Hold the phone - the one thing that may keep me from this outing may come up after all - a job interview. I got a call this evening while at my son's baseball practice to schedule the interview - now I can't call them back till morning. It's killing me. If it's Monday, I'm gravy. If it's early, I'm OK. If it's before lunch I can still meet you at the factory.

Allen, I'll call you if I won't be at Salt Lick. Hope your cell hasn't changed.

Fat Tire's pretty good too, but you can never miss with Sam.

Well, yesterday was a blast. I can't think of a better reason not to work. I can still smell the ribs and sausage. Oh yeah, and the cobbler!

I think we converted Ian (sp?) from the Quincy's group. He walked out of the store saying over and over, in his mild Ausie accent..."East Indian Rosewood SJ with a cedar top."

As for me, I had a blast playing with Allen, David, Don, and Ian. I enjoyed finally hearing a D2HA (SHIIIING!) and trying to avoid the oak worms. David's C10 has a killer sunburst on the top.

At the factory, I was hoping to get my hands on a CJ/CJA as I think that is my next Collings. I need a rosewood guitar to compliment the D1A I already own. Alas, in the setup room there were no rosewood CJs. However there was a CJMhA that I pronounced as the best guitar I had ever heard...ever. I guess I have a pretty good D1A, but I spent the next four hours driving up to Fort Worth, and replaying the sound of that CJ in my head. Every song I listened to I thought, "I wonder how that CJ hog would sound on this song?" It was astonishing. I mean really, really good. Punch, warmth, shimmer and a sound as big as the room...and it was a big room. The D1A hits a little harder, but we all seemed to agree that the CJ was just bigger in it's sound. Alex, our tour guide, tried to appease me by saying that my D1A had tighter grained adi than the CJ and it would open up to where the loose grain on the CJ was already, but I think he was just trying to keep me from taking home a guitar and losing a wife!

I did take home a t-shirt. I got to sit and talk to Bill for a few minutes at the end, and he signed my t-shirt in the middle of the logo on the back. Looks like the label on my guitar now. Pretty cool. Pics coming soon.

When are we going to do that again?!?!? Hey David...I think we need to drive to Austin one Thursday night. Seriously. I mean, it's only sleep and we'll get enough of that when we are dead.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: emandnatesdad,

So how was tour of the new factory?

It was great. The new factory is pretty spacious, and almost too clean. It will take some time to get some character I think. Steve McCreary says they are glad to finally have a septic system built to handle all of them.

We got to see some new Bill inventions, including a still proprietary, not to be photographed cut-away bender. We also got to see some of the first electrics being made. David Ely played a ES355 copy that sounded way to big to be a "thin" hollow body. There was a 000 body made out of one of two sets of figured mahogany they have been able to get their hands on.

I have several photos, but I'm not sure how to push all of them up to the forum in an album. I'll look into that this week and see how to make it happen.

emandnatesdad, you can send the pics to me and I can post it up for you!

BTW, David was kind enough he sent me all pics he took with descriptions. I created an Album for it and it can be access via the Forum Homepage or HERE!

Great pics! Thanks again to David!

Great pics of the new shop!