Looking back at 2008, the biggest change was probably the most obvious one: the website got a complete overhaul. The entire engine behind the site was rebuilt from the ground up, and I moved everything to a new hosting company. The goal was simple — make the site more stable and improve the reliability of the email server. It was a lot of work, but the foundation has been solid ever since.
I also returned to the Montreal Guitar Show that summer. It’s always a great show, and Montreal is a blast. I’m hoping to make it back again in 2009.
A good portion of the year was spent on shop improvements — the kind of behind‑the‑scenes work that doesn’t look glamorous but makes everything run more smoothly. Most of the upgrades focused on dust collection and general layout. It took time to reorganize, add new tools, and build out a few new work areas, but the result is a cleaner, more efficient shop. That kind of environment always leads to better guitars.
On the design side, I spent a lot of time experimenting and digging into the details of older instruments. Some of that research directly influenced the development of my Vintage Series, where I’ve been incorporating the “good stuff” from those classic guitars into my own builds.
2008 was a year of rebuilding, refining, and laying groundwork — both in the shop and online — and it set the stage for a lot of the work that followed.