My first workshop in Berlin was just in a couple’s apartment down the block. A room they had sublet to a young woman, who’d recently moved out. I did the sort of thing one did in the Before Times: I printed out a couple dozen little pieces of paper saying something like “Neighborhood guitar builder seeks room for workshop. 150 Euros/month max.” Taped them on lamp posts and people’s front doors. The couple called within a week and it was set.
The room was on the fourth floor, stairs of course, Altbau, two large north-facing windows. Rust-red painted wooden floors and lath and plaster walls and ceilings. The walls still had some of the decorative painting trim that must have been done a century ago. We agreed to paint over most of it, but leave a few spots to see the old workmanship.
The couple was very sweet. They were roughly my age. There was a dog. I wasn’t there every day at that point, but they’d often enough come have a look to see what I was up to out of interest. I guess it was an odd arrangement, but it was nice.
I had quite a few tools at that point from when I’d started building guitars in my parents’ garage in the US and many I inherited from my English grandfather. But I didn’t have a workbench or storage or jigs or much of anything really.
I found a used workbench on the internet somewhere and the seller offered to bring it to the workshop and help me carry it upstairs. 200 Euros, if I recall correctly. I might have given him 20 extra to deliver it. This was 2012. I still use that workbench every day. Works, so why would I change it?
I found an old wooden bookshelf for some storage and built myself a tool rack from an old piece of window molding. I sewed a tool holder for the wall and made a go-bar deck. There was still a stereo in the room from the previous renter, so I just used that.
The workshop was quiet. The light from the north, which streamed in from the left of my workbench, was perfect for working. I could reach everything in the room with a couple of steps, but it felt spacious. Just right, really. My tooling was simple. My processes were simple. It was a great place to build guitars.
I haven’t been building guitars for decades yet, but still, when I look on YouTube or read The Guild of American Luthiers I get the impression that the only way to build guitars is with a specialized tool for every step. Jigs, jigs, jigs. Tools, tools, and more tools. Any sane person would come away thinking they need at least 50,000 euros to get started. But it’s not true. People have always built instruments with relatively few tools and a lot of skill. Often I think people today look for a tool instead of developing a new skill. In that workshop I did things pretty simply, as I still do today.
I think it’s hard for people to understand how important a workshop is to a builder. Of course, in most instances a workshop is a practical necessity for getting work done. But what I mean is how much a workshop is an extension of the self. Usually, they look a bit chaotic, filled with all kinds of stuff that doesn’t immediately make sense to anyone else, even people from the same craft. But that’s because most workshops develop organically over time to the particularities of the craftsperson. I understand personhood as more than just my mind, more than just my body, but also the tools and environments that make up my everyday life. Without my workshop and my tools, I would be a different person. I would be faced with reinventing myself as someone other than who I was with that workshop and those tools.
I liked that workshop.