For Tom

[Casper]

Tom, a couple of questions..
What is your relationship like with your competitors (PRS, Suhr, Mcinturrf, etc)? Are you friends? Do you guys share info? Or use each other as sounding boards for ideas...?
I hear that you and John Suhr talk some...
Secondly, have you ever used ebony or mahogany for fretboards?
thanks for any sharing..
Shaun

[tom]

the whole industry talks quite a bit. it makes everybody better. i haven't met anyone yet i couldn't learn something from. we've had folks form taylor, larrivee,collings, prs,suhr,fender, music man, martin, tacoma, tyler, grosh, melecon, and others out here to see what we do. it's good to see others methods. there's always some thing you can apply to what you do. to say that john and i talk some would be an understatement. i see terry at trade shows and have gotten to know him a bit. he is a very nice man but we don't talk regularly. i am not close with anyone at prs, but roy speaks to their sales guys all the time. i do see joe knaggs at the shows and he's a sweetheart, genuinely nice human. you are all playing better guitars because of the comradery in this industry.
we sold necks in the old days with ebony fingerboards, but not guitars. i don't like brittle top end of ebony on my guitars. mahogany would be too soft.

[Casper]

Thanks for the reply Tom. I guessed that would be the response. I mainly wondered about Paul Reid, it would be interesting to read an article or intereview with you both about your philosophies...
thats a beautiful thing to see craftsmen who care about quality and not the dollar. You and ken Hoover at Zion seem to be very similar too...I hope hes doing well these days
Shaun

[tom]

i haven't spoken to ken for quite a while. he was handling his illness with grace and humility. he is quite a guy.

[pluto]

Originally posted by tom
the whole industry talks quite a bit. it makes everybody better. i haven't met anyone yet i couldn't learn something from. we've had folks form fender and others out here to see what we do. it's good to see others methods

That's interesting that Fender came and visited your shop as a result of your gracious invitation and then turned around and filed a patent for their strat bodies. That says a lot about those Fender folks.