On another note altogether...

[Mike Kolb]

(the only relevance this has to the site is that, while delivering a repaired guitar back to the music store in town, I stopped at the air museum to take a couple of shots...  now there's a stretch!)

In little McMinnville, OR, we have what's shaping-up to be a real world-class aviation museum.  It's called the Evergreen Aviation Museum and it's the home of many cool planes, including Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose", an SR71 Blackbird, various MIG variants, WWI and WWII vintage planes, etc.  Here's a general link to the museum....  http://www.sprucegoose.org/visit/visit.html

This week, they're planning to hoist a retired 747 freighter atop a new under-construction building, using two cranes and some damned talented engineers.  The pictures show the 747 and the cranes, just waiting for a break in the weather to get the deed done. They need 5hrs of dead-calm weather... since the lift itself will take just 45mins but they need about 4hrs to weld and bolt the beast in place.  There'll be no warning for the lift, since it's all in the laps of the weather gods, but I hope to get some shots of the freighter in the air... if not already in place.  The last shot is a recently-acquired MIG-29 Fulcrum, with the "Spruce Goose" just barely visible behind the glass wall in the background.

It helps me put the mechanics of a neck reset into its proper perspective.

[FRANK]

that's not as cool as this mine went to 95 ,000 feet at mach 2.5 beat that and flew around the globe 5 times in less than 24 hours while the pilot was filming an Taliban Dance called scatter for your life .I think they were dancing to jimmy

[Tim Mace]

Is that a pickup for a 747 in the 2nd shot! Spruce g00se coulda made a lot of guitar tops.It'll prolly never get off the ground again.Hope I didn't go to far off g'tar mac uh Mike.Nice photos!

[Paul Breen]

Is that the Spruce Goose behind the 3rd picture of the fighter jet? I went and saw it when it was still in Southern California, incredible! They let you board it and go through it and had several other Howard Hughes planes on display as well. I wondered where the Spruce Goose would end up after I heard that it was sold. Thanks for posting this stuff Mike.

[Rob Mercure]

Hey Mike,

In terms of dreadnought tops exactly how big is the Spruce Goose ?

Rob

[Paul Breen]

In terms of dreadnought tops exactly how big is the Spruce Goose ?

If I am remembering correctly from my visit to see the Spruce Goose when it was still in Southern California, the exterior was made mostly of Baltic Birch. I think the term Spruce Goose was invented by the doubting media. However, the plane did actually fly several hundred yards during a media outing but was never flown again.

[Russell Vance]

Ahhh, you are not going to dodge the "how many" question that easily. Marshal quad boxes are made of Birch so, to rephrase: in terms of quad boxes exactly how big is the Spruce Goose.

P.S. I walked through it (the Goose) when it was down by where the Queen Mary (or one of those queens) was moored in SoCal (I recall I was in L.A. but can't quite remember)......the engines looked very small and I'm kind of glad it didn't catch on otherwize we would be all be playing composite guitars.

[FRANK]

i believe Gibbons zoote suite is all died colored birch or what ever it called all lamed body outa colored birch then carved for 3d effect they look cool?

[Mike Kolb]

Update.... the 747 got hoisted-up to the top of the new building yesterday morning (Mon) just after dawn, as the winds were finally calm enough to satisfy the crane operators. My wife drove-by yesterday AM and got a cell-phone shot.

Yes, the Spruce Goose is actually birch, but the name's stuck over the years. We're really fortunate to have the beast here. Del Smith (CEO of Evergreen Aviation) realizes the historical importance of her, and has basically built the aviation museum with the 'goose' as it's centerpiece. It's 100% restored and in better condition than it's been in for decades. In addition to the aviation museum, the building next door (an identical twin) houses a space museum, with a Saturn V rocket, soviet and U.S. space capsules and the list goes on.

Come on up and check it out sometime.... Oregon's a neat state to visit (particularly in the non-rainy season) and the air museum is really the icing on the cake. We've got memberships to the museum and I don't mind taking a visitor or two through the museum on my dime. Drop me a line if you ever want to stop-by, and that'll give me a reason to tidy-up the shop:)

[Mike Kolb]

Some more "Spruce Goose" shots. Apologies to Frank for hijacking the forum for a little aviation stuff, but I got carried-away.... now, where's that fret file?...

[Paul Breen]

Wikipedia knows how big it is but I think that we will have to do our own calculations on the luthiery worthy materials that it could be converted into...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules