After a drive north, a fresh cookie and hot coffee, and reuniting with Robyn and Sandra, my first Memphis excursion was to the Gibson Factory for a tour.
At this particular factory (they have 3, with the one in Nashville making electric and the one in Bozeman making acoustic) they make the hollow and semi-hollow guitars. Being the weekend, the workers (they have about 70 total) were not present and it was quiet enough (when the giant humidifier wasn't running) to hear our tour guide well. He gave us lots of interesting facts, let us ask as many questions as we wanted, and allowed us to hold guitars in all their various pieces and forms throughout construction. If I'm remembering correctly, he said they produce 60-70 guitars per day and that production time is about 50 days from start to finish for a single guitar (maybe it tells you in the virtual tour I linked above, if you're interested). He knew the names of specific workers in each section and is in bands with a few of them. There is ONE GUY who paints every single guitar (there is one sub, if he's sick) and one guy that does the final quality check (playing the finished guitars) before sending them off to the shipping guy (they had stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of boxed guitars ready to go out on Monday). Some of the equipment they use is original to when Gibson used to be a furniture factory! Their most expensive (and time intensive) step is the 12-14 coats of high quality lacquer (which sets them apart from every other guitar manufacturer). I thought it was interesting that after the guy paints them, they go to 3 ladies who use a set of 3 specific scrapers to remove paint from the edges (before lacquering, of course) - no guides or extreme concentration necessary, they just chat away while peeling paint in perfect lines to give the guitar the signature Gibson look. (I would be so terrified of messing up the ONE GUY's perfect paint creation! But then, I'm pretty sure I'm not qualified to participate in ANY of the Gibson production steps... maybe the mummy-linen style wrapping they do after gluing the front and back pieces together before adding the neck?...) Anyway, pictures were not allowed inside the factory, so we took a few out in the lobby and gift shop (they had a few custom guitars in there that were priced over $10K!)
I thought this Government Series guitar (pictured below) was especially interesting. It's made with the wood seized (and later returned) by the government during their raid of the Memphis factory in 2011. The color is called "Gunmetal Gray" and it comes with a Bald Eagle holding a guitar neck emblem and an Army green case.
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