STEVE MCCREARY: Here's a guitar that's been obviously neck set, already has been bound, continuing and getting ready for final sand before it goes to finish, a nice flamed maple top.

PATRICK OGLE: Which model is this? Is this the?

STEVE MCCREARY: This would be the I35

PATRICK OGLE: Oh okay. So you're naming them after the highway?

STEVE MCCREARY: It's a -- We have a city limits, for obvious reasons, Austin. We have an I35 for the interstate that runs through town. We have the 290 for the highway that we're on, and also we have the SoCo which is named after South Congress, which is an entertainment area here in Austin. This will be one of the semi-hollows that if you look at it is a smaller version of some other kind of double cutaway shapes. Morning, gentlemen.

These are some more body parts. As you can see it's not a large manufacturing concern here. We just do 12 to 15 electric guitars a week so I don't have that.

PATRICK OGLE: What is the range of your prices on electrics.

STEVE MCCREARY: From $2,600 for the 290 to $6,200 or so for the I35's and SoCos. They just get lacquered curing before they get sanded or buffed.

PATRICK OGLE: So you're not using any of the polyurethane on any of them?

STEVE MCCREARY: No sir.

PATRICK OGLE: Okay.

STEVE MCCREARY: We do use some polyethyl -- poly on the base coats on the flat-tops. It's a nice -- It's about 2.5 mL and a nice poly coat and a natural over the -- for all the flat-tops too. Mandolins are also all nice; they're all lacquer.

PATRICK OGLE: And how many different styles of mandolins you make? I know you have an A.

STEVE MCCREARY: Well, we make A's and F's. In the A's we have our -- The A is kind of the classic tear drop shape. When we give them a matte finish, it's called the MT. We do an MT2 which is a gloss finish A style, and we do an MT2 with varnish finish as opposed to lacquer, and in the F's we do kind of a matte finish MF. We do an MF5 with lacquer, we do an MF5 with varnish, and an MF5 Deluxe with just varnish with an engraved tailpiece and custom inlay, more purfling, Waverly tuners which cost us 500 bucks to get just from the manufacturer. It's a very nice -- you know, it's obviously a high-end mandolin.

PATRICK OGLE: What are your -- What's the range on the mandolin prices for the A's and the F's?

STEVE MCCREARY: I think it starts at -- the MT starts at $2,200 or $2,250, and the MF5 Deluxe is $12,900.

PATRICK OGLE: I think I've seen other stuff and I can remember any ones that are like start off at like 10 or 12, you know...,

STEVE MCCREARY: Yeah. We've --

PATRICK OGLE: ...so that's not unreasonable.

STEVE MCCREARY: We compete with very single luthier shops and then we compete with the bigger manufacturers so we can grab a little something for everybody. It's just that no one quite does what we do as far as production style. I know we're not big production but we do more than smaller shops, and no one really can match us for quality and consistency, so we do -- No one does what we do and the fact that we do so many at such a high quality, and by many I mean thousands. We just do mainly do hundreds but they're in a level that no other real manufacturer can do.

PATRICK OGLE: You mean you're not churning them out.

STEVE MCCREARY: I mean you don't see racks full of stuff. You know, you got these ready to go into finish next week. You know, it's not exactly mass production [LAUGHS]. It's more of one step forward, two steps back, and then you have t, you know, take a double step the next day. It's a pain. It's, you know, nitro is very finicky, and even after all these years we still -- that's one of the bigger challenges is finish, almost defy any manufacturer, any builder to argue that because I think everyone that you talk to agrees that finish is certainly one of the most challenging aspects of it.

Actually, we're certainly more fixable than some other stuff. I mean a lot of builders will use poly just because it's easy to put on, it's easy to sand and buff and it doesn't look or feel or sound the same though, but nitro? Yes. We've been dealing with it a long time and so we can certainly fix if and when I should say when we get a burn-through, which is when something gets sanded or buffed a little heavily, then they go through a layer, there's going to be 6,000s maybe of nitro _____0410 and very sharp corners and pointed edges, and if you go through the finish, we can certainly kind of retard the area, just overspray -- spray some more nitro on, and have it repaired down and it's seamless. You can make a good-sounding guitar with anything, but we think that lacquer will make a guitar sound better. I mean there are certainly skilled enough guys out there and skilled companies that can build good guitars. The thing with poly, the tendency is to get a little thicker because it's just that the reason you're using poly is that usually it's just to speed up production so you can put it on fast, you can sand and buff it and get it through there because you can blow a bunch on it, but the difference in a thick poly and a nice thin lacquer is I think it's amazingly different.

We spent -- We started -- When we started mandolins, we were just doing lacquered mandolins, for example, and a good friend named Charlie Garrington whose the one who does work for the Gibson Mandolin Department, he and Collings had a pretty good discussions about varnish versus lacquer, and Bill was kind arguing that he didn't think there was a difference in stuff, and Charlie was arguing that of course that there was a difference, and I think that Bill owes Charlie a lot, and he'll say that we're starting to do some varnish differences -- varnish sprays on the mandolins in which we do a lot of now, and there's absolutely a difference in sound. A lot of the things are the same with lacquer and poly. There's certainly a different tone, get weird hearing, and again if you've got a really thin poly, the difference maybe less but that's not what usually happens. People use poly so you can get it on and get it through.

PATRICK OGLE: It stems fors mass production.

STEVE MCCREARY: Generally, yes.