Bryan Parris Parris Guitars
Forum Replies Created
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It’s been years, but I bought mine online from a kite supplier called “funwithwind” funwithwind.com. I don’t see that they have the rods in stock anymore. Mine were 48″ black 3/16″ rod and I bought the black rubber tips for them as well. Cut them to the size I needed.
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This place has done a few banjo restorations for a friend of mine.
https://nashvilleplatingservice.com/
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This is helpful! Thank you
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I have insurance from a local broker and it’s written through Donegal. I have general liability, and a property insurance to cover all of our equipment (more than average because it covers the Plek machine). Also another called Bailee’s coverage that covers the instruments in my care.
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Thanks y’all. You talked me out of it! 😂
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when I worked that way, I was off work on Fridays, so that and at least half of saturday were my shop days. I made it fun, Called “fix-it Fridays.” I don’t have the experience of building but have always been a repairman. I had to learn to only take stuff In I wanted. Said no to a lot of things back then.
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Perfect! I bought the expansion kit a while back and this is just what I need. Thank you.
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It could be a bad string, but 34″ low B strings can be a pain. Not sure if it would fix your exact problem, but one thing I’ve learned helps is increasing the nut break angle with a string retainer. I like these Stealth string retainers from Fender. https://www.fender.com/en-US/parts/string-guides-nuts/stealth-bass-string-retainer/0078972049.html?
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I’m not in your county so I’m not sure, but typically this has to do with tangible personal property that you use for the operation of your business. I have to do this and have to assign a value to benches, tools, etc. I get a form every year asking me to add stuff, but there is a depreciation schedule for older items listed in previous years.
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All my stickers have come from Sticker Mule. They usually send a bottle of hot sauce with the stickers, which I also think is great. 🙂
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I have agreements with all of those, but I only stock D’addario and Baggs. I do really, really well with LR Baggs. They do great marketing and they allow me to sell online (unlike K&K). Fishman, I took on because of their Fluence pickups, which are hugely popular right now. I don’t stock them yet, but might. Right now, I order on demand. D’addario are the only strings I keep in stock. I really don’t like retail, but I try to keep stuff I use. I also have merchant accounts for small electronic parts. CE Distribution and WD music are two great companies to link up with. I’m sure there are more great ones, but those are ones I like and have had great experience with.
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I think you would probably rub the decal off if you aren’t careful. I use a lot of wipe on poly, but have learned to use spray poly on the headstocks if there is a decal. I use Minwax fast-drying poly under and over the decal. You can use wipe on everywhere else…and I also like the minwax wipe on. It’s my secret weapon! I keep satin and gloss on hand
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Paul,
It’s in the middle of our workday tomorrow so I am going to try to join the call. I’ll speak up if I’m there and I’m happy to share what we’ve learned. I don’t have an ES2 in the shop currently! But I do have our shop 214 we’ve installed the GO system in. The last one we did was a conversion from ES1 and it worked great, too.
Bryan
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Great! I’ve installed the three ES2 replacements now and the’ve gotten rave reviews from our customers. Great work, Paul.
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I’ve built a lot of websites and my preference is WordPress. You’ll need to purchase hosting (you can get that through Godaddy if you want, but there are cheaper options. I use Bluehost) I use Cpanel accounts and install wordpress. Then I go to a site like themeforest and find a theme I like…since the ones built into wordpress are kinda lame. Get some good photography and you can make most any theme look good. I used a theme called Divi for my site at parrisguitars.com
Hope this helps!
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Like a lot of us, I started working on my own guitars, until I ran out of stuff to work on and needed money for more stuff! 🙂
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We had one like that last week. It was a Low B string, though. One of my techs kept moving the saddle forward and it ‘kind of’ intonated on the Peterson, but it looked weird with the saddle so far forward. My usual process for fixing this also worked this time: I move the saddle to where I think it SHOULD go and start over. Usually the intonation point is there close to where I think it looks right…basically I move it back to my starting point. I make sure to stretch the string again. I also intonate basses by checking the 5th fret, 12th fret, and 17th fret. Sometimes that gives you a clue of what’s going on. It’s interesting to see how it can seem right at the 12th, but way off at other frets.
If none of that works, I’ll change the string and start over.
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Joe,
It sounds like you know A LOT more than I did when I started my business. I started it as a side hustle and worked another job during the day, growing skills on nights and weekends and taking on bigger jobs as I got better. As my reputation grew, so did my business. It took a long time before I took the leap to full-time, and then longer to having employees…but it worked. If this is something you want to do, you can! There are a lot of places to get training…you’re in one right now. 🙂
I don’t know how to tell you to handle that with your current job, but IMO It doesn’t sound like you’ll get the opportunities there you’re looking for. If those guys are your friends you’ll have to walk that path carefully.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do!
Bryan
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Hey Paul! Good to see you here.
Y’all…gotta say. The pickups are great. We are stocking the conversion kit for the Taylor ES2 and installed the first one last week. It is a clean, direct retrofit. I’m excited to be able to offer it to our customers.
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Well. what my CPA told me was NEVER have a hobby. Always be a business if you’re doing things for money. Keep track of your income and your expenses. Whether you do an LLC or not is kinda up to your and your accountant, but at bare minimum, call it a business and do a Schedule C on your taxes. You are doing business, so you should benefit from your business income/expense.
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Does anyone else remember Stewmac selling a tool for this years ago? I recall seeing it but never bought one. It kind of slipped over the post and provided some leverage to bend it.
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Congratulations on the big step! I took work in at my house for ten years until I decided I wanted to grow and needed employees. I think for a single looth shop, a big thing is figuring out what you want to specialize in, what you’re comfortable with, and promote that. I did only setups, nuts and saddles at first, then electronics, then bigger repairs as they came along. Like Ian said, don’t be afraid to say no. People will most often respect your honesty if you’re not comfy with a project. It was a long time before I felt confident with complex repairs.
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Thanks. This was the 2nd break on this one. I glued it 5 years ago when it was just a hairline crack but either I didn’t get enough glue in there or it fell again and broke in the same place. The crack was opened up again. This was the best repair option this time. It was kinda fun. 🙂
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I’m terrible about taking process pics, but Ian has a YouTube video about it and we followed his process exactly. I used one of Stewmac’s mahogany neck bland for the wood. All rattle can. I used lacquer and matching grain filler from Oxford (Canada) and it was great. Really nice colors and the lacquer sprays smooth.
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I had a defective Fluence humbucker once. It worked but was permanently in “voice 2”. Fishman replaced it with a new one.
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My main offerings are the Anthem, Anthem SL, Element VTC, and M1 Active. But the Anthem outsells them all by far. There are others that sound great, though: The HiFi duet is new and sound great, the Session VTC is really interesting and I’ve seen Gibson using it. I’m not a fan of the Lyric, but some swear by it.
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that does sound like a sticky wicket. 🙂
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I have these same ones. I use two. I don’t use a variable control. Just plug them in.
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Hey Ian. I was just trying to save time and labor. I had one of my guys make one. The string spacing was wider than usual. It’s a 12 fret slot head with a wide neck.
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Yeah I checked with TJ. He only makes them for 20’s 30’s and 40’s
