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A visit to a Vietnamese Guitar factory


Etienne Rambert

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Mr. Binh & his brother Mr. Minh took me to their factory today.

 

I took some pics.

 

The factory is a little ways outside of Saigon. It's in a District

called Tan Binh. Here is what the road looked like.

 

road2factory.JPG

 

Here's what the neighborhood looks like. Nice.

No crowds of people. Not much traffic.

 

neighborhood.JPG

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The place

 

There is no sign. just an entrance to a courtyard. About twenty people work there. It's a rambling, tin-roofed warehouse type building with two levels. At least a family or two live there also. There are women, small children, chickens and dogs in the courtyard.

 

entrance2factory.JPG

 

A boy and his dog.

 

boy&hisdog.JPG

 

Another boy and the same dog and the entrance to the main part of the shop.

 

man&his_dog.JPGentrance_interior.JPG

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Very sorry. I thought I'd reduced all these. I don't know what happened.

I'll try to post only the smaller ones.

 

There are not many machines there. Here is one of them.

 

 

2_working_with_necks.JPG

 

 

Here is the fretting crew.

 

 

fretting_shop.JPG

 

 

Polishing Crew

 

crew4polishing.JPGcleaning&polishing.JPG

 

 

Stairway to the finishing room:

 

finishing_room_stairway.JPG

 

 

Here is the finishing room:

 

 

finishing_room_2.JPG

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I have found I am enjoying all of these pictures, the ones the otherday with the beer, and the figured guitar as well......

I think it would be a neat place to visit and see how they do what they do in real life! Thanks you so much for sharing, I find it interesting.:thu:

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Now....at last, onto the guitars!

 

4high_end_customs.JPG

 

You can see the Cedar tops. I think they have a big shipment of Red Cedar in.

 

This one folks, is going to be a tone monster. They have experimented with modifications of the design of my Guild F-65ce.

This one is deeper, and it's solid Maple B&S. It has a Sitka top. But they still kept their ingenious variation on my Guild ---

it's an arch top with a floating bridge and an oval soundhole!

 

It has no bracing inside. People better stand back when it's played.

Not only is it going to be an arch top killer. It is going to slay a lot

of dreads and jumbos.

 

a_killer_book-matched_maple_inspired_by_

 

a_killer_book-matched_maple_inspired_by_

 

a_killer_book-matched_maple_inspired_by_

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For the local market:

 

Scalloped Fret guitars:

 

scalloped_frets.JPGscalloped_frets_profile.JPG

 

Shipment packed for local market. (They carry them on small motorcycles).

 

shipment_for_local_market.JPG

 

There are a lot of instruments and woods I haven't posted yet, lots & lots of Mandos a beautiful Italian Mandolin, lots of arch tops waiting to be finished.

I think they have a wood called Zircote too.

 

But I gotta go.

 

chickens_women&babies.JPG

 

traffic_jam_coming_home.JPG

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sure that wasn`t a boy and his lunch?

 

interesting how they can turn out such great looking guitars from that workshop, I mean it isn`t really what I`d expect to be a luthier`s atelier to look like. Fascinating to see the pics. Where`s the CNC machine eh?

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No. Not lunch. In the south, they don't eat dogs, except for maybe in Cho Lon, the Chinatown part of Saigon.

Southerners keep dogs as pets. Hanoi is the place that specializes in dog meat. There are dog restaurants. It's a big deal.

 

Sorry the pics are so big. I'll try to make them smaller tomorrow. I thought I'd already resized them.

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interesting how they can turn out such great looking guitars from that workshop, I mean it isn`t really what I`d expect to be a luthier`s atelier to look like. Fascinating to see the pics. Where`s the CNC machine eh?

 

I was thinking the same thing...makes my little hobby shop look almost state of the art...

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You can hear a scalloped fret acoustic in this Cai Luong song.

They usually are playing lead runs. Scalloped frets apparently

allow for increased ability to bend notes and make fast

lead runs.

 

jKywYb9bnfI

 

I see them more on electrics than on acoustics.

There are two types, Indian scalloped frets and

Vietnamese scalloped frets. The VN scoop them

out the deepest.

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