Welcome to Clinton Craft!

The Story of Clinton Craft stems from the fact that I am a tweaker, a customizer, a generally unsatisfied person with things in their basic form or function. 

   I have always, from early childhood, wanted to make alterations to things, processes, and most everything in my life.  I remember the "I can make that myself" inclination from 2nd grade where a classmate had a toy and I thought:  "I want one of those, and I could make one myself" and set off to try and carve it out of soap.  It turns out that I lacked the skills at that moment to realize the toy, but throughout my live I've been learning, practicing, and developing the skills and knowledge to bring my curiosities and hacks to fruition. 

   This led first to woodworking, which I began because #1: I grew up with my dad having a shop as a child and making lots of stuff for the house out of wood, and #2:  I wanted to play the organ pedals (because playing music with your feet is AWESOME!), and had been allowed to use offcuts of a maple floor, so I built a midi AGO Organ Pedalboard.  Then I made a few other things out of wood that I wanted, and soon stumbled upon a project that needed basic metal working skills.  During this time I was also designing a 9 string guitar because I wanted to be able to play bass and guitar on one neck, without having a discrepancy between open strings of each instrument, the registers of the notes on the neck for each, or the interval of a 4th between strings (except for the 3rd to the B).  For this I had to learn and try out electronics for the guitar, as well as build and wind my own pickups, which led me to more complex electronic projects. 

   I also was working as an Orchestra teacher in the public school, and had been offered basic luthiery training at a friend's violin shop in return for helping him get his rental fleet ready for the next school year.  I took that knowledge and skill, bought my own tools, and began doing all the repairs on school instruments myself, saving budget and being able to afford more new school instruments for more kids to use - a win/win in my book even though maintaining all of those instruments takes a ton of out of school time! 

   I had a friend at that time that had a 5 string viola, and being a travelling teacher between 5 different schools, I decided that was the best instrument to have so that I only needed to carry one (it was a violin or viola, and had the same strings as a cello, only higher, so I could use that as my teaching instrument...).  I couldn't find one at a price I could afford, but I did find a half finished viola body online, so I bought it, completed it, changed the pegbox to 5 strings, varnished it, carved the bridge, pegs, soundpost, etc. and then had my own 5 string (well, actually 3 of them, because I later bought several bodies and made duplicates...).  After my success on this, I did the same for some 4 string violin bodies and used them as extra instruments for my students at school. 

   This luthiery experience led me to start making my own instruments of varying kinds, as well as building midi instruments and working on my recording studio craft and building my home studio into a closet in my home.  My skills and Crafts kept building on one another, and leading to new skills and interests, and it is still so today. 

   In many ways the learning and the thrill of design and creation is what drives me, and the things I create are peripheral perks.  I've learned to create complex spreadsheets and automate a lot of my paperwork at school, as well as at home.  I bought a car, and learned how to modify it, as well as fix it, as well as detail it, and more.  I've learned techniques and designed and built shop tools, and the list goes off into fractals...  I've used many of these skills to create side hustles for myself, and this website is both to share my joy of creating, as well as to house some of these side hustles.  I hope that you enjoy browsing, or, if you are here to hire me, I hope that you do, and that you are pleased with my work!