Greetings from the Macica Workshop!  Hope you all are enjoying your summer thus far…  I have been enjoying using my donkey Annie to cultivate our garden this year… As well as putting her to work with collecting our hay that my boys and I have been cutting with our scythes in our back field….

Workshop News….

 I have just recently returned from Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival 2016. We had a great festival this year and I enjoyed visiting with all who came to the booth. The photo above is from the Luthier Workshop where some local musicians played some songs with our handcrafted instruments….  Thanks guys!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfMpIMIRy-A  (Here is a video of the above photo)

 As always, I enjoyed working/talking with the other Luthiers at the festival.  Here is a photo of my friend Steve Kovacik with Kovacik Guitars… http://guitar-repair.com/

Here are some more photos of the activity around the booth….

Lots of great pickin! Thanks to the Grey Fox staff.  See you next year!

As, some of you know, I have been teaching some instrument building classes through the Northeast Woodworkers Association….  They are a great group of guys over there and recently had their annual summer picnic….

They had some great food to eat as well as some fun activities for both adults and children….

They had a soap carving table…

A few wood plane competitions like planing the thinnest wood curl……(my son Ian giving it a try in this photo)

And of course a water balloon throwing contest!…..  Thanks NWA for putting on a great summer picnic and for the opportunity to teach instrument building classes through your organization.

Other shop news:

I am in process of making a group of Macica guitars…..  I have recently been working on the rosettes  for these guitars….

As well as the sides…

As a reminder…

Those interested in building their own guitar…..  Fall is coming up quickly and I will be giving a 1-day orientation class on Sunday, August 21 for the upcoming Guitar Building Intensive Class that will begin September 27th at Maplewood Center for Common Craft.….     If you are interested, you may register through their website at:

http://www.maplewoodcraft.com/classes/

I also will be keeping you posted on other instrument building classes to begin in the near future…

Guitar Building: Capital Region Arts Center

Mandolin Building:  Northeast Woodworkers Association

Until next time,

Martin