New Year, New Blog! (Sorta)
I am going to start treating this an actual blog so here we go. I am going to post weekly updates about what I learned/did at work.
In November I started working at the local string shop. It is a very small business with an in-house staff consisting only of the owner, a bow specialist (who has another day job and another side job), a repair apprentice (also has another job), and myself. My initial task was to do inventory and generally clean up and organize everything. Since I have been working there for nearly two months I am going to have to do a bit of a recap here before starting weekly updates.
Both the owner and the bow tech had/have day jobs with the City so normal business hours for us start at 5pm and go until we get tired enough to leave (usually midnight but sometimes earlier).
November:
- I spent my first day 5 hours going through the online order invoice cache and “completing” orders that had been sitting there since July.
- I took inventory and organized all 7 of the bow cases. Four of the bow cases hold up to 24 bows, the other two hold 12. This is how I learned to tell the difference between violin, viola, and cello bows. I also have tons of manufacturer model codes burned into my brain.
- My job description in our time clock app is “inventory” and my brain processed that like a robot with a single command. I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that so many things in the shop were never recorded in any sort of inventory sheet so I took it upon myself to fix that and count everything I possibly could. I started by counting all of the cheap bows that sit in a mess of cardboard boxes in the back room. Next, I inventoried every cello bow hanging on the rack of pegs in the show room.
- Our back room remains a horrifying, unusable disaster area. I spent a while considering how to make it more organized and functional and made a game plan. I also demanded my boss buy more pegboard so I could fix the show room.
I think that covers it for November. I started on 11/13 and had a concert cycle in LA that started two days later. There were plenty of other rehearsals and concerts that month that prevented me from working in the evenings. It took me a while to learn that I could come in whenever I want during the day as long as I could find something to do.
December:
- More bow inventory. I also inventoried all of the rosins. Sadly, our webstore host service is kinda derpy so I can only set up inventory tracking management for products that have NO variations. Anything like strings (different strings or sizes) or something that comes in different patterns or colors cannot be tracked because things get janky when we set up product options that way. This forces me to do inventory the old fashioned way by literally touching and counting everything once a month and entering it into a spreadsheet.
- Received and installed pegboard in the show room so it became a shopable area as opposed to a jumbled mess of stuff no customer feels like they are allowed to touch. The skills I learned about merchandising a wall at the Halloween store really helped with this task. Since the “chachki wall” was completed I believe every single customer that has entered the shop has approached and spent time looking at the wall. Some have even bought things! (most of our business is online so walk-ins aren’t frequent)
- Organized the back room by putting all of the packing materials in plastic storage bins so they no longer spill out all over the floor.
- Watched and took notes on how to rehair a bow. I also learned how to prepare one for repairing by “taking it to the spa.” Every rehair we do consists of checking that the mortis angles are correct or correcting them, filling any crazy-deep mortis with ebony, removing rosin residue from the stick, polishing all the silver bits, and lubricating the eyelet and screw of the frog. We might also do a bit of straightening at no extra charge if we notice things are a little wonky.
- Learned how to do shipping. I still have some stuff to learn about where things are in the shop or if we even have the item in-store. We offer TONS of stuff on our website, some of which we are out of (because nobody every inventoried it) or some of it we get dropshipped directly from the company to the customer because we don’t have the model they want in-store. We have lots of shipping options so learning how to do them all and remembering how to do each one correctly is tricky.
- Took inventory of all cellos needing repairs and sat down with Boss Lady to categorize them as “quick fix”, “slightly involved”, or “nightmare”. Customer cellos are just a whole ‘nother category of “DO THIS NOW REGARDLESS OF HOW INVOLVED IT WILL BE.”
**Now we are getting to the good stuff**
- Learned how to tie hanks (small sections of hair) to rehair bows. I also learned, or taught myself rather, how to DYE hanks. Boss Lady (who also has neato colorful hair) asked me what I thought about dyeing bow hair and I told her I was 100% on board. I will do a more in-depth post about this later but if you want to see the finished product check out http://www.lindawest.com/Color_Bow_Rehair_p/colorrehair.htm
I think that is it for December. I spent a week down in LA rehearsing for the Yeethoven II concert (freaking AWESOME btw. Check it out on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter) because the Thomas Fire had me concerned for the safety of my cat if I were to get an evacuation notice while 90 miles away. A very kind friend let me spend the week in his house. He even gave me his room despite the fact that he is allergic to cats (thankfully Baron didn’t seem to be messing with his allergies.) Between Yeethoven II and a NYE concert out of town I missed another week of work, essentially.
JANUARY! Week 1:
- How do I start every month? Counting things! I have reorganized the bow cases, updated the sheets that are taped to the cases, and made an index card for the top and bottom of every case so that bows can be easily put back in the spot they belong when someone is trying out many bows at once. I didn’t come in FOR ONE DAY and I came back to find bows everywhere and cases laying open on the floor. When my boss came in this evening I said “So the index cards didn’t work, huh?” And she was like “well, they would have! If... well...” and started putting the bows back where they were supposed to go. Sort of. It is still a mess. Maybe she will try harder next time. Or maybe I will be there next time. I am so fed up with how quickly these bow cases go to shit.
- I touched almost every string in the shop. I counted all of the full size and fractional strings that were in packaged and then untangled and learned to identify all of the strings that had formed a rat’s nest on the bench. Each string was rolled and put into a small plastic baggie and labeled as “tried but new” (strings that we literally took out of the package and put on an instrument for someone to try and that person didn’t like it so we took it right back off) or “for rentals.” The really busted strings got tossed into a horrific box of “donation” strings for school cellos.
- *crazy singsong voice* I counted all the bows again. All the bows in boxes. And all the bows on the rack in the show room. I still have to inventory the violin/viola bows on the other showroom rack though... TOMORROW!
- Figured out how to wrangle the mountain of fking gig bags: roll them up. I have spent the past two days rolling and strapping most of the gig bags in the shop. We mostly use them for rentals or donate them to schools (or toss them in the garbage when we get way too many because Goodwill doesn’t want them and selling them on EBay doesn’t really work.) I ran out of bag-wrangling straps today but Boss Lady ordered more.
- I learned how to fit pegs. You might think that you just put pegs into the holes and *boom* you’re done. In reality you have to reshape pegs that are out of round with a giant pencil sharpener, ream the holes of the peg box, and make sure the length of each peg is correct. It should barely peek through the hole on the opposite side of the peg box so if it is too long you grind the end down with an electric sander. Once you have it at the length you want you shape the end by hand by rubbing it on sand paper from 120 - 600 grit until it is that smooth dome-shape you are familiar with. You can even do this with plastic pegs. I helped to fit a set of new geared pegs onto a rental cello. Geared pegs seem like a luxury item but it actually just helps to keep people from snapping strings when they tune so in the end the cost of one set of geared pegs on a rental makes up for all the strings we would have to replace because kids or parents break them.
Side note — we had a bow returned to us from a renter that was literally the most busted thing. The Thomas Fire really dried things out so the hair got very tight even when the bow was technically loose. I guess the girl kept cranking on it trying to get it to tighten and either she or a parent took some pliers to the bow screw. Technically, the bit that you turn to tighten or loosen the bow is called the button and the screw is the long piece with threads that is inside the button/frog. These people busted the button by using pliers, stripped the screw out of the button AND the eyelet it screws into, and cracked the stick from the force of it all.
PSA: If you ever think of using a household tool to solve a problem with your instrument you should probably stop and take it to a professional instead.
- I learned how to take the top off of an instrument. The top meaning the whole piece of wood with the f-holes on it. After taking the top off I learned how to glue the center seam crack, make cleats, reglue the top, mix watercolor and wood stain to match the varnish, and set/cut a bridge.
I also sat down with my boss and had her tell me what she wanted me to do each week and each month. Counting will basically be a monthly thing: strings, bows, cello cases, rosin, anything else I can find to count... Weekly things will be mostly be computer tasks. It is also apparently my job to keep Boss Lady on task so now that this junior high violin has been repaired I am going to have her teach me how to do a sound post patch so I can start fixing that which is a problem with many of our cellos needing repair. I also want to learn how to sharpen blades properly because most of our stuff in the shop is dull and that makes it hard to do things accurately. Tomorrow I am going to force Boss Lady to start on the very broken customer cello that has been sitting downstairs for a bit.
Well, it is 3am and my brain has definitely stopped working so I’m going to stop this post here. I’ll post more info about the colorful rehairs at some point and aim to write a post every Sunday evening about what I’ve done and learned that week so I can keep track of my progress as a “chihuahua doctor.” I work in a cello shop so violins and violas are referred to as “chihuahuas” and sometimes turned down for repairs because Boss Lady hates working on the tiny little things. Being the only violinist/violist in the shop means I not only am in charge of familiarizing myself with our stock so I can help our customers find what they want, but I will eventually become the high strings technician because Boss Lady doesn’t want to do it but we are the only shop for at least 90 miles that is capable of doing this kind of work.
Be back next week with more tales of counting things and learning repair skills.