Thought this might be a fun question with maybe some surprising answers. What's the most unusual place you've ever played the guitar? For me it was in the forecastle of an aircraft carrier.

I haven’t posted much lately, but I’ve been in here every day, just quiet on the posting front. Behind the scenes though? Anything but quiet. A few things I want to give you a heads up on: 🛠️ Store overhaul in progress We’re rebuilding the entire online store from the ground up. New theme, new products, and way stronger offers built specifically for this community. Expect more free and heavily discounted product drops once it’s live. Not ready yet, but it’s close, and it’s going to be a big upgrade. 🎁 Giveaways coming in October We’re running product giveaways next month too. Details coming closer to launch, but keep an eye out, free gear is on the way. 🤝 Something big for reviewers We’ve taken a lot of your feedback to heart this year, and running a community like this comes with real challenges on our end too. We’ve been working hard on a way to make this a genuine win-win, including a way for members to actually earn commissions off the reviews you’re already doing. This one’s exciting, more details soon. 🎸 New branded product dropping Not ready to name it yet, but we’ve got something launching that I’m genuinely pumped about. I’ll be back in about a week or so with the full reveal. We are going to finish off the year strong, and I’m very grateful to have you all along for the ride. 🙏

So ever since I started building my own pedals this year it’s been hard but fun. I thought I would share some of my experience with the process. Like I never knew that soldering tips didn’t last forever. I’ve soldered a few things in my life time but never dedicated much time to it. I mostly used simple soldering irons that plug directly into the wall and no temperature control. But I bought a neat soldering station with temperature control, helper arm clamps, auto shut off, sponge holder, copper wool and solder roll holder with a roll of solder… the works. So everything was going great until I noticed that my soldering tip looked like it was melting. So it turned out that the solder and flux and whatever other factors were causing the tip to oxidize and it just got completely destroyed. So in the process and experimenting with different solder types, temperature and pcb types. I’ve destroyed a couple of chips, resistors, capacitors, switches and pcb boards. But overall a great learning experience. And I’m currently working on creating my own pcb boards. If I’m working with an actual circuit board it’s easier to solder, the prototype boards are cool but not easy to work with depending on the type. Stay tuned for more updates!!

when they get like this, they dont hurt at all. and yes, i do clean my strings. playing with 13's turns the ends of your fingers into little hammers. LOL

anybody ever tried these? Andy Mckee, Mike Dawes, and quite a few other notables have endorsements. I'm tempted but skeptical.