Rolling Brass

Here Chuck is bending brass for a brass hoop to go under our Dobson style tone ring. The gadget he's using is called a Ring Roller. We do as many steps in-house that we can. The building process includes what seems like thousands of individual steps!

Chuck is pretty good at using his time--when he sets up for a task, he does several at once. This gives us a small element of factory- like efficiency even though each instrument is individually hand made.

Acoustic Music Camp

This cool three-day event is coming up soon! Acoustic Music Camp, here in the Dallas area, begins August 7th. There are workshops in many instruments and also one in songwriting. This is ACM's second year. It is well organized and non-stress. Gerald Jones, director, has included a great line-up of instructors. Check out the website and consider joining in! (Contact Gerald about space first).

You know it's a small family business when......

.....There are jigs for gluing dowel sticks in the shop bathroom
.....Children wander in and out of the shop on various missions
.....Family secrets and trade secrets are one and the same
.....When you need a model for a special inlay project, the kids come to mind first
.....When there's a Star Wars action figure behind a drill press
.....Toys are lined up on the work bench to be repaired for your kids and the kids next door
.....When the most creative planning work is done late at night in the bedroom




and when your EIGHT year old is put to work cleaning the hardware!

Ovilla Vintage Inlay

My favorite inlays are the Ovilla ones---both of them. Shown here is our vintage Ovilla inlay, showing moon and stars. You may have seen our other inlay--a lady sitting in the moon, still available in the "Original" model. Both make me smile! Our Ovilla, wooden tone ring, model is named after our home town here in Texas. Ovilla is pronounced with the L's--Oh-vill-ah. It's mostly residential and quiet here. One small claim to fame is the town center was formerly the "on location" site for filming part of the TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger". Our Ovilla was the Indian Reservation.

Red Diamond Mandolin

Our Nate is selling his Red Diamond Mandolin--reluctantly. In case you've never seen one of these beauties built by Don MacRostie, here are the photos. His new custom five string fiddle has taken top spot and the mandolin has to go.

If you know of someone in the market, this one is available. They go up in value steadily and there is a waiting list for them.

Nate received good advice several years ago, when another luthier told him that these mandolins are a great value. How true. Soon this one will be in new hands!

Peghed (tm) Tuners

We interrupt Chuck Lee on assembly day to ask him a few important questions.

Tammy: Chuck, tell me, what kind of tuners are you installing?

Chuck: Well, my dear, these are patented, 4:1 geared planetary Peghed tuners (pegheds.com)! Similar to the Knilling Perfection tuners used on violin family instruments.

Tammy: Oh! Are they difficult to install?

Chuck: No more difficult than others. As long as I don't get carried away with this reamer! I ream the hole to the proper size and thread the tuners in. They come in LH threads and RH threads.

Tammy: So, why do so many of our customers prefer Peghed tuners?

Chuck: Because they're easy to tune with and they have that old-timey violin peg appearance.

Tammy: So, if a customer wants Peghed tuners as opposed to Waverly planetary geared tuners, what should they ask for?

Chuck: They should buy or order a "Vintage" Chuck Lee banjo as they come with Peghed tuners .

Tammy: What if a customer wants Pegheds on a banjo which has another kind of tuners? What options do they have?

Chuck: They can contact Chuck Herin at Pegheds.com as he has tuners in several sizes. Peghed tuners can be used on guitars and other stringed instruments. He makes a cool 5th string tuner for banjos as well. Chuck Herin is the designer and patent holder on all the Peghed and Perfection tuners.

Tammy: This concludes this interview. Thanks Chuck! You look a little tired. Maybe you should take a day off :).

Chuck: I think I just used up my words for the day.

Chuck Lee Guitar Company. Who knows?

Chuck Lee guitars? Well, I hope so! I've been suggesting to Chuck that he should build some guitars for several years. And he has been pondering.

When a few weeks ago he started staying up most of the night studying guitars, and talking mysteriously of variations of "braces", "carbon graphite", and new and wondrous jigs, I knew it was getting closer. When he spent his 51st birthday, April 15th, fully immersed in the project, he was clearly "all over the top of it".

This picture shows two of the jigs he has labored over; they're for an OM sized guitar.

Would you believe he already has 6 or 8 people wanting one? Chuck says, "Let's see how the first one comes out". I believed in the banjos and I'm believing in the guitars as well.