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January 12, 2003

Butterscotch Blonde Telecaster
Posted by Teresa at 12:40 AM *

He sold off his Fender Performer on eBay (it had become a Collectible Guitar in the years since he bought it at a closeout price at Sam Ash, and anyway it never quite suited him), and with the proceeds got the used non-vintage but canonical Telecaster he wanted.

“Wanted” is such an inadequate verb.

He’s been intensively making its acquaintance all day. Every so often he comes up with a combination of settings he recognizes, and then the famous rock song that used it abruptly crawls out from under his fingers.

A few hours ago I asked him, quite unnecessarily, if he were happy. He looked up at me, blinking and confused, and said “I don’t know. I’ve been too busy to think about it.”

Very happy Patrick.

Comments on Butterscotch Blonde Telecaster:
#1 ::: ChuckEye ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 02:41 AM:

Ah, new instrument syndrome. I identify with it well, though I admit the idea of selling off an old instrument is still fairly foreign to me... hence the growing collection. B^)

I believe there are support groups for spouses of musicians... widows to the instruments, as it were... Or if there's not, there should be.

#2 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 07:29 AM:

I'm not a widow. I just switch between hearing what Patrick's thinking about in words, and hearing it in music.

#3 ::: Jane Yolen ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 08:45 AM:

Being the mother of a musician, not the wife, I still understand entirely what you are getting at. Sometimes the music is even more expressive, finding the low or high notes in the heart that some (men especially) seem embarassed to say. Or to realize they have it to say.

Jane

#4 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 12:48 PM:

Thanks for sharing this moment and its image.

#5 ::: Avram ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 01:30 PM:

Something called a "Telecaster" really ought to have, like, a built in transporter. Or at least a WiFi connection.

#6 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 03:34 PM:

I would dearly love to have watched Patrick (who, for readers who may not know it, in addition to his many other talents, has the instrument equivalent of a Babel fish in his ear) do what you describe.

I went through a similar process when I got my first real synthesizer. Every setting made a different kind of music come out of my fingers.

Even worse, though, when some friends gave me the odd object I now call a "Tune in a Bucket." It's a metal bucket with many different-sized metal rods welded to the top, made to be hung from a rope and half-filled with water. Then you play it with rubber mallets.

In my view, I looked at it, picked up the mallets, played on it for about 5 minutes, and said "This is great. Thanks!" My friends agree with all that - except it was 45 minutes.

Jane, I think I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes, though, it's because it comes from a place that I just don't have waking access to at all. Or sometimes I could say it in words if I chose, but...let's just say the words "the inside of your head must be a scary place" have been uttered when I do.

#7 ::: Stefan Jones ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 05:55 PM:

"I don't know. I've been too busy to think about it."

Ah, he was In the Flow.

A state mistaken for glum and unnatural withdrawl by shallow extrovert types.

#8 ::: Rachael Hoffman-Dachelet ::: (view all by) ::: January 12, 2003, 07:39 PM:

"The Flow" is a lovely term, thank you. Beats the heck out of "the zone" which always feels too sporty.

#9 ::: Greg van Eekhout ::: (view all by) ::: January 13, 2003, 12:03 AM:

They have a vintage model hanging at the Experience Music Project, right next to an original Leo Fender Broadcaster. Lovely guitars.

#10 ::: Erik V. Olson ::: (view all by) ::: January 13, 2003, 10:51 AM:

Note the the orginal Broadcaster would later be renamed to the Telecaster (name conflict with a Gretch drum kit.) So, you were looking at the genesis of the very creation that's absorbed PNH.

#11 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 13, 2003, 08:16 PM:

What's absorbing Teresa just now is the task of coming up with a suitable shipping crate in which to send the Performer to its purchaser in Wisconsin. Problem: It doesn't have its own case. It had been kept in a beat-up vintage Fender case, but the case wasn't part of the deal.

(We have a vintage Fender case because a former tenant of the subdivided house in Staten Island where we used to live took off for parts unknown, obviously not intending to return, leaving behind the Fender case, a guitar that had been so badly mistreated that it was only identifiable as a solid-body electric in the Fender style, and a large Peavey amp.)

I've gone and read all the material I can find on the web about shipping guitars. They all assume you're shipping the guitar in its case, and counsel various elaborate methods for helping the guitar-and-case survive the process. It has become clear to me that no amount of bubble wrap will overcome the lack of a rigid container.

This afternoon I went down to Home Depot and had them cut me some lumber to size. I'm a firm believer in over-engineering. I figure a crate made with 15/32" plywood for the top and bottom and two-by-sixes for the sides, with maybe some deck-construction angle irons at the outside corners (and the inside corners if I feel ambitious, which by then I probably won't) has a good chance of getting through in one piece.

#12 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 12:50 AM:

I don't suppose any local music stores or even instrument makers would have any packing and shipping tips or materials?

#13 ::: janeyolen ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 04:50 AM:

I would have taken it to the local Mailboxes and had them fix up a way of shipping it, but then I am a simple soul.

Jane

#14 ::: Johan Anglemark ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 05:21 AM:

Telecaster... when Apple developed their original 14" monitor with built-in speakers, the project code name was Telecaster. I never liked the flat sound of those speakers, but I suppose they were good for their time.

#15 ::: disconnect ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 09:21 AM:

"I don't remember if it was a Telecaster or a Stratocaster, but I do remember that it had a heart of chrome, and a voice like a horny angel..."

#16 ::: Robert L ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 09:27 AM:

I ordered an elsectric guitar through eBay (a Peavey, which I'm quite happy with). A case was not part of the deal. It came shipped in a corrugated cardboard carton, with some bublble-wrap around the gtr inside. It was fine. A plywood box should be just fine, but it seems like more time and expense than is warranted by my experiences with eBay. I'm sure any large guitar store has boxes for this, and might even give you one for free. However, i know that you're enjoying building a crate (I've done this several times with stuff found impromptu in alleys, in order to ship a bicycle, and it was certainly fun), so everyone should be happy.

#17 ::: Graydon ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 01:22 PM:

If you're going to build the crate, I'd recommend getting three heavy duty bags -- 15 mil plastic leaf bags or similar -- and doing the tripple wrap, ends reversed each time thing (so that twist tie 1 is to the south, 2 to the north, and 3 to the south) and a can of expanding foam.

Up to you whether you want to drill and bung the top 2x6 or put it on last after the foam has set enough to trim off the escaped-out-the-top bits; I'd probably go for the later, after supporting the guitar vertically on a block of foam on the bottom of the case. (That way I could reach down the top of the crate to make sure the foam gets all the way to the bottom.)

One might also wish to provide extraction instructions at that point, but it will beat bubble wrap all to pieces so far as protecting the guitar goes.

#18 ::: marty ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 06:23 PM:

Be very sure to loosen the guitar strings before you ship.

#19 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: January 14, 2003, 07:13 PM:

Continuing in the role of buzzkill, what probably makes most practical sense is to loosen the strings, wrap the instrument in bubble wrap, stick it in a corrugated cardboard box, and put the savings in basic shipping costs into insurance. Although this doesn't exactly honour the sentimental value the instrument has for you, it's passing out of your lives anyway and not yet a part of the successful bidder's.

On a more intrepid note, I think that bubble wrap is de rigeur for the innermost level of wrapping so that there's some room for movement w.r.t. the inner surface of the shipping foam. An outsized, sealed cardboard box full of high-density foam will protect a bubble-wrap-padded guitar for any applied stress it's likely to encounter.

I think that a lighter package, marked "Fragile" and appropriately insured, will get more careful handling than a harder-to-handle wooden box.

#20 ::: Erik V. Olson ::: (view all by) ::: January 15, 2003, 09:33 AM:

Acutally, Bob, what I've found (and many people who travel with large, expensive, fragile gear have found) is the best way to travel/ship with such is in a huge, heavy, damn near lethal case. Why?

Respect. Lightweight boxes get treated like other lightweight boxes. Which is to say, they generally don't mean to be rough to them -- but there are potholes in the roads, sometimes the truck swerves or the airplane hit turbulence, conveyor belts drop things, and after you've seen the ten-thousandth box with the word "FRAGILE" on it (that month), the word loses meaning.

Now. Stick that think into a 40 pound, hard side, corner reinforced case. (Think Anvil.) What now? The shipping gang sees that -- instant respect. Why? Because they know if that thing gets loose in a cargo hold, it'll destroy everything around it. So, it very carefully gets placed and tied down. It tends to go around sort factilities on a cart, not a conveyor. People don't toss it around, since it might kill someone. Plus, if they try, it's in a hard sided, corner reinforced case. There's a lot of protection there.

I know guys who cheerfully hand $1500 Martin acoustics to airlines (!) -- in an anvil case. The guitar comes through just fine, every time.

The ideal answer here is, in fact, an Anvil case. However, that's a little pricey -- esp. for a one time shipment.

T's got the right idea with the crate -- but she should hie off to the hardware store and get some corner iron, as well.

#21 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 15, 2003, 11:21 AM:

Jane, would you believe that it never occurred to me that I could pay someone else to pack it up? That is a fine notion, and I'll keep it in mind for future occasions.

Bob, all points well taken, but I have no faith in the efficacy of writing FRAGILE on packages. I write it anyway; but I pack items for shipping on the assumption that they'll be dropped, squashed, dragged, and left out in the rain.

Graydon, expanding foam was what I first thought of using, but I worried that the residual gases from the curing process might interact badly with the guitar. I'm not sure what it's finished with, so I don't know; I just worry.

(I do know what the Telecaster is finished with: nitrocellulose. The pick guard is purest Bakelite, and there isn't a single Phillips-head screw on the guitar. When Fender says replica, they mean it.)

The top that'll be screwed down is one of the big plywood sheets. If I go for expanding foam, I can either let it harden and then trim it flat, or lay out newspapers, squirt a generous amount of foam around the guitar, then slap on the lid and start screwing it down while the foam is still expanding.

The trick I know for making extraction easier is to squirt in a first layer of foam and lay some lightweight plastic sheeting on top of it. Then you press your payload down into that, lay another sheet of plastic on top, and finish foaming it in. To unpack, you pull the two halves of the foam apart along the discontinuity.

Robert: What can I say? You've got me sussed. Yes, it's an interesting problem. I'll grant that corrugation might have been enough, but I have fond memories of that guitar, and I have no faith that someone wouldn't put grossly unequal loads on opposite short ends of its carton. Performers are touchy little critters. You don't want to give them any more excuses to act up.

Besides, this one has such a pretty finish: sunburst tinting and that deep Fender gloss, all original and in V.G. condition. (See more photos here.) Insurance or not, I'd hate to see it get munched.

Congratulations on the Peavey. Got an amp yet?

#22 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 15, 2003, 11:32 AM:

Erik: I hadn't thought about the "this package can kill you" angle. Naturally, I like it a lot. Should I go to the trouble of wrapping cardboard around the crate, or leave it bare wood for the additional deterrence value of splinters and metal edges?

Corner iron's a definite idea. I have to go to Home Depot anyway. On the other hand, I'm trying to stay under FedEx's weight limits.

Hardware good.

#23 ::: Erik V. Olson ::: (view all by) ::: January 15, 2003, 02:24 PM:

No. Cover the splinters. Don't annoy the people hauling your package! You want it to be easy to deal with -- just large and lethal if ignored.

As to the foam trick. Get a few hunk of solid, easy to carve foam. You'll need one long, thing one, and one flat, square one. Quickly carve up a "guitar". Make sure it's a little larger than the guitar you are shipping.

Then, wrap that in plastic. Use a large sheet of posterboard to create two halves. Now, you've got a guitar mold!

Mold your expanding foam pieces.

(Or, check your local shipping supply store for the very cool expanding foam in a sack packaging inserts.)

#24 ::: Graydon ::: (view all by) ::: January 15, 2003, 03:14 PM:

Worry about the guitar finish is why the three layers of plastic; ureaformaldehyde is bad stuff, but it won't walk through polyethelyne (it would otherwise come through the vapour barriers in houses and have a very different set of hazmat handling requirements) so I figure triple bagging leaves a safe guitar.

#25 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 15, 2003, 05:04 PM:

By the way, most of the experienced advice I've been able to find says that one should not loosen the strings, or if one does, only a half step or so. This makes sense, particularly with a floating bridge arrangement like the Performer's.

#26 ::: Jordin Kare ::: (view all by) ::: January 15, 2003, 11:29 PM:

Gary Anderson, a Los Angeles-area filker who passed away a few years ago, used to fly a lot on business and take his 12-string guitar with him. He built himself a wooden case along the lines Teresa describes, but trapezoidal and with nice lining, hinges and latches, handles, etc. since it was a permanent case. It survived years of airline baggage handlers. Damn thing must have weighed 50 lbs empty, but Gary was amazingly strong and it didn't seem to inconvenience him. (He used to do event setup at cons, and would describe himself as "Strong like bull. Smart like tractor." Or was it the other way around?)

>Erik: I hadn't thought about the "this package can kill you" angle. Naturally, I like it a lot."

On that note, I bought a Museum Replicas broadsword some years back at a con in Atlanta, and when I put it in my suitcase it was about 6 inches too long to fit. Even in those days, I didn't think I could take a broadsword as carryon luggage. It wasn't sharpened, though, so I wrapped and taped several layers of cardboard around it and left the wrapped tip sticking out.

When I checked the bag, the counter agent asked if I wasn't worried about whatever was sticking out getting broken off. Since Museum Replicas makes their swords out of *very* tough steel (they demonstrate this by bending them into 30-degree arcs; they spring right back) I said, "No, but it may break anything else it runs into." She didn't seem to have any problem with that, and took the bag with no further questions....

#27 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 08:05 AM:

Yesterday, at Home Depot:

TNH: Hello, I have a woodworking project I'm planning to build really badly, so can you tell me the name of some kind of glue that'll stick it together in all the places I missed, and sort of fill in the holes and gaps?

EMPLOYEE: Er, you want Liquid Nails, three aisles over in the Paint Department ...

I'm not actually planning to build the thing badly, but I couldn't remember the name of the construction adhesive I wanted. My description was the fastest way I could elicit it; and why not give the guy a story to tell later?

#28 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 02:53 PM:

Did you find it? What was it called?

There used to be something called Plastic Wood. More useful for gap-filling than sticking together, though, so it may not be what you were looking for.

#29 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 02:54 PM:

Argh. Liquid Nails. Somehow my brain gapped over that.

#30 ::: Josh ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 04:23 PM:

Okay, this post got me thinking about finally learning to play guitar, and this seems as good a place to ask as anywhere else, so... Anybody have any advice for someone who's interested in learning to play? (Including, but not limited to, how much to budget for a starter guitar, and whether to start with lessons or not.)

#31 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 05:26 PM:

Well, it's hard to answer without a little more information. I started when I was 11. I began with five months of weekly lessons, at the end of which I could read reasonably simple musical notation and knew all the basic chords. Mind you, while taking those lessons, I was also picking up a lot by looking at sheet music for contemporary songs, like a book of Beatles songs I had, all of which had chord diagrams right alongside the treble-clef notation. You learn a lot of chords that way.

My first guitar was the classic terrible first guitar, a Sears three-quarter-sized "Silvertone" with egg-slicer strings. It's long gone. Before my first year was out, my parents bought be a rather nice Yamaha classical guitar, which I still have, although its surface consists of more dings than varnish these days. It sounds pretty mellow, as wooden instruments that have been played for 33 years often do.

You can certainly get playable acoustic guitars for as little as $100-$200 if you shop used instrument shops or eBay with the help of someone who knows what they're doing. Likewise, on the solid-body electric side, there are reasonable beginners' models available in that range. There's also a lot of crap. Here's a quite decent FAQ on deciding on and shopping for a first guitar.

#32 ::: Chip Hitchcock ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 06:28 PM:

re protection for traveling guitars: when Cherryh was GoH at Boskone (1987), I noticed she was traveling with a smallish suitcase and something like a medium-size footlocker (~12" thick) for her 12-string. A big enough case can have enough room for padding that it doesn't have to be monstrously heavy, but it's not for a one-time use (e.g. shipping) -- I didn't even ask what it cost.
And then there are the travelers who can't afford this; the Stan Rogers songbook has a clipping about him being the latest person to damn Air Canada's handling -- he saw his case go tumbling end-over-end out of the cargo hold of his plane. A squared-off case of any size is less likely to keep moving when pushed.
In the basement of most major symphony halls you'll see several things that look like coffin liners for small dinosaurs; bass viols are so big that even a lightly-padded case commands respect. They're also much less dense than electric guitars, so they don't hit the sides of their cases as hard in a sudden stop.

I envy Patrick's babelfish ear; I'm a decent sightsinger but not nearly as good at picking music out of thin air.

#33 ::: Kevin J. Maroney ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 06:53 PM:

I don't know why it took me so long to think of this solution, but: Teresa, did you ask the recipient if he either had a transport case for the guitar or wanted to buy one at retail cost?

#34 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 16, 2003, 07:59 PM:

I don't know. Probably because it would have felt a little weird -- like we were holding him for further ransom after he'd paid all that money for the guitar. Besides, the box is looking nice, in a hell-for-stout kind of way.

(Whoops. Patrick just tripped on one of my pipe clamps. Gotta get this finished and out of the living room.)

#35 ::: Erik V. Olson ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2003, 09:32 AM:

PNH: My first guitar was the classic terrible first guitar, a Sears three-quarter-sized "Silvertone" with egg-slicer strings. It's long gone.

A shame -- the Silvertone has become a favorite of blues slide players. (Why slide? "Egg-Slicer Strings," remember?)

#36 ::: Lenny Bailes ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2003, 02:08 PM:

The Sears Silvertone is legendary (to me, at least) for being the guitar that Robbie Robertson picked up on an hour's notice and played at the 1968 Woodie Guthrie Memorial Concert in NYC, in a band that included Dylan and the other members of the Hawks. His characteristic wailing solos with it can be heard on "Dear Mrs. Roosevelt" and a couple of other songs from that concert that were eventually released on CD.

#37 ::: Janice ::: (view all by) ::: January 17, 2003, 03:22 PM:

My first Celtic harp came to GA from PA via UPS. It was inside its soft case, wrapped in bubble foam, and had a large corrugated cardboard box built around it. It survived quite well.

On the Harplist, folks who ship harps often build wooden containers like Teresa is describing. This doesn't keep the occasional forklift from punching through the wooden crate, but it does go a long way to protecting against plain old ham-handed handlers.

Also, the prevailing wisdom from travelling harpers is that "Fragile" signs are laughed at by package and luggage handlers. Over-engineering shipping containers seems to be the best idea.

Janice in GA

#38 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: January 18, 2003, 07:34 PM:

I'm sure we'd all love to hear about the outcome of this project, as well as see any pictures of the work in progress.

#39 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2003, 05:08 PM:

Construction neep alert:

The crate was mailed this morning. I bundled the guitar up in clear plastic leaf bags and bought a can of polyurethane foam, but wound up not using the foam because I was doing so well with cut-down sheets of styrofoam.

Two sheets went into the bottom of the case, and two more were used to top it off. I took the rasping surface from my forming tool and used it to scrape out a shallow crater in one of the top sheets, to better accommodate the bridge and control knobs. (This was after I'd wrapped the guitar in plastic sheeting and bubble wrap.)

This left two and a half inches of clearance to fill. I cut the remaining styrofoam sheets into long strips 2.5" wide, and started cutting them to length and setting them on edge around the guitar. My supply of styrofoam filled all the available space with just a few scraps left over. When we finished screwing down the lid, you could tip the thing end-over-end and not hear the slightest shifting or rattling.

Final stats: 48" x 17" x 6". Two sheets of 15/32" plywood. Four pieces of two-by-six. Twelve long screws and 64 shorter ones. Four hunks of corner iron fastened with 28 common nails. Six sheets of 48" x 13.75" styrofoam. Bubble wrap. Clear plastic leaf bags. Various topical applications of Liquid Nails and 3M aerosol adhesive. Total weight including guitar, 53 pounds.

#40 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: January 22, 2003, 03:02 AM:

I like the use of styrofoam rather than depending on foam-in-place, seems like a lot more control of the final construction. You wouldn't have been able to check for voids in the foam, etc..

How much did just the guitar weigh?

Now that the thing's shipped but the final outcome not recorded, I'll note that I always believed you'd do it right and have every confidence in safe delivery. Though I was relieved when Erik told you not to make the package too aggressive so that I didn't have to be a naysayer again. Nothing like a handful of splinters to set a man's mind to Forklift Polo...

Please do report on any further details of safe delivery, astounded reactions of recipient, and so forth.

God Bless This Crate, And All Who Sail In Her!

#41 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2003, 08:51 AM:

The Performer has come safe into harbor, and our hitherto laconic purchaser is suddenly effusive: The packaging is wonderful! It couldn't have been safer! And the guitar is perfect!

And so on. From the sound of it, the buyer instantly bonded with the guitar. The Fender Performer, which until now had been an "it", is suddenly "she", and much praised for the quality of its play. I'd wondered at the tight-lipped tone of the earlier communications, but now I think it was the inarticulacy of great desire, like Neil when he won the Hugo.

And so in the end it all comes out like one of those complex plotty romances, where everyone winds up happy with the one that suits them best. Yay for eBay, yay for grassroots commerce.

#42 ::: Bob Webber ::: (view all by) ::: January 24, 2003, 04:48 PM:

Well done, and hurrah!

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