{"id":3547,"date":"2015-11-24T19:42:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T12:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theaccent.org\/?p=3547"},"modified":"2020-11-06T01:58:34","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T18:58:34","slug":"photo-story-coolings-guitars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/photo-story-coolings-guitars\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo Story: Collings Guitars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo story by, Kelly West News Photography One Class, Fall 15′<\/p>\n

Collings Guitars, which started as a one-man shop in the mid-1970s, has grown to include more than 70 full-time employees and an expanding facility on the western edge of Travis County. Bill Collings dropped out of college as a pre-med major and started repairing and building guitars, and eventually hired his first employee in 1989, who still works for the company.<\/p>\n

The Collings shop turns out high-quality acoustic and electric guitars, as well as mandolins and ukuleles, and most steps of the production process are performed painstakingly by hand. The cost of the guitars can range anywhere\u00a0from $3,500 to $6,000 or more, depending on how custom the design is.<\/p>\n

Collings instruments are played by a variety of musicians, including Lyle Lovett, Lloyd Maines, and Patti Smith.<\/p>\n

[Students from the News Photography 1316 class spent a morning documenting the work and craftsmanship at Collings Guitars, and complied a photo story from the assignment.]
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jerome<\/a>
Hard at work – An employee Sands a piece of an electric guitar inside the Collings facility. Photo by Anneke Paterson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Collings<\/a>
Smoothing out the edges – Reid Albach smooths out the sides of an acoustic guitar. Photo by Mario Cantu.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Collings<\/a>
Collings guitars – A satin finish A-Model MT mandolin made receives its final adjustments before completion. Photo by Nicholas Skelton-Tangredi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jerome<\/a>
It’s all in the details – Jerome Little, an employee of Collings Guitars, uses a chisel tool to finish a piece of an electric guitar inside the facility. Photo by Anneke Paterson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Scott<\/a>
Putting it all together – Scott Butts assembles a bridge to a Mandolin at Collings. Photo by Mario Cantu.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Andrew<\/a>
It takes skills – Andrew Murray makes small cuts into a guitar, a process called kerfing which requires intricate and skilled work. photo by Mario Cantu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Ed<\/a>
Making repairs – Ed Rodriguez repairs an old guitar. The C10 series acoustic was sent back to Collings for a scratch made at the headstock. Photo by Chloe Bennett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a look at how Collings employees take a break to\u00a0have fun during the day,\u00a0enjoy this short video at\u00a0http:\/\/bcove.me\/z93mtt9m.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo story by, Kelly West News Photography One Class, Fall 15′ Collings Guitars, which started as a one-man shop in the mid-1970s, has grown to include more than 70 full-time employees and an expanding facility on the western edge of Travis County. Bill Collings dropped out of college as a pre-med major and started repairing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4015,"featured_media":3576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[78,85,100,178,225,323,354,398,444,473,495,528,598],"class_list":["post-3547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photos-2","tag-andrew-murray","tag-anneke-paterson","tag-austin-community-college","tag-coolings-guitars","tag-ed-rodriguez","tag-jerome-little","tag-kelly-west","tag-mario-cantu","tag-nicholas-skelton-tangredi","tag-photo-story","tag-reid-albach","tag-scott-butts","tag-the-accent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}