The world would be a very, very different place without Clarence Leonidas Fender. A very different place indeed.

It’s difficult to imagine a Stratless world.  Or a world with no electric bass guitar. Or a world without the myriad other innovations and improvements that Leo Fender birthed.  Perhaps these things would have come along some other way or perhaps they needed a tinkerer like Leo.

I think we’ll do a bit of a Leo Fender article in the near future but, for now, you can take a short trip around Leo’s laboratory.

This lab/workshop is in the G&L building.  Leo sold Fender to CBS in 1965.  Between then, and starting G&L in 1979, Leo worked with Music Man (formerly Tri-Sonic, then Musitek, Inc) although much of what he did was as a ‘silent partner’ due to a 10-year non-compete clause in the CBS sale.

Leo Fender died in 1991 and G&L have kept his lab as it was when he last worked there.  In this video (no sound for most of its length), you can see around Leo’s lab and get an idea of how he worked (messily, mostly).  Personally, I think Leo’s nature as a tinkerer and experimenter is very clear from the video and I can’t watch it enough times.

I hope you enjoy it too.

We all know Trussart Guitars, right?

The crazy ones made out of steel?

Sure you do.  And, if you’re like us, you’ll probably think they’re pretty, frickin’ cool.

For this week’s field trip, we’re off to visit Jame’s Trussart’s workshop to get a look at some of these guitars coming together.  It’s a photo tour this time (no video, sorry).

The tour is hosted over at wired.com – not necessarily the first place that springs to mind when you think of rusty, steel, guitars but you can’t argue with the images they’ve got.

Off you pop, then – Trussart workshop tour.

When you get there, don’t bother clicking the images – just scroll down and read as you go.

Off to Carvin this week.  We’ll get a look at a number of complicated CNC machines make the various bits that make the various Carvin guitars before checking out the finishers applying a couple of different finishes – including a black/blue burst.  You can see the guys in the factory doing final setup and even see pickups being wound.

Take a look.

Time to take a (welcome) step back from the big guns; the Fenders and Gibsons and whatnot.  Time to take a look at a small (relatively speaking only) guitar maker.

The guitar on the left is the, rather splendid, Solstice from Galloup Guitars.

Galloup is run by Bryan Galloup, a luthier and repair-man second to none.  If there’s something he doesn’t know about guitars, there’s a fair chance that it’s not worth knowing.  Anyone who’s studied Dan Earlewine’s excellent tuition on particular guitar repair jobs will probably already be familiar with Bryan Galloup who shows up now and then to give his take on guitar repair.

Not content with running a guitar repair shop and building custom instruments, Bryan also teaches courses on how to make your very own guitar at the Galloup School of Guitar Building and Repair.  From weekend seminars to eight-week courses to full, six-month master programmes, Bryan provides professional, hands-on tuition to students who enrol at his school.

Galloup Guitars and the school are located in Big Rapids, Michigan.  If you’re nearby, or can travel there, and want an excellent eduction in guitar-making, you could do much worse than give Galloup a call.

The video below gives you a look around Bryan’s workshop and the guitar school.  You can see a number of instruments in progress and also some that have been in for repair.  Bryan conducts the tour himself.

OK, so we visited Gibson a few weeks back but there’s always something new to see and to learn.

Here’s a series of three videos following the assembly of a Les Paul. Plenty of interesting stuff to see at each stage of the process and you get to see the presenter hack at lovely Les Pauls in various stages of construction – personally, I hope that guitar on which he butchered the neck tenon with a chisel (looking like he was going to stab himself in the process) wasn’t actually sold to some unsuspecting punter.

Still, presenter’s incompetence aside, here’s twenty minutes or so of the making of Les Pauls.  Maybe if you keep your eyes peeled, you can spot that wood the feds confiscated from Gibson.

Please ignore this line – it’s just housekeeping: BRECYJK9U4MT

OK, you might want to get a cup of coffee for this one.  We’ve got a long tour ahead of us but it’s worth it.

We’re off to Martin Guitars to see the factory and get stepped through the build from chunk of wood to splendid guitar.

Got that coffee yet?  Good.  Now go and get a cookie too – it’s the weekend.

Right.  Let’s go.

These are from the Premier Guitar channel on YouTube

We’ve had a few tours of guitar manufacturers up to now.  How about visiting an amplifier manufacturer?

Yeah?  Great.  That being the case, where else could we go but to Marshall.

Here you go, then.  The home of the Marshall Crunch.

Let’s ROCK!.

Too much?  Sorry.  Anyway, this is a long one but well worth it.  Check it out…

A trip down Nashville way this week.  Off to Gibson Guitars with that bloke from that show – what’s his name?

Pack a lunch, we’re off to G&L.

No narration on this one and it’s a bit noisy (workshop sounds) but you can see a number of interesting processes.

Check it out.

OK, so this is an interesting one to follow on from yesterday’s Yamaha tour.  Today’s tour is to Taylor Guitars.

Just like you did in school, I want you to compare and contrast Taylor’s approach and what you see in their factory to what you saw in yesterday’s video from the Yamaha factory.  I think it’s interesting to see these two tours and the approaches outlined in each.

Now go and write an essay on what you’ve learned.  Or not, I don’t care.  What am I, your mother?