that didn't make the grade.  That failed just late enough that they look done but never were.  Some that got assembled, and played, and then up and failed, for any of several reasons:  finish, material, unequal expansion of woody cells (splitting and cracking, in layperson language) or something I cannot remember. 

He picked out one and asked if I could make a bass out of that.  "Sure!"   There was nothing of failure about this bass body.  It must have been excluded from the line on a whim.  He sensed the quality apparently.

We worked out a price and a schedule and a down payment and I gathered parts.

So much is the same.  Sonically, the instrument has not changed since the beginning.  Esthetically, however, it has changed more than a teenager gone from home for a year of college 4000 miles away. 

Assembling this instrument for Mr. Holly has been a nostalgic journey.  I have come to appreciate how many little things are different, slightly or emphatically, from serial #1 (which you see hanging in the background).  Here is a picture of the first sounds that came from this rare birdseye pine bass:

Royal Thumpety, Batman!  Sounds great!  EMG pickups, which I'd had in stock but never used, have a nice, crisp sound with plenty of underneath.  The strings are LaBella Super Steps, which look odd on the bridge but  respond nicely and predictably.

And finally the formal portrait, having received the tailpiece, the monogram, the truss rod cover and the final buff.

And some closeups of this amazing piece of wood.

It looks like it was built 7 years ago or so, but no.  It's a New Retro Instant Vintage Barker B1 Bass, ready for some serious playing on Mr. Holly's porch.  Hand me that cord!  Plug in that amplifier!  Somebody count it off!

 

Juniper. It's ubiquitous, it's thirsty and it makes many folks sneeze. Quite a tree, actually, especially if you admire survivors. I wouldn't say that we Central Oregonians are polarized by them.

In April the allergy prone would like to send a massive taser jolt through the desert so not one more grain of pollen would present itself. The rest of the time, ho hum. Until you talk about water conservation. How thirsty are they? There are multiple examples these days of ranchers selectively thinning the trees and finding, within a year, that springs that had dried up have returned.

According to Bruce Hemenway, "on average then, a 10 foot tall juniper tree will consume between 40 and 70 gallons of water a day." Left on their own they'll spread to about 50 trees per acre, he says. If they average 25 feet tall, then the water consumption, trees alone, not other vegetation, would be 5000 to 8750 gallons of water per day, every day of the year.

But there can be great beauty in the wood. I found and squirreled away two pieces which were clearly from the same tree and one day they spoke: front of a bass. That was several months ago. Patrick, New York State, has purchased this Barker Brio. It is a stunning beauty and sounds very clean and punchy. I could own that bass, but Patrick does.

One strives, as a luthier (or, as I prefer, instrument maker) to incorporate some standardization in production so that "the sound" of your instrument is predictable in all of them. Sure, there are surprises, but every now and then all the measurements come out right and the result is a bass that sings. This one makes a visual statement as compelling as its voice. One of a kind.

Congratulations Patrick!

Let's Stirrup Some Memories

County fair, theme above. What you're seeing here is my entry in the open class, Crafts, Woodworking, Other not listed above, Theme.

I got a first place and a smiley sticker on my tag. Prior years I have done various kinds of things, including furniture, but I've never tackled the theme before. All the metal parts, leather and shoe last were purchased at the scrap yard, thrift stores and garage sales. The indexing pins are brass. I thought that showed a certain level of style.

The bicycle part was inspired by recently seeing a picture of Linda C. and her sister Joanie, who lived across the street when we were kids. Joanie is developmentally disabled. She's a delightful person. She learned to ride a bike along with the rest of us, and would ride by on the street and let go of the handlebars with one hand and say, "Look at this!" We would clap or yell. Good for Joanie. A nice memory.

County fairs should be like that. A way to step back in time, to engage in conversations, to get past the "howyadoingfine" empty ritual and really talk. It's amazing what we'll share in a context like that, people milling about, cotton candy in Present Arms routines, kids asking dad for another string of tickets for the rides, hormonally oozing adolescents running in loose packs, talking loudly and jumping.

Conversations. The lady who canned the pickles. The kid who made the transformer out of sugar cubes. The commercial exhibitor who encourages you to lie down on the memory foam. (It didn't help--I can't remember his name.)

And there, perhaps oddly, was the city water department. Their goal, I would guess, was to increase awareness of our storm water system and our water treatment facility. We listened, enthralled, for fifteen or twenty minutes, asking questions, responding in amazement. The city appears to be doing a great job at the task, and I'd attribute that to the manager, with whom we were speaking. He was absolutely and thoroughly enthusiastic about his subject. Whodathunkit.

Lots of memories, hard to unstir.

Family Paint-O-Rama

The real puzzle is how to say thank you. We knew this was going to happen. We were in on the planning and we made the final decision on the colors. What we didn't anticipate was the joy and the humbling nature of seeing our four kids, their three spouses (and all six grandchildren, to complete the tally) descend on our unsuspecting domicile and transform it in one day. LiAndra (Andi)and Patrick (Maya, Bjorn) worked all week on the prep, caulking, abrading, adding trim. Joe and Sarah (Lily, Juni) replaced funky fascia, deshrubbified the margins, scraped and scraped. Down came the gutters. Joel showed up from Portland, Pete and Kelley (Emily, Liam) from Sacramento. Saturday they started at 9 and by 6 or so it was done enough that, when Linda returned from work, She got the full force of the newness. It forces a neologism: chromablitz. The cousins played, the trimmers trimmed and the polemen were wholly rolling. If you really like the four color combination--the front door will be reddish and there will be some whimsy in the garage door panels--we will sell you the Sherwin Williams Product Numbers. But we're keeping the kids. And the granderkids.