New York March NYC Meet-Up

[Calzone]

Sounds good, have fun with Snakehead!

Bob,

Right now filing stainless steel 1/16 inch thick sheet to make a control plate is not so much fun.

There is this boutique maker of bridges, that utilizes stainless steel for the bridge plate. A world of difference from the stamped Fender bridges.

This control plate will match the Callaham hardware. I'm at the point where I have a perfect rectangle about the size of a business card. I'll be drilling holes and putting a radius on the corners next.

I'm doing a "Jacko" and leaving off the pick guard. It will have a cool look.

Cal

 

[Range-rover]

Bob,

Right now filing stainless steel 1/16 inch thick sheet to make a control plate is not so much fun.

There is this boutique maker of bridges, that utilizes stainless steel for the bridge plate. A world of difference from the stamped Fender bridges.

This control plate will match the Callaham hardware. I'm at the point where I have a perfect rectangle about the size of a business card. I'll be drilling holes and putting a radius on the corners next.

I'm doing a "Jacko" and leaving off the pick guard. It will have a cool look.

Cal

I think the old ones were steel and magnetic which made more of that
great Tele sound, I have a early 60's bridge I got that when they had a
guitar show in a Church and east 12th street years ago, I paid about
$70.00 for it now worth a bit more. Once I feel better I'll try to make
another Tele again.

 

[Calzone]

I think the old ones were steel and magnetic which made more of that
great Tele sound, I have a early 60's bridge I got that when they had a
guitar show in a Church and east 12th street years ago, I paid about
$70.00 for it now worth a bit more. Once I feel better I'll try to make
another Tele again.

Bob,

The steel bridge is part of that sound, but also sometimes a source of microphonics and also not so great at intonation.

I use to go to that Church basement Guitar Show every year. Did you know that the Guitar Show was to raise money for kids with aids?

One year I worked my friend's booth. He and his dad had a vintage shop and sold and dealt mostly vintage Fenders. One year when the Japanese were going through "Strat-mania" they had about 30 custom color strats from the 50's and 60's. It was obscene.

Cal

 

[Nokton48]

Hey Cal,

Latest from the "bubble" Ordering very retro 1960s FOBA 220V studio lighting from Germany 🙂

8x10 to 5x7 Norma Special Bellows 1 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Norma Special Bellows arrived from the UK today. Goes 8x10 to 5x7, then the regular 5x7 to 4x5. Very Very stable.

This combo is in the original Norma catalog. Shown with my 360 Componon enlarging lens. Mounted to the Norma board with a Durst enlarger "mounting cup" on the back. Repair Guru Ken Ruth suggested to me that I get all the Componons, that was a great idea. They were cheap at the time and quite usuable.

The tripod is a FOBA C40 which is also in the original Norma catalog for use with the 8x10 Norma.

 

[Calzone]

Hey Cal,

Latest from the "bubble" Ordering very retro 1960s FOBA 220V studio lighting from Germany 🙂

8x10 to 5x7 Norma Special Bellows 1 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Norma Special Bellows arrived from the UK today. Goes 8x10 to 5x7, then the regular 5x7 to 4x5. Very Very stable.

This combo is in the original Norma catalog. Shown with my 360 Componon enlarging lens. Mounted to the Norma board with a Durst enlarger "mounting cup" on the back. Repair Guru Ken Ruth suggested to me that I get all the Componons, that was a great idea. They were cheap at the time and quite usuable.

The tripod is a FOBA C40 which is also in the original Norma catalog for use with the 8x10 Norma.

Devil Dan,

Devil Christian only goes 5x7 with a Linhof. Years ago I was bragging about my Fuji GL690 and having a "big rangefinder" then Christian shows up with a Linhof to make me humble. It was pretty close to the time I first met him.

So I'm looking into a small house, one level in the middle of town. I'll have city sewer so I'll finally have a basic darkroom, but nothing like yours.

Been consulting with Devil Christian, and he thinks a small house is a a mucho good idea. He also suggests possibly renting or leasing commercial space if it is cheap. Hmmm...

Looking forward to retiring. It would be a great favor if they offered me some crazy package to retire early.

I'm still a skinny bitch, and so far today I did 2 sets of 9 chin-ups. They say if you can do ten you are an animal of sorts, so I'm pretty close to being that too.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Bob,

Stewart McDonald is closing out of their black 1964 Fender 6G15 reverb kit. While not inexpensive I wish I had the extra money to buy a kit, but I can't chase every girl in town as they say. The real deal vintage ones sell for crazy money, and for the sound this is one of the best reverbs available.

All my amps don't have reverb, so this is on my list.

Last night I worked on fitting the neck. The neck heal had to be shaped and neck pocket opened up. I imaging when I spray lacquer on the heal that this will make the neck joint to the body tighter for mechanical coupling.

So a lot of work, a lot of time, and of course lots of obsessive thinking. Anyways this is what I do. Calzone factor is always a bit extreme and over the top. I have a reputation, and also think of my "branding." LOL.

The body with the neck mounted with tuners weighs 6 1/2 pounds so I figure it will weigh in at least at 7 1/2 pounds if not 8 pounds. The tap tone on this guitar and body is something. The neck is quarter sawn and the tap tone on the neck efficiently gets transfered into the body almost like rapping a tuning fork.

Today I spent the morning drilling holes into the business card sized stainless steel plate. Not so easy, but I brought some of my centering drills from home to have accuracy. What is left to do is round the four corners, then I'll polish and buff.

I'm placing orders for parts.

Back on topic, this guitar is kinda like my Leica M6 with TA Rapidgrip, and TA Rapidwinder in that it is heavy and weaponized. Anyways "Worm" the Snakehead Telecaster is becoming a "Monster."

Cal

 

[Nokton48]

They offered me the money and I took it. No regrets at all.

Yes a small house has many advantages. We are only 1800 square feet, not counting full basement with extra course ceiling. Bought with the idea of renovating into usuable work space in the future. Perfect for our uses and some storage. Four bedrooms 2 1/2 baths is plenty (really more than we need now) and less to clean. Beautiful outdoor setting private and very relaxing. Go for it.

So a European looking/styled retro 1960s studio/vibe. Think Austin Powers Baby!

 

[Calzone]

Gold is over $2050.00 an ounce.

A newsletter I get suggests that the FED with all the printing and handing out of money in an exaggerated way is not so far from the start of UBI (Universal Basic Income).

Lots of people are bidding up gold thinking that inflation is a coming.

Seems urgent to secure a home very soon because real estate, tangible assets, and hard assets are good to preserve wealth. Personally I'm not so keen on paper assets.

As I say, "The money has to come from somewhere," and if the FED continues to print money to keep things going which leads to something has to give.

As a prelude the FED is already saying it will let inflation get some traction to balance and offset the long period of low inflation. In a way they are making a policy to enforce "regression-to-the-mean."

In a recession there is excess capacity this normally creates deflation. In other words excess capacity=deflation, but are prices dropping? Hmmm...

This is suppose to be the steepest drop in economic in history, but have prices dropped?

Let's see...

Cal

 

[Range-rover]

Bob,

Stewart McDonald is closing out of their black 1964 Fender 6G15 reverb kit. While not inexpensive I wish I had the extra money to buy a kit, but I can't chase every girl in town as they say. The real deal vintage ones sell for crazy money, and for the sound this is one of the best reverbs available.

All my amps don't have reverb, so this is on my list.

Last night I worked on fitting the neck. The neck heal had to be shaped and neck pocket opened up. I imaging when I spray lacquer on the heal that this will make the neck joint to the body tighter for mechanical coupling.

So a lot of work, a lot of time, and of course lots of obsessive thinking. Anyways this is what I do. Calzone factor is always a bit extreme and over the top. I have a reputation, and also think of my "branding." LOL.

The body with the neck mounted with tuners weighs 6 1/2 pounds so I figure it will weigh in at least at 7 1/2 pounds if not 8 pounds. The tap tone on this guitar and body is something. The neck is quarter sawn and the tap tone on the neck efficiently gets transfered into the body almost like rapping a tuning fork.

Today I spent the morning drilling holes into the business card sized stainless steel plate. Not so easy, but I brought some of my centering drills from home to have accuracy. What is left to do is round the four corners, then I'll polish and buff.

I'm placing orders for parts.

Back on topic, this guitar is kinda like my Leica M6 with TA Rapidgrip, and TA Rapidwinder in that it is heavy and weaponized. Anyways "Worm" the Snakehead Telecaster is becoming a "Monster."

Cal

Cool, it's great when you make your own guitars.

 

[Calzone]

They offered me the money and I took it. No regrets at all.

Yes a small house has many advantages. We are only 1800 square feet, not counting full basement with extra course ceiling. Bought with the idea of renovating into usuable work space in the future. Perfect for our uses and some storage. Four bedrooms 2 1/2 baths is plenty (really more than we need now) and less to clean. Beautiful outdoor setting private and very relaxing. Go for it.

So a European looking/styled retro 1960s studio/vibe. Think Austin Powers Baby!

Devil Dan,

Call me a Girlie-Man, but if I pull my hair straight it reaches my naval. I look like a hippie for sure.

We are going even smaller: 2 bedrooms; and one bath. Living is all on one level for when I'm 106 (my extended expected life expectancy). BTW my biological age is 39 even though I'm 62 1/2.

There is a garage sized new shed set in the backyard, it is on a bed of gravel I think to escape taxes instead of a slab, but I want to use this as a She-Shed to keep "Maggie" out of my space, which will be the basement.

Don't tell Maggie, but she is a bit of a disaster.

One of her messes was about 5 years of records that needed to get shredded. I do the maintenance and every year get rid of stuff I no longer need. So image about 30 gallons of paper that needs to get shredded, but since we live in a 650 square foot one-bedroom apartment in Madhattan I get tired of seeing this mess laying around, so I ask if I can help by shredding everything that now is stored in paper shopping bags.

So she bought this inexpensive shredder that if you feed it one or two sheets of paper continuously it eventually goes into thermal overload after 20 minutes or so.

But without thinking Maggie has torn a good amount of the papers into halves, doubling the amount of work effectively; and quarters many of the sheets of paper effectively quadrupling the amount of work, and even some sheets into eights.

So pretty much a simple task is not so simple. "Woman Factor" I say, and I ask myself, "Why do I love crazy women?"

So this gets dragged out over a few days because the cheap shredder is not manly enough to work hard. I discover an envelope that is torn in half, and when I look at the contents I see it is a stack of British Pounds. I search for the other half and I match the serial numbers to make the $238.00 worth of currency whole again.

When I tell "Maggie" about my discovery she gifts me the money.

When I was married, I married a Latina. Pretty much my marriage was like an episode of "I Love Lucy," but it was not funny.

Devil Christian and Joe will tell you that for some reason I draw out the crazies. "It takes one to know one," I say. LOL.

I kinda have an imperative to secure a mortgage while I'm employed. Banks currently don't want any risk. Also with FED Zero Interest Rate Policy, I only see that maintaining Defined Benefit Plans (pensions) can't be done without huge risks because there is no return on bonds, and other asset classes have too much risk to be deemed safe.

If I don't get offered a package this year, perhaps it will be next year (better for me), but eventually I think it has to happen. They call this buying out of pensions and getting rid of the liability "de-risking."

Also under conditions of high or runaway inflation all households, even the wealthy, have to contain and minimize costs.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Cool, it's great when you make your own guitars.

Bob,

I have made guitars from scratch. Also I use to work in a high end guitar shop.

My art school background is helpful, and most of all I have a great set of hands.

Interesting to note that my daughter could write in script and also forge my signature when she was in first grade. The reason the begin to teach script handwriting in the third grade is that most kids don't have the dexterity.

My daughter also was offered a full scholarship to the Warburg Institute in London because of her artistic ability and her creativity. This institute is pretty much like how Cooper Union use to be: if you got acepted you got a free education. It was set up by someone who fled Nazi Germany.

"Worm" the guitar I would say is just assembling a guitar from parts, and not building a guitar, which I consider building from raw materials. Also kinda different that assembling a kit.

Cal

 

[Prest_400]

In a recession there is excess capacity this normally creates deflation. In other words excess capacity=deflation, but are prices dropping? Hmmm...

This is suppose to be the steepest drop in economic in history, but have prices dropped?

Let's see...

Cal

It's quite a strange recession. I am luckily in a decent situation so am not feeling the full fledged effects, and I moved to this country, which has quite some social dampening measures. On the 2nd economic depression of my lifetime, and I am just 25.
It's fun to be cheap, sometimes I get culture shocks with the younger ones who don't grasp what 2008 was to some parts of the world...

Been consulting with Devil Christian, and he thinks a small house is a a mucho good idea. He also suggests possibly renting or leasing commercial space if it is cheap. Hmmm...
Cal

The university here is giving away darkroom material (a whole fully equipped sink) and makes me wish I had a house for that.
Maybe a long shot but I recall that some photographers just owned industrial spaces and made it into their studio. Not recalling the name, but I think you wrote about one in "Bowelry".


With quite a nice commuting time, I've taking to check auction sites and probably may accumulate stuff that goes cheap. Just missed a Nikon F90, auction ended at $3.5 bucks! Damn seller only wrote pick up, and never answered me if he could post. Of course he lived in some boondocks.


BTW, long distance train commuting is quite good. Commuter trains and many exchanges + subway or bus tend to be much more of a chore.

 

[Calzone]

It's quite a strange recession. I am luckily in a decent situation so am not feeling the full fledged effects, and I moved to this country, which has quite some social dampening measures. On the 2nd economic depression of my lifetime, and I am just 25.
It's fun to be cheap, sometimes I get culture shocks with the younger ones who don't grasp what 2008 was to some parts of the world...




The university here is giving away darkroom material (a whole fully equipped sink) and makes me wish I had a house for that.
Maybe a long shot but I recall that some photographers just owned industrial spaces and made it into their studio. Not recalling the name, but I think you wrote about one in "Bowelry".


With quite a nice commuting time, I've taking to check auction sites and probably may accumulate stuff that goes cheap. Just missed a Nikon F90, auction ended at $3.5 bucks! Damn seller only wrote pick up, and never answered me if he could post. Of course he lived in some boondocks.


BTW, long distance train commuting is quite good. Commuter trains and many exchanges + subway or bus tend to be much more of a chore.

Jorde,

In the 70's Soho was an empty warehouse district. Nobody lived there and if you owned a car you avoided parking it there because of breakins. It was a place for the homeless.

But then artists found that they could rent a 2000 square foot raw space with tall ceilings (loft) for $200.00 a month. Initially artists broke the law and decided they would live in these commercially zoned spaces.

Understand that NYC back then was an abandoned city that almost did a Detroit, meaning almost went bankrupt, crime was bad, and pretty much it was a lawless free for all.

The artists built out bathrooms and installed kitchens, even though they were leasing or renting the space. A novel idea of a "fixture fee" was for future renters or leasers to charge the next tenant the costs of the bathroom and kitchen. The idea here is both parties benefited: one got their money back and even could make a profit; the other didn't have to spent the time, money and energy to build out a bathroom and kitchen.

Then came the legal battles when the city tried to evict artists. Then laws changed because the artists proved that they made SoHo a better place. The concession then forward is that the city could regulate, inspect, and control loft conversions.

Next was artists purchased their loft, and had to deal with permits and building codes as lofts became legitimized. To purchase a loft and get the variences you had to be an artist, and this kept out the developers.

I was given the keys to a loft on Broome Street, my mentor's and professor who thought I had what it took to make it big. Ed got something like $30K (this was in the 70's when it was a lot of money) as his fixture fee on his Broome Street loft. This was a rental or lease.

Ed and Claudia bought a loft on Grand street with 20 foot ceilings, and they had it built out while they were away all summer. They gave me the keys to loft sit, keep an eye on things, while a plumber, a carpenter, and and an electrician who was my high school friend did contracted work.

My job was to spackle and paint. My friend Vinnie the electrician got enough work from the plumber and carpenter (both working artists) that he eventually set up his own business.

I saw Vinnie at my 40th year reunion. Vinnie already has retired, and one of his sons now runs that business.

My friend and mentor Ed saw so much potential in me. I'm afraid I let him down and I disappointed him, but poverty was my starting point, and I knew I had to somehow take care of myself.

The time of being care free and creative now lies ahead now that I'm financially secure. All I need to do is retire, then I figure I might have 4 decades ahead of me.

Happy-Happy.

Cal

 

[Phil_F_NM]

Jay Maisel owns an old bank on Bowery. It's famously covered in graffiti.
Phil Forrest

 

[Vince Lupo]

Jay Maisel owns an old bank on Bowery. It's famously covered in graffiti.
Phil Forrest

He sold it in 2015 - someone even made a documentary movie of his move, called ‘Jay Myself’.

 

[Calzone]

Kinda funny how being a photographer extended itself into my life in new ways during the pandemic.

Another part is the so called "Covid 15" meaning weight gain. At my peak I once got up to 160 pounds, still looked lean, but I had a "muffen top." So with less activity and gym time (gym is closed in my building) I shortened my "exposure" to food and shortened my feeding envelope. Some call this form of dieting "intermittent fasting."

Today I weigh 142 and I'm a skinny bitch.

Also I have been cooking a lot more. Did you ever think that good analog photographers also might be really exceptional cooks? Anyways I see that I'm also eating better, eating fresher, and eating more balanced.

Anyways it is sad outside. I saw a news headline of an off duty NYPD cop heading to work getting beat up and hospitalized in Penn Station by a group of teens.

Last night on I saw on TV some dude not wearing a mask getting confronted in California, and somehow it broke out into what I would call a skirmish of sorts. I would not call it a fist fight even because all involved really did not know how to street fight nor how to throw a punch.

What was entertaining though is this lame attempt of a fight.

Cal

 

[Range-rover]

Well I thought the Canon 28mm was going to be delivered today but
there's a delay, oh well.

 

[robert blu]

..
Also I have been cooking a lot more. Did you ever think that good analog photographers also might be really exceptional cooks?

Cal

My wife and I after the lockdown in our country just bought a new oven for our kitchen! This was a GAS attach! I could have bought a new lens...but we preferred that LOL

 

[Calzone]

Robert,

The keys to good health and a long life is diet and exercise.

Cal

 

[Prest_400]

The ones left and coming in as film photographers are a methodical bunch I guess, it also comes up to have folk that have a more patient mindset.

I work in a hipster district and see many film action by way of point and shoots used by 20 year olds. Gonna help a hipsterish 21 yo photo club member to get his feet into the darkroom. Told him, damn just print, you scan the film on a flatbed and it's like doing stupid circles if you never print.

Also my mid 30s boss is vocal about how all the 20 yo kids here are too much into 90s fashion. Curious trend. "I grew up in that time and this clothing was embarassing already then". Seemingly disposable cameras are a thing too. And cassette is back.