My first finish room.

Industry within a dedicated workshop yields many challenges including where a craftsman can escape the dust and dirt of production to spray that gorgeous final finish.  Obviously you need to be in a separate room (preferably a different part of town) since dust travels by air.  We certainly have a wonderful facility to do so at Master Works now but in 1982 it was me, myself and I in a 14ft X 18ft shop behind the house in south Arlington and nowhere to spray lacquer.  So 1983’s new-years resolution and great project outside of instrument construction was to build a finish room.  It was glorious!  Whenever an instrument was fine-sanded and ready to escape the perils of the busy workshop, out to the finish room it would go to sit on the rack until I was ready to coat it with whatever beautiful finish I deemed good and proper for that instrument.  I do remember an extremely cold late 1983 December when several beautiful instruments were ready to receive their coats of lacquer but temperatures were so low I couldn’t get the room warm enough to finish.  Day after day Christmas drew closer and there was nothing I could do.  Finally I got the final coat of finish on and strung the instruments on Christmas Eve!  Everyone received their special handcrafted Christmas gifts by the hair of my chinny chin chin!