I`m Woodworker Of The Year 2005

[luthier49]

Just recieved a letter Thursday morning informing me that I`m a winner in the Woodworker Of the Year 2005 contest in the Autumn Special edition (2005) of Practical Woodworking. My entry was the photos below, an F5 style mandolin. I won the small work catagory of the competition. My prize is £500 worth of Ryobi power tools. Mark Ramuz the group editor of Woodworker magazine has also asked if I would like to write an article for the mag about this entry. I`ll get in touch with him on the blower later today and discuss it with him. Never written a article for a mag before, anyone else on the forum have any experience of this kind ? If there is, could do with some advice.

 

[Gill]

You're a worthy winner, Bob. Well done!

=D> =D> =D>

Gill

 

[luthier49]

Thank you very much Gill. I thought I was the only here this time of the morning. A lot of night owls about.

 

[Waka]

Bob

Congrats

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Bob

Congratulations, you're a worthy winner.

Cheers
Neil

 

[martyn2]

well done looks lovely what dose it sound like

=D> =D>

 

[dedee]

Very Well Done. Whatcha gonna spend the prize on?


Andy

ps do some people never sleep around here?

 

[Adam]

Never written a article for a mag before, anyone else on the forum have any experience of this kind ? If there is, could do with some advice.

Well done! I believe a few people here have written articles, Waterhead37, Steve Maskery, Ian Dalziel, myself. If I'm honest, have a chat with them on the phone, and whatever you write they will probably use as a template and extensively edit it so don't worry too much. The main thing is to get some words down, and they will worry about the rest of it later.

Adam

 

[AndyBoyd]

What a nice mandolin, stunning work. many congratulations.

Can you play? - my favourite mandolin piece is That's the Way by Led Zeppelin, simple to play and a beautiful melody.

 

[Neil]

I believe a few people here have written articles, Waterhead37, Steve Maskery, Ian Dalziel, myself.

He he, are you trying to upset Philly there Adam? :lol:

Neil

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Articles, luthier, are like any other form of written communication. They need a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning says what you're going to say. The middle says it, and the end rounds the story out and concludes it. In other words you need to tell an interesting story that leads the reader through and keeps their attention from beginning to end.

An element that matters greatly to magazine editors is good quality images, particularly photographs which need to be well lit with white and colour balancing requirements carefully thought of. I use a high quality 20+ year old 35 mm format SLR camera with interchangeable lenses and the ability to go fully manual for complete control. Prints go on gloss 150 mm X 100 paper which suits magazine needs well.

Nowadays I'm also working in the digital format and here the same basic rules of photography apply, but there are other essentials to be aware of: your camera needs to be at its highest recording resolution and quality settings. Prints from digital images works best from 300 DPI images at 1600 pixels or above on the long edge settings. Original full size digital images should be stored on your file untinkered with so that the magazine can do their own fiddling, but images you adjust for illustrating your article can be fiddled with for size, colour balance, etc. Your images looked good on my monitor at this end so you've probably got the photography thing mostly nailed.

It's always helpful to magazine editors and their readership if you have good images of the piece being made, and I know from experience that lighting workshop situations for photography can be tricky. I use lots of slave flashes and things like reflective umbrellas and tricks such as bouncing the flash off white surfaces to disperse the light to reduce harsh shadows. Lots of lights I find will overpower the green cast that fluorescent tubes give to traditional print images, and you can use a slower film with smaller aperture settings and faster shutter speeds which gives greater field depth, reduced film noise and better quality images.

That'll do for now. Slainte.

 

[srs]

Very nice piece of work, did you have much trouble bending the tight scroll?

Simon

 

[Chris Knight]

Bob,
Many congratulations - a well deserved win I think.

 

[humanfish]

well done Bob
looks very much deserved
b_h

 

[Alf]

Articles, luthier, are like any other form of written communication.

Expect they're always in danger of being edited out of all recognition :lol:

Well done, Bob. It's an excellent piece of craftmanship and the award is well deserved. =D>

Cheers, Alf

 

[dickm]

Brilliant piece of work, Luthier.
Only one criticism - if you are going to photograph things for use in mag articles, you'll have to finish them less well. The perfect reflection of the workshop windows detracts from the figuring

 

[shirehorseman]

Hi Bob,
Congratulations. =D>
You've done a truly wonderful job there, the 1st prize is well deserved. They are great photo's too. Gorleston eh? I went to Stalham Secondry Modern, just up the road from you.
Well done again Bob. =D> =D>
Regards.
Trev

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Expect they're always in danger of being edited out of all recognition. Cheers, Alf

Yes Alf. Some editors (like woodworkers) are real hack merchants, ha, ha. Luckily nowadays the editors I work with tend to mess with my tinkling pearls of wisdom (sic) very little and print pretty much as they find it.

In the past I've had an article or two so badly hacked by an over-zealous editor that it was turned into verbal diarrheoa--- with vomit--- all mixed with the ubiquitous carrots, ha, ha-- ha, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[Jake]

Expect they're always in danger of being edited out of all recognition :lol:

Oh well, as long as you know what to except!

 

[luthier49]

Thanks for all the lovely comments. To answer some of your questions, I don`t play mandolin but I did learn some chords to strum and I`m pleased to say the mando sounds good. I personally play the classical guitar ( which I built myself, of course, ) and I find the mandolin fingerboard too small for my pork sausage fingers anyway. srs, yes I did find bending the sides at the scroll difficult. I used an electric luthiers bending iron for this, and you have to be careful not to wet the curly maple too much or it can split. This did happen to me but was easily remedied by brushing a little Titebond glue in the split and clamping. When dry carry on with the bending. The mend ended up invisible. About the mag article, what I`m worried about is if they want the article to be a project. I don`t think It`s possible to describe the building of this instrument in one article or even two. A guitar would be easier but these instruments are far more involved, and much more difficult to make than even a steel string acoustic guitar. If they want a more general article I can accomadate. What tools am I going to get ? Oh let me see, I don`t have a belt sander so that could be on the list. And a biscuit joiner is another tool I don`t have. I don`t know if Ryobi do an ossilating spindle sander, I`d love to have one of those, they are also very useful in luthiery as well.