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During the concert Darrell several times re-tuned between standard and dropped D tunings.  He said  ‘Another thing about Stefan Sobell guitars, you just tune them and play, you hardly have to tune them again.’

As well as playing so quietly that the audience almost hold their breath, he also likes to ‘dig in’ as he puts it, putting more energy into the guitar in a couple of minutes than most guitarists would in an hour.  It says something else about his playing that after over an hour of this, the guitar is completely unmarked.

Having now been thoroughly road tested, this guitar will shortly be for sale and will appear on my ‘available now’ page.

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Mark Knopfler didn’t want a pickup in his MS Model when he collected it from me a couple of years ago.  He planned to use it in the studio and for song writing, and wouldn’t even let me fit a tail strap button.

More recently he asked me to fit a pickup so he could play it live.  So I took a tool kit to his amazing state of the art studio in Chiswick and fitted a Highlander pickup there.

Mark was seriously impressed with the combination of the MS Model and Highlander, was very happy with the amplified sound.  He told me he planned to use it in live concerts, so I also fitted a strap button to the guitar heel.

I haven’t driven in London for several years; I knew driving there would be slow but found the traffic congestion shocking beyond my expectations.  My sympathy to all who have to live with it.

PS  How time flies, it is in fact not a couple of years, it’s five years since Mark came to collect his MS!

Brian Potts brought his octave mandolin back to me after it had suffered from extreme damp.  When I asked him how, he was evasive, eventually saying the OM had been involved in a canoeing incident while on holiday with his son.

Despite my pressing him, he declined to say more.  From the state of the instrument I concluded he had either overturned the canoe or used the OM as a paddle.

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The middle back brace has come away on both sides, the tail block is now separated from the back, and the sides, complete with binding, have pulled away from the back where it tapers towards the neck.  The binding has come away from the back at the tail.

The fact that the label ink has run indicates there was plenty of water sloshing around inside.

Fortunately, the soundboard appears to be undamaged.

Brian has been a customer and friend for many years.  Suitably penitent, he took us for a meal later, calming troubled waters with glasses of red wine.

A few weeks after talking about a new combination pickup system with Martin Simpson, I fitted it to two guitars.  These were a Steinbeck model and my new Steinbeck S.
After comparing the two, I sent the Steinbeck S for Martin to evaluate.  Here is the email he sent me:

Hello, I just did 3 gigs with the guitar and it’s a massive success, audiences, sound men and particularly me!!!! I raised the action with a quarter turn on the truss rod and it’s just a joy.

Martin will keep it and use it on gigs from now on.  He plans to sell one of his existing Sobells to make room for it, this should be on my ‘available now’ page in the near future.

Martin Simpson came to stay this week.  He and I went on a walk alongside Devilswater, not far from my workshop.  We admired the wobbly stone gateposts below Embley, and I took him to my favourite place in the world, a stretch of Devilswater further upstream.  The weather, which looked grey and drab from indoors, was magical outside.

Martin loves birds, animals and plants.  He pointed out many items of interest I never usually notice on my walks.