This is an example of a customer who asked us if we could make their old Kay Bass sound any better than it did. They had owned the Bass for around 15 years and took it to bluegrass festivals many times. The bass had been adjusted through the years to keep it playable, but now it seemed to have lost much of its power.

I noticed immediately that the bridge was very short. It had to be short in order to get the strings close enough to the neck to make it playable. Take a look at the pictures I took of the original bridge and the new bridge I installed. One way to fix this is a neck reset, which is to remove the neck, cut off some wood from the heel so that it sits at a sharper angle. Since the neck joint was in good condition and the body was stable we decided to install a wedge underneath the finger board. This effectively changed the angle of the neck and allowed us to use a normal-sized bridge, as well as save the customer a lot of money. In the picture set you can see the wedge we made out of maple, the same wood that the neck is made from.

With the new, taller bridge the bass sounded 100% better.

A First-String Luthier

By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 11, 2008

CORK – It started three decades ago with a castoff banjo and a simmering passion for music. Where it will end is anyone’s guess.

For now, Ken Bailey is pleased as punch to be making music and making a living constructing acoustic instruments.

“It’s my business and my hobby,” said Bailey, president of the Central Florida Bluegrass Association.

Bailey, who will turn 51 this month, spent 28 years working at the Publix distribution center in Lakeland. Five years ago, he retreated to the cavernous workshop behind his rural Cork home and became a full-time luthier.

He also repairs acoustic instruments and sells new, high-end American-made banjos, guitars, mandolins and Dobros from his showroom at 1304 E. Baker St., Plant City.

Most of his time is spent in his workshop, where instruments dangle from the rafters, line the walls and rest – innards exposed – on work tables.

“I haven’t run out of anything to do,” he said.

Bailey, who graduated from Plant City High in 1976, was a late bloomer as far as music goes: He didn’t pick up an instrument until college.

That was when a banjo-playing friend from his high school days decided he was more of a Harley guy. A banjo, his friend decided, clashed with his new persona as a tattooed biker. He gave the instrument to Bailey.

“That’s probably the only reason I play banjo. It started the whole thing,” he said.

Bailey began repairing stringed instruments as a hobby about 20 years ago. For the past 10, he has been making banjos. Bailey has since moved on to acoustic guitars.

“It’s a big difference,” he said. “Banjos are relatively easy compared to an acoustic box.”

One of the more unique creations hanging from his rafters is a minstrel gourd banjo he made that is a replica of a pre-Civil War instrument that originated in Africa. A banjo, he said, is no more than a drum with strings.

“First came the African drum. Then came the banjo,” Bailey said.

The gourd banjo, made from a dried gourd with calfskin pulled over it, attached to a maple neck, is something the slaves would build and play from ordinary materials found in the woods, he said.

“One of my customers was really into them and researched them. He brought me a piece of maple and a book with a plan.”

Last year, Bailey took on three students who wanted to learn the tricks of the trade.

Lucien Tender, an engineer for an environmental consulting firm, had been wanting to make his own guitar for some time. The courses he checked into required two to three weeks away from work.

“Who can do that?” he said. “It also sounded like they just gave you a kit to assemble.”

So he and two other Bailey acquaintances started coming to his workshop on Tuesday nights, each crafting a custom guitar.

“We made it up as we went along,” said Bailey, who had to figure out the best way to teach his craft. “I learned a lot about how to move them along a little faster.”

Tender chose to work on a mahogany dreadnought, a large-bodied guitar, which he said he completed “in nine months of Tuesdays.”

On the Friday before Memorial Day, he showed up to string the instrument for the first time, an experience he described as “nerve-racking.”

The anxiety vanished, though, with the first notes that sang from his new guitar.

“I couldn’t have hoped for it to come out any better,” Tender said as he, Bailey and Andy Karpay put the new guitar through its paces in an impromptu jam session featuring Bailey on banjo and Karpay on mandolin.

“That one was just born this morning,” Bailey said of Tender’s guitar. Its first song, a jaunty little bluegrass number called “Grandfather’s Clock.”

Karpay, a member of the bluegrass association, spends a good deal of time jamming in Bailey’s workshop.

“In the 1940s, this would be the barbershop, and I’d be one of the old men hanging around,” Karpay said.

“We’re like cats,” Tender added. “He Bailey feeds us once, and we keep coming around.”

Bailey’s workshop has served as ground zero for regular Wednesday night jams for some time. More recently, the sessions have moved to 7 p.m. Thursdays at Espress Yourself Coffee 101, at 101 E.J. Arden Mays Blvd. in Plant City’s downtown historical district.

Members of the bluegrass association also plan regular outings, such as “Pickin’ in the Park” at Alderman’s Ford Park, plus group barbecues, beach days and picnics.

“You put your donation jar out to pay for the food, and everything works out,” said Tender, who hopes to get together with a Civil War re-enactment group next year.

“That would be a good fit,” he said.

Tender has been playing guitar off and on for 15 years.

“I had the $35 guitar in college,” he said.

He got into bluegrass about a year ago and met Bailey online while shopping for a guitar at his Web site.

“A lot of people find me online,” Bailey said. He also brings his instruments to large music festivals, where he meets musicians.

Bailey’s guitars are played by James King and his bluegrass band and can be heard on Robert Feathers’ album “Just Pickin.’”

Musicians from as far away as England and Kentucky have come to his showroom on Baker Street, where he stocks some 30 custom instruments from Weber, Santa Cruz and other manufacturers.

“There are very few stores that have really expensive acoustic instruments,” Bailey said. The ones he carries range from $1,500 to $6,000.

In addition to selling his own guitars and new instruments from his showroom, repairs supply a steady source of income.

Fixing someone else’s instrument – whether its value is real or sentimental – can be stressful, Bailey said.

“You’ve got to be really careful. If you gouge a hole in the top of a vintage guitar, you can’t really cover it up,” he said.

It’s just as stressful to take a treasured instrument to someone to get it fixed, said Karpay, who entrusts his own instruments to Bailey.

“It’s really hard to hand something like that over,” Karpay said.

Bailey’s goal is to grow his guitar-making business to where he no longer needs the income from repairs.

“One is kind of a distraction from the other,” he said.

“I’d be happy if I could tell everybody I don’t fix anything anymore and just build guitars.”

A LOOK AT LOCAL LUTHIER

Ken Bailey has a showroom at 1304 E. Baker St., Plant City.

For information about Bailey and his musical instruments, call (813) 390-4796.

I finally got around to building myself a guitar. You might think that a guitar shop owner would have a nice instrument to call his own, but I had only built guitars for other people at this point. I have owned many guitars in my life, the last one was a Martin D-28, which I had sold to a friend about 2 years ago. I was in love with the 12 fret design for its good looks and unique voicing as well as the Nick Lucas 13 frets with thier deep body and power clear bass tones. So I combined the 2 designs and gave this guitar a 12 fret neck with an old style pyramid bridge and a dreadnaught depth on the sides. I used a highly figured set of Indian Rosewood to make the body. It has an interesting look, but any highly figured wood, it wanted to curl up and take on odd shapes. Any shaped except what I wanted it to, so I was reluctant to use it on a customers instrument and risk it having a problem, like cracking or warping. I won that battle and it has performed well since I convinced it to become a guitar. I used an average piece of Sitka for the top and braced it all with high quality Adirondack. Adirondack is one of the stiffest spruces, so I can get the strenghth I need while keeping the guitar lightly built inside. A lightly built guitar will give you a very lively tone and you can feel the whole box vibrate when you strum a chord. I used some figured Koa for the binding with black/white purfling and a black/white/black rosette. Its a simple yet elagant way of letting the beauty of the wood speak for itself, without a lot of distacting adornment. I finished the project with a very light coat of varnish. Varnish is a lot more labor intensive than lacquer, but its acoustically superior to any finish that you can use. I am thrilled with how it looks and sounds, and I plan on keeping it forever. I took it to a show this past spring, and of course it was the one Bailey Guitar that everyone wanted to take home. I had to say no, this one is mine. I have since built 2 more for customers. I will feature them both in an upcoming blog.