Can I rant about the neck jig?... Or someone set me straight.

[Luke Single]

Disclaimer: I like, appreciate, and respect Dan Erlewine as well as Stew Mac. They helped me get started in and excell in luthier. Something is bothering me though.
Isn't the Dan Erlewine neck jig the same thing, or idea, as Don Teeter presented in his repair books years before Erlewine came out with his neck jig... Maybe I'm wrong or out of line but I feel like Teeter should share some credit for the neck jig as I feel he came up with the idea first. Maybe he didn't patent it first but it was the first. There are also other things that teeter presented in his book that SM created and credited as their tools.
Mr. Erlewine if you read this, I mean no disrespect.
Ps. What ever happened to Teeter?

[Mark Pollock]

Something that seems to happen a lot in luthier work is concurrent development - a bunch of folks all start working on similar ideas at the same time. It's perfectly reasonable that Erlewine, Teeter, and others were working on similar ideas at the same time. Erlewine and SM seem to credit others when they should, so perhaps the neck jig is a concurrently developed item.

[Thomas James]

I don't think Teeter was the first with a neck jig idea, and many folks make similar tools shown in his books. StewMac has simply done a good job branding their name.

[Kerry Krishna]

StewMac and Erliwine always give credit were credit is due. As a matter of fact, I have seen and read several things Dan has done giving credit were only an idea existed before. They all are stand up folks as far as I can see. Stewmac even leaves up harsh criticism of their products. That says integrity to me. 

[Hesh Breakstone]

Well said Kerry!

I'm happy to see attribution provided at all in so much as this seem, sadly, to be forgotten all too often in this industry...

So even if both Teeter and Earlywine get and deserve credit where is PLEK's attribution to anyone else for the very idea, as per the earlier neck jigs, of servicing the instrument under string tension...

I think that concurrent development as Mark mentioned comes into play here too.  In Dan's case he took the jig further, IMHO, with numerous updated iterations through the years.  Thankfully too as the things evolved they also got smaller at least in the footprint which was a welcome thing.

[Thomas James]

Here is good page about the development of the jig. Scroll down.

http://www.danerlewine.com/plek.html

[Peter Poyser]

Quote: "Maybe I'm wrong or out of line"

That is a possibility!

Don Teeter's "The Acoustic Guitar" Publication was copyrighted in 1975.

Dan Erlewine had already produced the first iteration of his Neck Jig in 1973, well before Don Teeter's "The Acoustic Guitar" Publication, was in circulation.

Of course, the really outstanding point to consider, is that this early Neck Jig of Mr Erlewines was progressively followed by an entire handful of incremental progressively improving reiterations that got better and better.

People in the same Industry often talk to each other, learn from one another and have a good idea of what each other are doing, this happens in every Field. But by the time Don Teeters book came out, Dan had already produced the Second more Streamlined Version of his Neck Jig.

 

 

As for PLEK Machines.

Any Robot will perform with consistently reliable results.

But importantly a Robotic Device is really only as good as those programming and operating it.

Personally, I have yet to come across any Robot that could perform truly as well as a Human Craftsman at the Top of their Game.

The day all Guitarists can play like Robots, with exactly the same Pressure and Playing Style and a Robotic Consistency, is the day a Robot can really replace Craftsmen.

Usually, when Robots are involved, there are particular compromises that have to be made between a number of diametrically opposing factors, and commonly, standards shift to a certain degree.

Robots will do a tremendously good job, up to a certain point. But how they are Set Up and Operated is Crucial to the performance you will actually get out of them, and again that comes back to the all important Human Factor governing everything.

Currently, I am involved in a £750,000,0000 Capital Investment Program for a Manufacturer involving the deployment of over 1,000 Robots of a great many differing types for varying purposes. So there is  perspicacious insight involved in my comments, although I am limited in what I can write.

But these points didn't leap into my head, in a moment of free abandonment.

 

P