Work/Shop: LeVan's Guitar Services Workshop x D'Addario

Welcome back to the Work/Shop! Get a rare glimpse behind the scenes of some of the world’s most revered mom-and-pop music shops and luthiers. In this episode, we travel to Chapel Hill, Tennessee to meet John LeVan of Guitar Services Workshop. After years of learning from master luthiers, John brings meticulous care to every guitar repair and restoration, while passing his knowledge on by training the next generation of luthiers.

Chapters:
00:00 About John LeVan and the Guitar Services Workshop
00:42 How John learned to be a luthier
01:37 How John got into writing about guitar
02:22 John's luthier class
03:56 Guitar repair services at the Guitar Services Workshop
05:08 John's favorite luthier tools
07:30 The importance of guitar humidity ft. Humidipak
08:34 John LeVan's guitar project
11:09 Why John always uses D'Addario strings
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[emilybalcerak]

It's always inspiring to see someone so knowledgeable willing to pass their secrets on to the next

[NoNamesLeft]

I took John’s Refret Boot Camp a few years back. It’s amazing how much information he crammed into the course. I highly recommend Guitar Services Workshop for anybody who wants to learn how to work on guitars properly. His Guitar Set-up, Maintenance and Repair book lives on the shelf under my workbench (which is still pretty much set up exactly like the ones in this video).

[deltalima]

John is great. Super humble guy and super friendly. The first thing I hired him for was a fret replacement. He now does all my guitar work. He’s also very good at explaining what he wants to do but runs it by you first without any surprises. There’s a lot of people, many well known, that he has done work for but he doesn’t brag and really doesn’t talk about them, he’s there to serve your needs. Great video John. What a career you’ve had!

[swervature]

Very cool. I love that he's paying it forward with the knowledge he has. Good call, D'Addario =)

[billwilkat]

I was self-taught when I had my guitar biz and you are bang on when you note that learning ow to do proper repairs first is the way to start. Doing a lot of experimentation was vital too and working on upgrades. Once I started designing and building my own guitars, I had the conidence to be successful at it, My preferred brand of strings is also D'Addario--I've been playing guitar for 59 years and it's the only brand I use after trying all the others.

[guitarservices]

Thank you! I love teaching. Working with companies like D'addario & Taylor Guitars has been a great experience. Cudos to Andy Pitcher and his crew for all their hard work and making this experience so much fun!

[ninaharlach]

Love that John is willing to pass his knowledge on to others

[MatthewPeskay]

He even sounds a bit like Bob Taylor - great to hear this story and even more about Bob's legacy and the impact he'll continue to have on guitar making forever.

[k]

Nursing rule for learning: 1. Watch it being done. 2. Do it yourself. 3. Teach it.

[timbornone]

Nice video. What is he doing with the cello?

[scribemike]

So, we're just gonna blow past that "Home of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest" shit, then? Nothing to see

[alandust]

Hard to hear audio AND THEN the distracting music. Nice video after I pushed the mute button and just used the closed caption.