The New Blog is up and running!

Folks, here is the new Searcy String Works Blog!!

http://searcysw.blogspot.com/

There will be no new posts to this blog.

1967 Fender Jazz Bass Pickup Rebuild

The New Blog

Just so you guys all know I will be building a new blog soon that will allow me to have a few more functions that this one. Stay Tuned.

In the meantime I think it's appropriate to use this one to post the final chapter on the flood drama that has been my life for about 2 years now.  












Part 3 coming in May 2012 .

Searcy Rebuilds a National, Supro, Valco, Guitar Pickup

What now?

For two years I have been repairing the flood damage on my home cars and shop. All the while I have known that when I returned to the pickup winding world I was going to have to rethink my approach. My new line of pickups will not be copies of Gibson and Fender classic. They will be MY designs. I have ideas.... new ideas... This week I finally got to build one of the ideas that's been bouncing around my head for the last 2 years. This is a Dog Ear p-90 that requires no routing of the guitar. It works for any string spacing and it's totally hum free. Still tweaking the number of windings I want it to have but it's going to be a classic.

Kay Speed Bump Guitar Pickup Rewind by Clint Searcy

Getting there....

Well, It's taking a lot longer than we figured it would. With Winter and the Holidays and some illnesses, progress has slowed to a crawl on the house rebuild and on getting the shop back in order. That's not to say we haven't made huge progress, it's just that next month will be one year since the flood and I'm starting to run out of steam.

I want to get back to doing what I do.

Our new deck.

The flood rebuild is taking longer then we though it would. I was hoping to be back in the shop making pickups by now. We have made a lot of progress on the house. We are about half done. Here is a tour of the new Deck that was built by an all volunteer crew and designed by Amy Hopkins. It's fantastic!

The Kitchen is Done!

Dad working on the floor

This is my dad. Lt.Col James Searcy. He's retired now and came by to help out with the tear out. He also brought some huge barn fans and clean up gear and god only knows what else to help with the job. At one point he even mowed the lawn!

Ellie Erickson and the Dry Wall Mud of Doom!

You guys have read about Ellie here on my Blog before. Shes a luthier, musician, artist, guitar tech, and pretty much anything else you can think of . Well she came down to help of put the house back together. She was part of a volunteer group that was put together by the MIMF who also raised some money for the rebuild. Well, let's be honest... it wasn't just some money... it was about $10,000!

A Jacked Up Home

This house is about 7 houses down from us. We got 16 inches of water in our house. They got 7 feet. That's almost to your ceiling folks. To reduce their risk in the future they are lifting their house and blocking up under it.

Tennessee Flood Rebuild Still Going On

This is a section of road that is sitting where a house is supposed to be. The house is gone down the river.

We are Nashville

Who needs floors?

Once the walls were out and the crew went home it was time to start ripping out the floors. It was important to get air moving under the house so the wood could dry out and mold wouldn't start growing. Once the carpet was out we learned that some of the floor was rotten any way and needed to be replaced.When we were ripping out the old drywall and flooring we found that at some point the floor had started to rot in the utility closet that holds the washer and dryer. Instead of fixing it the previous owners cut a patch for it out of 1" plywood and just scabbed that over the top of the damage allowing it to stay out of sight and rot to its hearts content. The floor had actually sagged almost 2" and Amy had to cut out all the damage and jack up the floor with a bottle jack. Then we made some temporary braces for it out of blocks. We will make some more permanent ones later when the rest of the house work is done.

Bust somthing!

Once we had gone through all our stuff and tossed out the trash and the carpet and the waterlogged furniture it was time to start ripping the drywall and insulation out. We have a huge volunteer crew show up for this job.

Tent City.

One of our neighbors that didn't get flooded let us use a tent and some sleeping bags for a few nights while we waited for the water to go back down. We were glad to have them but sleeping on hard, un-level ground ain't no fun at all.

Today I'm tired

Man, I'm dead tired... Yesterday our stuff came back from FedEx. I had to clear a spot in the shop for it all and then load it. When we loaded all this stuff we were in a hurry so some things that were not worth saving got loaded along with good stuff. There are a lot of things that are questionable as well like my unfinished pine desk. I love that thing but it's not too stable right now and there is some mold growing on it. We'll see what some glue, clamps and bleach do for it.

Playing Catchup...

Once the water retreated from the house I started ripping out carpet and tossing out wet furniture. The roads were still flooded and people still couldn't get in to help but I had to work on fixing this mess.

Week one of the flood

This was originally written and posted on the MIMF on May 7th after sleeping in the back yard for 4 days. Click here to read the original thread.

I'm a proud man and I don't like to ask for help. Lucky for me, I have the MIMF and I don't have to ask for help. It's just there...

We have a collection of dramatic stories from the last 7 days. I'll try to fill you guys in sometime later. For now I'll tell you that the flooding rains didn't actually get us. It was the closing of the dam that caused the water in Pond Creek to stop flowing into the Cumberland River. I woke up at 6AM on Monday May 3rd thinking we had beaten the flood only to find water at my front doorjamb. I yelled at Alicia to get dressed and get ready to go. Alicia has CP and moving fast is not her strong point. I took her computer and my guitars and tossed them into the attic then I dashed out the back door and tossed open my backyard fence gates. The water was already a foot deep in the back door of the house. I ran to my little Toyota truck and drove it around to butt the drivers door up to the back door of the house and told Alica to crawl in. As soon as she was in I tossed the dogs in the back and took off up the hill that is our backyard. I made it out of the water but sank the truck in the mud. From there we walked to the back fence. By 6:10AM water was running across the floor. I ran back to the house to kill the main on the breaker box.

The days since have consisted of hiking about a half mile through the woods to get water and dog food from my neighbors who instantly got into motion seeing that everyone had food and drink, watching TSA and National Guard choppers come and go and wading into the house to rescue things and check on damage.

By noon May 6th the water was down to just past the floor of the house so I went in and started taking pictures of the damage and then started pulling carpet and wet furniture. We had 15" of water in the house standing for a day and a half. Last night I ran a drop cord from my neighbors Nicks house. The water didn't get in his place. We used it to power up an old laptop with a Sprint Air Card to get Alicia on line to let folks know we are bent but not broken.

Four houses up the houses were flooded up to the roof. We are very lucky. I have been told to cut out all the dry wall at the 4' mark and replace it. I'm also told that I need to remove all the plywood flooring sheeting and spray the floor joists with bleach.

This morning I unplugged everything in the house and turned the power back on to everything accept the AC unit. I'll try it tomorrow. My folks trucked in this afternoon with some bleach and some big barn fans that I have set up pulling air through the house. They helped me unstick the Toyota. I got the carpet out of all but two rooms. I'll get those tomorrow then start pulling drywall. The Olds 88 was totally sunk. I suspect it's totaled. I'll drain and replace the fluids in it tomorrow and see if it will start.

Right now I'm trying to come up with a game plan. I'm not sure what I need to do or how to go about it but I'm damn sure going to fix this. The insurance man is coming from Connecticut to see if anything is covered. I'm not in a flood plane so I don't have flood insurance. A stupid mistake that I will correct tomorrow.

We are staying here at the house while we tackle this mother for a number of reasons.

I want to thank you guys for the help and support.

I'm trashed right now so I'm going to crash. Sunburnt and peeling and sore and smelly. I'll try to check back in tomorrow and update you guys.