Introduction

When I discovered nearly a year ago that I knew someone who actually builds acoustic guitars, I was shocked. I knew that fine acoustic guitars were hand built works of art, but I guess I had never really thought of building them as a hobby. Despite attempts to cajole me into building one of my own, I adamantly thought for a while that I lacked both the knowledge and the resources to construct one of my own (at the time of writing, I live in a small 4th floor Seattle condo without any extra space or anything resembling a workshop with power tools), so I wrote off the whole idea.

Six months later however, the urge to give it a try was too great and I finally posed the question, "Suppose I decide to build a guitar...?" I would have no idea of not only how possible it would be to build a convincingly fine acoustic guitar, but to do so without any prior experience, power tools, or a dedicated workspace.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage first-time guitar builders or anyone who may be interested in taking up this incredibly rewarding (and impressive) hobby by chronicling my building experience--both the successes and the arguably more valuable mistakes--and to dispel all notion that you must have a dedicated workspace and a myriad of expensive power tools.

In fact, here's what my "workshop" looks like when I'm not building a guitar:

And here's where all my guitar making tools are stored:

Currently I'm six months into the process and I'm building the entire thing on my dining room table in the kitchen, my tools live in a $15 tool box, AND my condo is on the market so I have to clean up each night so I can convince would-be real estate buyers that they won't find a band saw in the refrigerator (although I could use the storage space...and I could put wood in the "freshness saver" drawers...))

For the next few entries I will attempt to go back and document the last 6 months of my building process with brief descriptions and photos. Hopefully I'll succeed in bringing clarity or encouragement to potential builders, just as I experienced.

A Good Place to Start

When I decided to build a guitar, I had no idea where to begin. Fortunately for me, I knew someone who could provide sage advice and could help point me in the right directions. The biggest and best piece of advise I received was to purchase the guitar maker's bible, "Guitarmaking" by William Cumpiano. Click Here to read a review of the book that I was asked to write for "Cool Tools." This book essentially walks you through the process step by step, and is a must for the beginner. It was highly recommended that I skim / read it first to help wrap my head around the critical order in which things should be done and to fully grasp the scope of the project.

One of the great things about this book is that it assumes you have little or no access to power tools. (A few exceptions will be noted later). Once I became more familiar with the construction process, the fun stuff began: wood shopping!

UPDATE: Since many people have been emailing me asking about costs and which materials . tools they should get first, I thought I'd publish my take on the subject, available here.

Gathering Supplies and Wood

Before buying wood and tools, it's a good idea to spend a little time designing the guitar. If you have access to any sort of AutoCAD software, it can be extremely helpful in working out critical dimensions and trying out different curves.

I chose to build an OM sized guitar (approximately) with a tighter waist, using Amazon Rosewood for the back and sides, and AAA Englemann Spruce for the soundboard. Since I want to build a guitar for fingerstyle playing, the smaller body and livelier soundboard wood should pair well with the rich tones of the rosewood (at least that's what I hope..) I haven't decided yet, but I'll probably use curly maple for bindings and use rosewood for the bridge, headplate, fingerboard, etc.

Cumpiano's book basically spells out all of the necessary tools and rough wood dimensions needed to get going (although you don't need all of the tools he recommends, and many can be bought later in the process to spread the cost). Here are some great links for the harder to find tools:

Stewart-MacDonald
Allied Lutheirie
LMI

Here's a pic of the Amazon Rosewood back and side sets I purchase from Allied Lutherie for around $200.

Sure, you could get a typical (boring) set of East Indian Rosewood for about $75, but EVERY production rosewood guitar is made with it, and since you'll eventually spend months crafting the guitar, it's worth the marginal splurge to get something exotic. I was advised to stick to straight grained, well quartered side wood--(essentially avoid anything curly or figured) for my first guitar due to difficulties that would arise when bending the sides (it turned out to be sage advise).

Another lesson I learned quickly--BUY QUALITY TOOLS

Without semi-decent tools, you might as well not even bother. The first "guitar making" tool I bought was a #4 Smoothing Plane, and I tried to save a couple bucks by purchasing a cheap one, which resulted in a near annihilation of my soundboard! In the end I threw the tool away and got a better one. You don't have to spend huge sums of money on good tools, just don't buy the cheapest one. When in doubt, Stanley planes seem to be a good match between price and quality.

Building the Soundboard

Although Cumpiano's book begins with the neck rough out, I chose to begin by building the body, and then construct the neck. The first part of the body process involves jointing the edges of the two spruce soundboard halves in preparation for gluing. The book describes how to make a "shooting board" for the jointing process--I made mine large enough to double as a workboard for gluing the two halves later. (That's the dining room table I'm working on)

As I began to plane the spruce halves, I quickly learned some important lessons. The first goes back to what I mentioned earlier about inferior tools--my cheap plane was poorly crafted with out-of-square soles and a cheap blade

LESSON LEARNED: I bought a #4 Plane based on the book's recommendation, but eventually realized that I needed a longer one--at least a #5 or #6--to accurately plane the soundboard edge. I had to borrow someones to finish the job. So far I have had no use for the #4 Plane I bought, so I'd recommend getting a longer one).

The second thing I learned was that planing takes patience and time to learn. It's REALLY easy to accidently plane a gentle curve into the straight edge of your top near the ends if you're not paying close attention to your planing pressure. I eventually got it with a little flat sanding board touch-up.

Once the halves are jointed and pass the light-test (see book), they are joined. I had the two plates machine sanded to .130" thickness before they were shipped, so I wouldn't have to plane them to thickness (like in the book). However, this didn't really leave me with much thickness for sanding later (I was aiming for a final thickness of about .125") so in the future I think I'll ask for them to come at around .140". It's also worth noting that careful attention should be paid while joining the two halves so that one doesn't ride up higher than the other at the seam (mine did a little), especially if you don't have much thickness for sanding out mistakes. In the end it turned out fine.

I used a coping saw and a fine blade to cut out the top, roughly 0.5" outside of the traced template line, but a fine band saw would have been faster (pay attention to the soft spruce grain to avoid a chip out). Also, spruce is SOFT and dents easily, so from here on out treat it like a baby (but not the uncontrollable-screaming-its-head-off-in-- crowded-restaurant kind).

Once I had my soundboard cut out, I clamped it to the plywood workboard (see book) and evened out the surface a little with the scraper--leaving the final scraping and leveling for right before the lacquer finish is applied.

Building the Back

While I had the tools out for jointing and planing, I decided to go ahead and construct the back too. The process is very similar to making the soundboard, except the rosewood is denser and begs for a little more blade.

Here's the back joined and cut out (I used a band saw for this one).
Here are the two plates getting to know each other.

As you can see, our tiny second 1/2 bathroom makes a great place for guitar pieces to be stored while the glue dries. My plates were surprisingly wobbly (especially the rosewood) at this stage, so I handled them carefully and even clamped one to a straight board along the seam when not in use--they'll firm up as the waste is trimmed off, etc. (that glue joint is surprisingly strong).

Tackling the Rosette

I spent a great deal of time (too much time) trying to decide just what my soundhole rosette should look like. I really wanted a little bit of abalone, but I was also aware of the costs and caveats associated with working with abalone inlays. Finally I decided on an abalone inlay with two concentric rings of rosewood (cut from the left over back material) around it, and of course some of the BWB (black/white/black) purfling strips. I also used AutoCAD to help me visualize and measure for the rosette channel that I would need to cut into my soundboard.

I borrowed a friend's bending iron (you can make one) to bend the purflings and the rosewood strips cut from the back material.

The rosewood was a little thicker (.11") than the ideal thickness of .09", so bending was extremely touchy--after snapping a few practice pieces, I finally tried misting the wood with water and wrapping in foil, then working it slowly over the bending iron. The aluminum foil served to trap in the steam--the key to successful bending--and after a night drying while clamped into a circlular form in some plywood, I had nearly round rings. By the time all the strips are "seated" in the soundboard routed channel, they all work together to tighten up and make a perfect circle.

At this point in the building process, the idea of having to rout a perfect circle of a perfect width out of my soundboard was a little intimidating--there's really no room for error here. The book talks about dry fitting the purflings and inlays and then pulling it all out and glueing it all in again with wood glue in one swift step. Instead, it was recommended to me to take my time fitting all the strips, and then covering the top with a watery super glue, allowing the glue to "wick" down among the strips. That way I would be sure the purflings aligned properly. This actually worked brilliantly, and I can't imagine the hassle of using wood glue for this step (it took me hours to fit all the strips in properly).

Lastly I spent a little while planing down the rough rosewood to approximately the soundboard level, and then finished it off with a scraper (leaving just a microscopic amount for "final sanding").

Oops! Soundboard Repair

Sooo...I made an almost tragic soundboard mistake. I was using a tool (cough...mechanical pencil...cough) to fit (jam) some of the rosette purfling into the really snug soundboard channel, when my "tool" slipped and punched a hole into the top. That kind of a move pretty much ends the day of guitar building...

After some thought I decided that I could carefully razor knife out a rectangular area encompassing the hole, keeping my cut lines exactly on the grain lines. I would then be able to match the grain spacing to a piece of scrap from when I cut out the top (save the scraps!) and essentially plug it and scrape flush. It was pretty much the most counter-intuitive thing I could think to do at the time, so of course it worked.

Ultimately, I was able to chisel the new hole flat, carefully fit in my plug, scrape flush, and all in all it turned out perfect. I also knew that when I cut out the soundhole, the end of my graft would disappear and you may never notice the graft at all...

It actually worked. Lesson learned? Pencils are for drawing.

LESSON LEARNED: Make sure your router base is perfectly flat and smooth. My stupid plastic Dremel router base had a little plastic nob that made a small circular depression in my soundboard. I can scrape it out latter, but still it's a stupid mistake to make.

Bracing the Soundboard

Bracing the top of the guitar is the subject of great mystery and debate. Arguably, nothing affects the sound and tone of the guitar more than the bracing.

For this guitar I wanted the bracing to be light enough to allow for a clear note when plucked with a fingertip, but firm enough to maintain its sustain and volume. I chose to follow Martin's standard X-bracing guidelines, with subtle modifications to the placement of the lower face braces.

I used AutoCAD software to try a few different layouts and then printed the one I liked best, transferring the line work to the underside of the soundboard. This way I could better control the symmetry of the bracing, as well as the open / closed relationship of the X-bracing.

Below is a picture of the first bracing element I began with (according to the order in the book), the rosewood bridge plate (cut from a scrap from the back material). I sanded it down to .10" and sized it according to my final bridge design.

Next I cut and planed square all the brace blanks and glued down the upper face graft (top of picture) and the 4 smaller face braces (shown clamped).

Some people wait until all of the braces are in place to begin carving and shaping them, but I couldn't wait, so I adopted a "glue and carve as I go" sort of plan (carving braces is actually one of the most rewarding steps).

Here's a shot of the top sitting on the work board, showing all the little guys in place and carved. Notice I left the 2 sound hole braces taller than most, yet smaller than recommended by the book.

Here's a shot from upstairs down into my "workshop"....

According to the book, the next steps include dry fitting the X-brace (the most important one), gluing and shaping the remaining bracing and upper face brace (the one that bears the load of the fingerboard and soundboard torsion) and THEN gluing and shaping the X-brace. However, i chose to fit and glue the X-brace first, then attach the remaining braces. The X-braces are each carved first with a slight arch, so that when glued they impart a gentle arched dome to the soundboard. I felt that by installing this element first, I would then have established the arch of the top and could then make sure the other braces fit that curve, rather than compete with it.

(You can never have too many clamps, and get good ones).

LESSON LEARNED: Before carving the arches into both X-brace blanks, I mistakenly notched the lap joint first. Then I tried clamping one into a vice for carving, not thinking about the fact that I was bearing down on the end of the brace, and ultimately fractured it near the lap joint. I was able to wick superglue into the crack and clamp overnight, so it's fine now. In the future, I will arch first--fully supporting the length of the brace--then cut the lap joint.

Carving the X-Brace is a task that should be well thought out before beginning, as leaving too much wood will deaden the tone, but too little could result in an overly bassy guitar and/or a structural failure of the top due to the high tension of the strings (almost 200 lbs. worth).

LESSON LEARNED: Have a shape in mind, and stick too it. I began thinking I would "scallop" the X-brace a little (you can see my rough carving in the picture below). I introduced a slight scallop, then changed my mind and had to carefully feather my high points back into a gentle curve. I'm currently under the belief that scalloping creates dead zones at the peaks, and instead favor a more gentle parabola.

In the end I was very happy with my bracing. The top has a clean tap tone to it (but I really have no idea what I'm listening for...) and in general just looks freakin' cool. The 2 little diamonds toward the bottom are book-recommended seam patches to strenghen those regions. In the future I think I will omit them--I see no need for them there, so they probably only serve to deaden those spots a little...

Below are just some more pictures of my bracing (you can never look at too many bracing photos. Check out this link for pictures of factory bracing).

Close up of the X-brace lap joint and the "bump" wood patch. Most people use a glues soaked linen patch, but some (including Bourgeois) feel that the wood patch is stronger...

Bracing the Back

Bracing the back plate is considerably easier than bracing the soundboard. Like the top, the back gets arched laterally--only more severely. Before bracing the back, however, I chose to rout a channel along the seam between the two halves to include a decorative center stripe.

Usually I've seen a single stripe of decorative purfling, but I ran into a problem whereby the black/white/black striping I had was slightly different than the one pre-glued onto my maple binding, and would look asymmetrical if I use them on opposite sides of the maple strip. My remedy was to use two maple strips with my smaller one in the middle. Ultimately I was very happy with this decision--the maple stripe has more presence now so I think it will look cool in the end.

I didn't take too many pictures of the back bracing process. It's similar in terms of arching and carving, except the patterning is different. I followed the book's spacing and used a 'Ladder Bracing' pattern. The rounded strips of wood between the 4 main braces are cross-grain grafts used to strengthen the back seam. By the way, the wooden cam clamps shown in the picture below are essential I've found, and completely worth their nominal cost. Here are the braces being glued in place:

Here is a picture of the final braced back after carving:

Here are the two plates and their respective bracing, side by side:

Bending the Sides

Now on to something more intimidating: Side Bending. I borrowed someone's light bulb-heated bending iron and had practiced a little with the rosette pieces, so I was ready to attempt bending the rosewood sides.

After much thought and a few different approaches, I found two methods that worked well for me. The first was to soak the wood in warm water for about 30 minutes, and then SLOWLY work the bend, constantly checking it against a template. The rosewood becomes surprisingly limber once it heats up. The second method--which worked much more quickly--was to spray water onto the side, then wrap it in 1 layer of aluminum foil. The foil creates a steam bath the quickly loosens up the wood. The only caveats I found were that it loosened too quickly, so you have to be careful not to over bend and tear the wood, and it can be hard to check your progress without seeing the exact side wood.

In the end I bent each side using a different method, and concluded that the bare wood, extreme patience method is best. It took me about 3 hours per side to really get it.

Here's one side clamped into position on the template while drying overnight.

Once the wood is bent, it will look like hell. Mine looked burnt (but they weren't), some grain lines were really dark, others not so much, and the once smooth wood was now rough and "fibery" looking. Sap from deep within had come to the surface, and there were nasty water marks meandering everywhere. I even split the end when I first started (I stopped that piece and super glued it to stop the split--that worked perfectly--and it will get trimmed off later anyway). Since I'm back-posting these blog entries, I can tell you now that after the sides are assembled and scraped smooth, all of those imperfections disappear and the sides look beautiful.

The above pictures show both sides, after they've dried, just sitting there waiting to be trimmed and fitted. The lighter sap wood on the top edge of the sides will be trimmed away eventually.

Headblock and Tailblock

Once I had braced the two plates and bent the sides, I began focusing attention on assembling the body. The first steps were to construct from solid mahogany the headblock and tailblock (pictured clamped below).

The tailblock is less complicated than the headblock, so I went ahead and got it out of the way first. I chose to bevel the sides at a 45-degree angle to help reduce the overall mass, and I slightly beveled the top edge to minimize the block's contact with the soundboard (I figure less blocks of wood glued to the soundboard will yield a more freely vibrating plate).

Here's the soundboard with both blocks glued in place:

Here's a close-up of the headblock:

The headblock actually requires a little more attention than you might think, since it's construction and orientation will be essential to the playability of the instrument when the neck is attached later. I laminated the blank for this block from 4 pieces of mahogany, and then squared it into a solid block. The two holes will later receive barrel bolts (to attach the neck), which will be joined to the body with a mortise and tenon joint (dovetails are evil I'm told).

Installing the Sides

The first step to convincing someone that all these pieces may actually become a guitar is to glue kerfed lining to the soundboard edge of the sides (shown above). This notched mahogany lining curves easily around the bend of the side and is clamped / glued into place with a million little clamps. The kerfing actually provides the gluing surface between the sides and the top and back (side material itself is eventually routed away for binding, and thus makes for an impractical gluing surface).
Once the sides are kerfed, and the kerfing is leveled along the sanding board, the sides are trimmed at their ends and glued to the soundboard following the method described in the book. (Boards are placed along the top to prevent the clamps from crushing the sides, and the opposing side is set in p lace to level the boards).

And the rough final product (note: the sides are over sized and will be trimmed later; the same is true for the overhang of the soundboard).

Next I marked the final contour of the back and planed the sides down to their final height. The height at the headblock is approximately 1 inch lower than at the tailblock, so the back will have a longitudinal arch to it. Once planed, the mahogany kerfing that will join the back plate is glued in place (shown below).

Side Port!

So I stumbled upon Tim McKnight's website and discovered the quiet world of guitar side ports. What's a side port? Basically, it's a second hole in your guitar--usually in the upper bout side on the half facing the player--that allows the player to hear a better acoustic image of what someone sitting in front of the guitar may be hearing. Usually the tone is said to be fuller or bassier from the player's perspective with a sound port.

After some thought, I decided that I HAD to try one in this guitar, and settled on an oval shape as being the most likely form to turn out looking well-crafted. I was fortunate enough to get some advice form professional luthier Michael Bashking regarding how to construct the sound port.

I began by scoring the outline of the oval into the bent side using an oval template--this way I could then Dremel away the interior up to the scoreline, and then refine my oval with files and sandpaper (shown above).

On the inside, I was advised to glue in a cross-grain patch to strengthen the side and to prevent cracks along the oval. I chose to use rosewood side material for the patch so it would look the same as the sides, but I also sandwiched a maple veneer (shown above) into it to create a little maple line detail along the inside edge of the oval side port (I would love to have bound the oval in maple, but found the procedure too difficult and risky for my first guitar).

Here's a picture of the rough-cut oval after I Dremeled it:

I think in the next photos I had already cleaned up the oval a little--I'm saving the final sanding for the end:

Once again, here's a picture of both halves ready for attachment--notice the back kerfing has been notched to accommodate the back braces.

Attaching the Back

Here's part where you have to be sure you've done everything to the inside of the guitar that you wanted too: attaching the back. Before the back cna be attached however, a few preliminary steps have to be taken to ensure that it fits perfectly.

First, you have to plane away material and carefully shape the headblock to allow for the arch of the back. Without the right curvature planed into the headblock, an unsightly dimple will become visible when the back is glue down due to the headblock's current flatness.

Once the headblock (and tailblock) regions are adjusted for the arch of the backplate, the brace notch pockets must be adjusted so that the back sits flush to the sides, while the brace ends sit neatly in the pockets, maintaing positive contact with the kerfed lining.

Once everything is aligned and dry fitted properly, the back can be glued on. I chose to use the 'rubber strip' method--opting for it over constructing a few dozen spool clamps--by cutting up a blue rubber swimming pool hose I bought from Home Depot into strips and square-knotting them together--90 ft in total. I also used a few clamps in kep points for some added clamping power.

Holy Crap It Worked!

...and the unveiling--it worked! A little part of me actually can't believe it worked and that the back hasn't sprung off and flown through the wall into the neighbor's condo like a card throwing trick. Here's a couple pictures after the unveiling:

Though the soundhole looking at the back bracing:

Here are just some cool shots back into the enclosed sound box:

Installing the End Graft

Where the two sides meet at the tailblock, it's traditional to include an end graft (usually of a contrasting wood or the binding material) to give the end of the guitar a clean finished look. In order to chisel out the region and work on the guitar, it has to be clamped something like this:

I chose to use a figured maple to match my bindings. Many people recommend that you use a wedge shaped graft because you can easily adjust the taper and drive it in for a clean fit. I liked the contrast of the maple against the rosewood so much that I chose to make my wedge significantly wider than most, so as to have as mush figured maple as possible.

Here's the wedge shape being chiseled out of the side material at the tailblock:

I chose to pair the figured maple wedge with black/white/black purfling strips on the edges, which I will later miter and join to the binding. Here's the wedge being rough fitted in place:

Here's the final maple wedge trimmed flush:

Once the graft is in place, I finished scraping the sides smooth and level in preparation for routing the binding ledge (I didn't take many pictures in this stage, but the transformation from rough bent side wood to smooth glassy guitar side wood is unbelievable). In all honesty, the entire leveling and scraping process was fairly tedious and took hours. By the end however, I learned both how to properly sharpen a scraper and how essential it is that the scraper edge be sharp and well burnished. Here's my clamping arrangement for holding the body while scraping:

LESSON LEARNED: If you can't burnish a good hook on the edge of your scraper, don't even bother working on the sides of the guitar. You will get nowhere fast and likely become frustrated.

Installing the Maple Binding

Routing the stepped channels around the perimeter of the body originally seemed like a pretty intimidating task. Essentially, any slip of the router or major mistake here, and it would likely be fairly noticeable in the end. Using a Dremel and sharp rabbet bit, here's what the initial pass looked like up close:

The next photo shows the "stepped" ledge needed to receive both the outer maple binding, and the inner black/white/black purfling strip:

Because of a combination of the arched surface of the back, my less-than-amazing router base, and my equally less-than-amazing router skills, the depths of my cuts varied along the permiter of the guitar, and in some cases, the stepping effect disappeared completely. To remedy this situation, I ordered a hand held Purfling Cutter from StewMac. This tool is essentially a razer blade fixed in a handle with a side guide--but it has virtually zero surface area, unlike a router base, so when guided along the edge it makes a score line of perfect depth. I used this to clean up and widen my routed channels, and in the end, the routed ledges turned out nearly perfectly.


Below is a photo of the maple binding and the b/w/b/ purfling strips taped in place, prior to glueing.
Essentially, I fitted and trimmed them all, taped them tightly in place, and then went around a couple inches at a time and wicked CA superglue into the gaps, then pressed firmly for about 30 seconds. This method ensured a nearly gap-free installation, and was much less stressfull / hurried than trying to do it all in one pass with wood glue.

Below is a photo of the glue in place binding, before scraping flush to the guitar body.
Another up close shot of the oversized binding protruding above the body. I realized after scraping the binding flush that I had not routed by channels deep enough in both directions, an thus wound up removing much more binding material than I had wanted too from an asethtic perspective. It turned out fine, however.

I also wicked glue into the gaps along the sides:

Here's the glues and bound back, before scraping:

Scraping the Binding and Pore Filling

Once all of the binding had been installed, minor imperfections and gaps needed to be filled. I chose to pack the tiny gaps with rosewood saw dust made from scrap back material, and then allwo CA superglue to bond the saw dust in the gap. Here's a picture of my neat little saw dust pile:

Here's a good example of a tiny gap (the picture was taken very zoomed in, so it looks pretty bad but it's really not very noticeable)

Applying the saw dust:

Add a little glue and the perfect patch is formed--I think you'll agree, at this point I could almost get away without scraping or sanding, and probably nobdy would even notice...

After a few hours of careful scraping, leveling, and gentle sanding, here are some pictures of the body with flush bindings:

Sealing the Body / Applying Epoxy Coat

After making sure I had filled all of the incidental scratches and gaps, I power sanded the entire body with 220 grit, followed by 320 grit sandpaper to achieve a scratch-free, smooth surface before moving on to filling the rosewood pores and sealing the entire thing with a couple coats of epoxy.

Many people use many different products to pore fill and seal, but I wanted a clear filler that would not alter the natural color and beauty of the rosewood, so I chose to use clear 5-minute epoxy. Essentially, you just spread it as thinly as you can with a credit card, let cure, sand with 320, and repeat.

I usually broke the guitar into sections--back separate from the sides and top-- since my epoxy cured a little quicker than I could work. One time I completely blew the mixture ratio and my luxurious 5 minute epoxy became 30 second epoxy...no worries though, I just let it dry and sanded off the ridiculous looking job I had done and started over--it's fairly forgiving if you're patient.

Here are some photos of the sealed body with the crazy cool rosewood--this Amazon Rosewood actually has a lot of depth for a rosewood. I've left the final coat of epoxy rough and unsanded--it'll remain that way for a couple months while I build the neck and bridge, then I'll come back, sand it down, and begin applying a dozen coats of finish lacquer.

The Neck

With the body sufficiently coated in epoxy, I decided to postpone the 15 coats of lacquering and sanding and lacquering and sanding for a few months and start building the neck.

The neck begins with the creation of a rough Mahogany neck block. Essentially you have to make a few angled cuts, create a rough headstock, glue on a huge block of mahogany for the heel, square it all with a plane, and then begin shaping it into a neck.

Here's the headstock being trued with the neck shaft:

Here's the headstock being glued at a 15 degree angle to the neck shaft:

...and the rough neck blank in my "workshop"

Next a channel is routed down the center of the neck to provide room for a metal truss rod. The truss rod is essentially two rods that, when tightened, bend together in one direction. With a truss rod embedded within the guitar's neck, it is easy to straighten the neck to counteract the forces of string tension. If left uncorrected, the string tension would bend the neck over time to the point where the strings would begin to be too high above the fingerboard to be comfortably played.Now I'm beginning to rough out the headstock in preparation for applying the veneer:

Speaking of veneer, here's the massive 2" thick slab of Amazon Rosewood that I got from AlliedLutherie that will provide more than enough material for some veneers and a bridge:

For the headstock veneer, I've decided to go with a book matched rosewood wedge arrangement, with a curly maple center wedge (to match me tail graft on the body), then I'll bind the headstock later with the same curly maple and black/white/black strips as used on the guitar body. I also want to include a small abalone inlaid emblem thingy at the top, but I haven't decided what it will be yet...

..and the veneer faced headstock waiting for final trimming, routing, and binding:

Carving the Neckshaft and stuff

I guess I didn't take any pictures of the neck heel carving process, which was the next step. Basically you spend a while turning a block of mahogany into a symmetrical curving heal the ends evenly where the neck tenon occurs. I guess I also blew it on documenting the neck tenon carving process too.

Well anyway, now I have a neck with a heel and a tenon. Inside the tenon are two barrel nuts that will receive two barrel bolts threaded through the guitar's headblock and into the tenon. This is how the neck will be joined to the guitar. Over the next few months I'll be bolting and unbolting the neck from the guitar several times to adjust the flushness of the fit and the alignment of the neck.

So now, with roughed out versions of a neck at each end, I begin to round the block that comprises the neck shaft using a spokeshave (it's an old tool originally used to make spokes for wagon wheels).

Here's a close up of the roughed out heel:

Again, here's the idea:

I've got a Martin D-28 (love it!) that I'm taking neck curvature measurements against to at least get my final neck shape in the ballpark, then I'll finesse it further until it feels right to me:

Here's the first time I got to bolt the rough neck onto my guitar and actually pick it up! It was actually pretty exciting, since I've been working on this guitar for 7 months; now it's starting to feel like an instrument. Oh yeah, I'm checking the straightness too, whatever. Yes the stove is off (I actually removed the knobs when I left that afternoon - just in case the cat had any stupid ideas...)
Since I've been steadily approaching drawn outlines of the fingerboard while carving the neck radius, I thought now would be a good time to actually make the fingerboard and glue it down so I don't over zealously carve away too much material. Here's the set up I made for gluing maple binding strips to the edge of the fingerboard while maintaining a flush bottom:

Full Disclosure Note about the fingerboard: I chose to buy a "pre-slotted" ebony fingerboard instead of buying a slab of ebony and truing then slotting myself. While I'm confident that I could have done the procedures and measure accurately, it was waaaaaay easier and better for me to spend the extra $10 and essentially buy back a weekend. I still had to taper, bind, inlay, trim, etc. everything, but at least I won't have to spend all weekend trying to make a perfectly flat piece of ebony with limit tools, buy a $75 ruler to measure for the frets, and then make perfect little cuts with a tiny saw. Plus, when this thing is finally strung up and I'm troubleshoots the fine adjustments to mitigate intonation problems, at least I'll know it wasn't because my frets are improperly spaced. I'd HIGHLY recommend buying a pre-slotted fingerboard blank to anyone just beginning their first guitar. It's not cheating (seriously, it's not...no really...it's not...)

Anyway, binding the fingerboard with maple:

After I had bound the fingerboard and scraped the bindings flush with the top, I carefully measured for the fret marker dots (abalone), drilled their holes, glued them in place and scraped flush. I can't tell you how many times I checked to make sure I was putting the markers at the right frets...I was afraid (and still am) that I would pick the finished thing up one day and realize that I had put one in the wrong place...

After that I glued the fingerboard to the neck, with the truss rod installed inside. I guess I don't have pics of that yet, but I'm sure there will be plenty... it looks convincingly cool though. Now I can flip it over and go back to carving the neck shaft as it approaches the fingerboard. Also, I wanted to maintain a traditional element of the volute (triangular wood element at the headstock neck transition area). My Martin D-28 has one and I like it--plus I think it helps strengthen the joint area. I wasn't sure how to approach carving it (or really, saving it from being carved away) but as I keep going, it's beginning to emerge:

Here's a shot after I've refined the neck heel and the headstock joint a little further. After taking some thickness dimensions and comparing them to my favorite Martin D-28, I found that I needed to reduce the neck thickness another 1/16" or so.

Since we just sold out old dining room table, and it's been "advised" that I don't scratch up / destroy the new one, I have moved my intermittent guerilla guitar making operation into the guest bathroom...(yes, the neck is seen cantilevering over the toilet, which really only serves to increase my multi-tasking productivity now...)

Here's a progress photo of the maple bound headstock--next I have to do a little abalone inlay at the top. The holes will later receive the chrome tuning machines.

Headstock Logo Thingy

Just as with the soundhole rosette, I agonized a little about what I should do for a "logo" on the headstock. Throughout the construction of the neck and headstock I waffled between having and not having a logo or an emblem, and in the end I decided that it should be branded somehow (you rarely see a steel string acoustic guitar without a headstock emblem).

I thought I had settled on the idea of a small logo out of abalone--just a touch--to tie in with the rosette and fingerboard inlays. However, after trying a few ideas, I really wasn't liking the way the shell interacted with the maple... The next conundrum I had was deciding on a shape or form for my logo. It may seem like a simple and dumb thing, but when you go to do it and really think about it, the logo is really the most "graphic" element on the guitar and perhaps subject to the most scrutiny of familiarization, so it was a bigger decision than I thought. I thought of everything from a non-lame way to make an "S" (lastname) that hasn't been done already, to random symbols (but they needed some kind of connective meaning to me), to even abstract graphics of squid and evil bunnies (Donnie Darko style--I figured I would have regretted that down the road...)

In the end I decided that a black logo actually looked nicer with the overall guitar, and I found a nice way to incorporate a logo-thing that had meaning to me but was also abstract and "non-graphic" enough that I didn't end up with a demonic mythological beast or something...

In the end, I took the motion of conducting an orchestra in 4/4 time and sweetened it up a little to make a nice abstraction. It also happened to sit well within the context of my headstock.

To do this, I had to draw the form on the headstock, score it with a scribe, and file / excavate the material until I was about 1mm deep. Here's a picture of the half excavated form:Once I had fully cleaned out the shape, I was tasked with the question of "what to fill it with to make it black?" My original idea of black epoxy turned out hard to find, so I settled on black ebony sawdust and superglue. Before I started however, I coated the surrounding maple and rosewood with a thick film of superglue (but not in the file slots) to fill the pores and prevent any ebony dust from becoming embedded in the outlying wood, which would be almost impossible to remove. Once that dried, I simply packed the gaps full of dust (allowing it to sit high) and covered in superglue (to be scraped flush later). Here's a nice shot of that:

...and here's the almost final headstock after scraping...

Once I final sand it and seal with epoxy and lacquer it will look really nice (I hope).

Fretting and Headstock Finishing

Now that I've finished up the headstock face (but it still needs lacquer) I thought I'd move on to fretting. Basically a fret is a small length of wire, T-shaped in cross section, with a barb that digs into the slots in the fingerboard to hold the fret in place. You can either hammer them in, or press them in--I chose to press them in for fear of smashing a huge hole in the fingerboard and then having to creatively inlay some piece of abalone and pretending that I wanted it there...

Before pressing in the frets, I measured each of the 20 fret slots for their barb length (down to the 64th on an inch) and pre-cut all of my frets. I made this little Styrofoam block to help keep them organized:
Since my fingerboard is bound with a thin maple strip, the fret slot doesn't extend to the edge of the fingerboard so I have to remove a short length of the barb from each end of the fret (this way the fingerboard edge will also look "cleaner" without 20 visible barb-ends). To do this, I used a borrowed tool designed specifically to cleanly remove this little piece.

Pressing the frets into the fingerboard can be accomplished many ways--a lot of people use a drill press and a brass "caul" that's curved to fit the fret to press them in. I thought "I bet I can accomplish that with a curved piece of hardwood and a C-clamp"...it actually worked. It takes some patience and careful attention to the torque angle of the clamp, but the end result seems fine. Here's a pic of the inaugural fret:

Once I get them all in I'll go back and carefully file the ends flush with the fingerboard and bevel them. After I got most of the frets in (except for the tougher ones around the heel--I need to make a support block to help me clamp them in) I decided to seal the headstock with epoxy in preparation for lacquering. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:

Since the headstock epoxy worked out well, I went ahead and finished up contouring the neck and applied an alcohol-diluted epoxy rub with a rag to the neck and heel--it'll be all sanded off later and the neck subsequently oiled:

NEXT: Make a Nut

The next task I was faced with was roughing out the string "nut" from an oversized blank of cow bone. The purpose of the nut is to act as a "zero" fret and supply the point of contact for the strings at the headstock end of the neck. It also plays a crucial role in transferring string vibrations through the neck and into the soundbox (body) where they're amplified, so the material of choice is fairly important. Many stock production guitars use either plastic or some form of synthetic bone--for a nominal couple of bucks I chose to make mine from cow bone, which is more commonly found on higher-end custom guitars due to its higher density and better transmission of vibrations. The bone comes as a rectangular block and looks something like this:

After some rough sanding, cutting with a jewler's saw, and some gentle filing, I've roughed out the nut's final shape (less the string notches which I'll create later) and dry fitted it in the slot between the end of the fingerboard and the headstock veneer sheet:

Now I feel like I've hit this point where I could spend forever filing this or tweaking that, but those adjustments might be better made during the final fitting stage, so I decided to finish up the roughing of the neck by checking the alignment of the neck with the body.

FINISHING: Lacquering

Ha! I'm finally there--lacquering! The end is in sight...

Actually this part seemed pretty intimidating at first, since I have to actually apply a mirror-like finish to the instrument that I've been building for a solid year now. There are actually a few different lacquering products and techniques to choose from, but given my modest circumstances I chose to brush on a waterbased finish. Presently I've completed the entire lacquering stages and have to say it actually went very smoothly and is far less complicated than it will initially seem to the beginner.

If you're interested in my trials and tribulations using KTM-9 Waterbased lacquer with a Brush On Application, click here to read my detailed account.

I thought I'd start lacquering (practicing) on the headstock first since it's small and flat, and I was pretty confident that I could correct any mistakes I might make. I'm using a $0.54 foam brush from Home Depot, moving slowly so as to avoid introducing bubbles into the finish. I'll end up applying around 12-15 coats, slowly building up thin layer by layer, and sanding level every 2-3 coats. This stuff dries very quickly so it's possible to brush on all the coats in just a couple days. Ultimately, I'll allow the lacquer to cure for 3 weeks (as it shrinks and hardens) before sanding it all level with 400 grit paper, progressing toward a super fine 1200 grit or so, and finally polishing the whole thing to a mirror like shine on a buffing wheel.

Here's the headstock after the final coat--the fine brush strokes will all be sanded out after the finish is allowed to cure and harden for 3 weeks:

Since lacquering the headstock went well, I decided to sand smooth the guitar body's surfaces and proceed with the real challenge:

In order to manipulate and clamp the body while brushing on the finish, I made this super nice wooden handle and bolted it on to the guitar (which I actually had the foresight to complete before taping the soundholes closed...)

The lacquer is applied one surface at a time and tacks hard in about 20 minutes, so I could continually rotate the body and keep applying coats at a full coverage rate of about an hour. Brushing on the sides and avoiding drips and runs kind of reminded my of the way the hardshell chocolate ice cream cone thingys are dipped at Dairy Queen...

Fast forward a few days and 15 coats into the future, and it's done! The final 3 coats went on without sanding, and now I just have to wait 3 weeks before sanding and buffing. With the exception of two hiccups (see next post) it all went off without any major setbacks.

Since I still need my vice to build a bridge, I summoned all of my MacGyver skills together to transform a door, a bar clamp, some cable ties, an ethernet cable, and a towel rack into a highly sophisticated drying rack...

FINISHING: Lacquering Hiccup

This might be more of interest to the potential builder:

I ran into a potentially serious problem about midway through the lacquering phase. Apparently I hadn't gotten enough superglue underneath the two maple strips comprising my center strip marquetry on the back. This issue went completely unnoticed during sand, leveling, even applying the epoxy wood sealer. It wasn't until I had a few coats of lacquer on that the problem occurred.

I walked into my workshop (bathroom) to apply the 4th or 5th coat and immediately saw a substantial bulge forming in the marquetry on the back--I could even push it in and out! Apparently the lacquer (which constricts as it dries) was pulling up / apart the two maple strips that had not been adequately glued in place! I knew this would be more than a cosmetic issue, as once the lacquer fully cured hard, it would surely crack as soon as anyone touched that area.

You can kind of see the bulge in the center line below:

I wanted to come up with a way to secure the strips without ruining the already applied finish, so I devised a plan to access the cavity from within the guitar body underneath the strips and pump a little glue in there. I tracked down an old style hand-crank drill so I could control the speed of the drill cut and used a long 1/16" drill bit to bore a small hole through the back on the inside just until I saw maple dust coming out of the hole (without going through). Every time I turned the handle it sound like I was making a phone call on an old crank phone.

Once I had my hole, I needed a way to inject a little super glue into the spot so that I could press from the outside until the void was filled and the marquetry strip returned to flat. Having been a Diabetic since I was 5 years old, I now know that the purpose of my affliction was so that on this very day, at this very moment, I would have access to insulin syringes...finally, some closure...

...and here's me pushing as hard and as gently as I can to close up the wound. I think I actually got low blood sugar after doing this...

Phew. Crisis avoided. Now to make sure I don't accidentally reuse that insulin syringe...

FINISHING: Detail Lacquering Instructions

Detailed Lacquering Instructions - Skip Unless You Care:

First, Google Mike Doolin and read his advice regarding KTM-9. LMI's website also has some great testimonials about using this product. Don't try to spray it with a hobby air brush kit--it's too thick for those little nozzles and might cure in the air before hitting the surface.

For the novice (myself included) finishing a guitar seems fairly intimidating. After some research I concluded that using a water based finish would be better suited for me because a) it can be brushed on and I don't have an HPLV sprayer or a compressor or anywhere to spray it, and b) it won't blow up my home. Nitrocellulose lacquer has traditionally been the choice of luthiers, but because of points a) and b) (mostly b ) I chose to use a water based finish, which is said to cure just as well.

I used KTM-9 which is available from LMI. I know people who have used another waterbased products made by Oxford with equal or better results, and I will probably try it next time, but I am thus far extremely satisfied with the KTM-9.

SUPPLIES:

-They say a quart will do 4-6 guitars, so I figured the $18 pint would more than do 1 guitar. WRONG! As a beginner, you'll likely blow through that. I was on coat 7 of 12-15 when I ran out, which caused a whole mess of problems I'll mention later. I bought a second pint for another $18, totalling $36 for lacquer. Had I spent $37 initially and bought the quart, I would have had twice as much lacquer and never run into a drying/bonding issue.

-GET THE QUART

-You'll also want some of those cheap foam paint brushes from Home Depot. I used 3--since I applied lacquer in rotations of top, sides, and back, I cycled through the brushes. They rinse quickly with warm water and are dry within an hour. I've read about guys using bristle brushes for water based finishes. I never tried so I can't comment on them except to say that the flat beveled edge of the foam brush seemed to do a great job of applying a smooth finish (although tiny bubbles are an inevitability, they sand out easily and naturally).

PROCESS:

The goal is to get about 12-15 thin coats, as level as you can. Sand every 3 coats with 400 grit and a felt sanding block. Watch that you don't sand too hard and through the finish. This stuff sands quickly and easily, and will gum up sand paper FAST. You'll be going through a lot of 400 grit sheets. Tack off before re-coating.

Make sure the epoxy sealed surface is smooth sanded (320 grit is fine) and use a tack cloth to de-lint it (but don't press too hard or you'll leave tacky goo on the surface).

I clamped my guitar body by the handle into a vice for the top and back, and held it by hand for the sides. Clamp the guitar at a slight downward slope with the high point being where you will begin brushing--not too steep, but just enough for gravity to help level the initial kablob of lacquer that will come off the brush as you touch the wood.

LOADING THE BRUSH- you will get the feel for this pretty quickly. Slowly dip the brush only EVER as deep as the bevel into the can. Leave it there 3-4 seconds. When you pull it out, a long linear drip will form and drip off, then stop. Dip it in again for 1-2 seconds, let the linear drip fall, and you're good. I recharged the brush after every head to tail brush pass for about 1-2 seconds--it took me about 7-8 overlapping passes per plate.

Let's use the back as our first surface. I gently touched the brush to the top binding edge side of the back, and slowly drew the brush toward the tail keeping the flat edge of the bevel in full contact with the surface, using moderate pressure. It is important to keep in mind that you are not brushing, but rather "applying" the lacquer. For the initial pass, it seemed that the brush would not fully charge with lacquer until pass 2, so lacquer-less streaks would appear toward the end of the first pass. Although I've read that others won't touch these areas until they've dried, I simply picked up the brush, went back 1 inch before the missed spot, and "rebrushed" the area continuing to the end of the pass. Bring the brush onto a wet area the way an airplane would land--be moving before you hit it. If the lacquer you just applied is only a couple of seconds old, you can retouch it, it self levels pretty well.

This stuff seems to brush on thick, but it seems nearly 80% of it evaporates, so you're really applying a very thin coat each time.

I brushed edge to edge, but always aware of how gently I was pushing down. If you push too hard when starting a pass, it will pool up and drip down the side. I would actually wipe up the drip quickly with a finger, assuming that I will have to sand that spot with 400 grit paper before coating the side.

If you're aware of your imaginary brushing "plane" you can brush right over the curvy edges of the upper and lower bout, and the sound hole in a straight trajectory.

KTM-9 tacks QUICKLY. Perhaps 2 minutes? Don't touch it after a few seconds, you'll fix it later.

BRUSHING THE SIDES:

I held the body by the neck-stick and started at the neck end (top), working my way all the way around. One technique I read about was to start the brush in the center of the side and brush outward toward the bindings at a 45-degree angle (kind of herringbone patterned). I tired this with mediocre results. (Perhaps I applied it too thick, I had wicked brush marks and major streaks). Instead I favored straight strokes side by side, and moving around the body about 6 inches at a time, always keeping the leading edges wet. It would be as if I had a big wide 3-4" brush that covered the whole side at once (don't try this however). You'll have to do the airplane landing thing with the brush though (engine noise sound effects don't actually help much). These passes actually dried fairly level. Since you'll be flipping the lollipop you've created a few times to get at all of the surfaces, continue to do this for about 10-15 seconds in each position (top up, then top down) a couple times after you've finished brushing the whole side, as this will allow drips and runs to even out. I then clamped it upright in the vice to dry.

HOW LONG BETWEEN COATS:

I've read that you can apply 4-6 coats in a day--ha! Perhaps if you're a pro, or have no wife or family or job or didn't just eat a massive burrito the night before. But if you're a normal person or let alone a first timer, you'll be lucky to get through 3-4 coats in a "real" day (unless you have no wife, family, job, or little self respect and a good ventilation fan...)

I got a pretty good rotation going--brush #1 hit the top, dry 20 minutes while washing out brush. 20 minutes later use brush #2 to hit the back, dry 20 minutes, wash brush... This way you can theoretically get a full coat in an hour. After 2-3 coats depending on how they look, sand it level with 400 grit paper and a felt block. A coat only needs about 1 hour to dry before it can be messed with. Try not to hit the binding edges with the paper too much or you will eat through the lacquer there quickly.

CAVEAT! I ran out of lacquer at coat 7. I had to rush order another can, BUT between coats nearly 48 hours elapsed. I was worried because it's been said that after 24 hours you can run into adhesion issues. I had read that sanding the surface and wetting with denatured alcohol improves surface adhesion. I tried this and ran into major problems. Despite allowing the alcohol to evaporate for both a minute and 30 minutes, the alcohol did something nasty to the previous coat, and the subsequent coat congealed in weird pools-- it looked like I applied it with a sea sponge. In fact, it even peeled away at the sound hole. Perhaps this was just a fluke. I then sanded the entire coat off and continued on my way without incident. LESSON: DO NOT ALLOW MORE THAN 24 HOURS TO ELAPSE BETWEEN COATS! If you do, try a good sanding and see what happens-it worked for me.

Once you're satisfied that you've got enough coats, hang it up and let it cure for at least 2 weeks. The finish will harden and shrink during this time. It should look pretty shiny but probably not smooth--it's ok if it looks a little matte as you'll be sanding and buffing it up later.

Bridge

Now that I have 3 weeks to watch the finish cure, I thought I'd take the time to quickly make a bridge. I'm using a piece of Amazon Rosewood that I got from Allied Lutherie to match my back and sides. First I had to rough out a 6" x 1.5" x 3/8" blank using my sanding board:

Ok now my forearms look like Popeye. Too bad I still have to design and draw my bridge template. Shaky arms. Shaky arms. Ok the throbbing has subsided, back to making nice curves...

After transferring my bridge design to the rosewood blank, I carefully drilled the bridge pin holes and a series of tiny connected holes that will later be chiseled out to make room for the bone bridge.

After attacking it with a sanding drum on a drill press, here's the roughed out shape--I'll begin carving down the sides and edges next.

The next photo shows a straight edge clamped down and being used as a guide so that I might chisel out a straight 3/32" wide chanel for the bone saddle. I couldn't find a 3/32" chisel anywhere, so I bought a crappy cheap 1/8" chisel and used a sanding drum on a drill press to take 1/32" off the width of the chisel. I chose to use the chisel method form the book rather than setting up a complicated router angle jig. So far it's working alright...

Here's the bridge with the saddle slot roughed out. I still need to reduce the thickness of the bridge a little I think and do all those fine sanding / curving / chamfering things, but it's progressing well:

Finalyl after some distractions and putting it down for a while, I've reduced the thickness of the bridge a bit more, refined its shape, deepend the saddle slot, and buffed it with some fine steel wool. Here are a couple more pics, but it's hard to see it well without a saddle, bridge pins and good lighting.

Buffing the Finish

So after allowing the lacquer to cure for 3 weeks (cough...2 months...cough...lazy...) I finally got back into the lutherie mindset and buffed out the finish. For this step you really need a motorized buffer--you just can't do it as well by hand. Fortunately my co-worker who originally got me into guitar making happened to have one, so I went over to his place to spend a few hours bringing out the shine in the finish.

Essentially, after sanding and leveling the finish as best as you can with progressively finer grits (320, 400, 600, 1200...etc) you used a motorized buffing wheel with 3 different grits of polishing compound to bring the hardened lacquer to a final smooth gloss.

Good lighting is essential at this step. You'll also be able to see now the area where you didn't quite level the finish as well, failed to remove bigger sand paper scratches, etc.

I didn't get too many pictures of this stage--I was a little preoccupied. It's been said in many other online posts that a buffing wheel is an extremely good guitar launcher, and they're not kidding. Although a firm grip is all that seems to be needed, I started to get comfortable holding it and then got close to the top cutout where the neck tenon fits in and the wheel "caught" that edge and nearly tore the guitar out of my hands--definitely a wake up call. Otherwise, the whole process was fairly straight forward and uneventful, except for the time when I guess I was collecting a whole bunch of static electricity from buffing, touched the base of the motor housing, and got a sweet static shock that more startled me than anything---that was the second time I almost had the guitar ripped from my hands.

End result? Actually I'm really pleased with the final product. The finish is extremely clear, smooth, scratch free and super glossy--It really makes the grain stand out nicely. The only thing I would do differently next time is to spend a little more time leveling the finish prior to buffing. While it's convincingly level and smooth, very close examining of the finish at certain angles under light show some streaking that must be a result of having brushed it on rather than sprayed--but it's really subtle and probably only noticeable to me. I still have to clean it with a polish to remove the dust and compound residue.

Next, on the fitting the next...

Finishing the Neck

So after I finally stopped staring at my shiny new guitar box, I figured I'd better get around to finishing up the neck so I could attach it and finally string this baby up! (Also I've been getting a lot of "encouragement" from friends and family lately, who seem bent on reminding me that "i haven't actually built a guitar yet" or "if someone asked me if I knew anyone who built their own guitar, I'd have to say 'No' )

So for me, final neck wrapping-up involved applying several coats of Tung oil, reaming the lacquer out form inside the tuning holes, attaching the tuning machines, etc.

Here's a shot of me test-fitting the neck--you have to carefully remove material from the neck where it will butt against the body in order to achieve the correct neck angle:

Once I have the angle set, I have to scrape all the hard-earned finish off of the soundboard directly under the fingerboard to facilitate a strong glue joint. Although the fingerboard gets glued, the rest of the neck is bolted only so as to allow for future neck removal if necessary---the fingerboard is glued with white glue, which fails when heated with an iron so it can be undone.

...and the painstaking, delicate removal of finish...


Here's the final result--the lightness is bare wood. I could finally see how thick a lacquer coat I had applied to the top--apparently it was thick enough that I didn't really need to worry about sanding through it. The area where finish has been removed is about 1/32" shy of the actual fingerboard footprint so as to not over-scrape and to also allow for a good "bite" into the finish.

Now that I'm ready to attach the neck, I needed to finish up a few neck loose ends. First I needed to use a reamer to remove all the built up lacquer finish that had accumulated inside the tuning machine holes.

And the tuning machines in place:

Actually, installing the tuning machines was mildly rewarding--it was sort of an initial step toward actual completion and one of the first small indications that this box with a stick attached to it was becoming an instrument. I'd actually been looking forward to installing the machines for quite a while...(sadly, I know...)

Also while I was finishing up the neck, I thought I might give something a try. I bought a cheap alphabet engraving punch set ($15, hunt around) and I thought I might inscribe a dedication on the back of my headstock. Although many people directly and indirectly contributed to my being able to undertake this project and build a guitar, my grandfather in particular taught me many of the woodworking and craftsmanship skills I eventually summoned upon in order to execute this challenge. Growing up he generously donated his time, knowledge, and workshop space to my myriad of projects, and impressed upon me perhaps one of my favorite quotes, "haste makes waste."

Unfortunately my grandfather passed away during the construction of my guitar and never got to see the final product, though he knew I was undertaking the challenge. I thought a little dedication inscription might, in a small way, permanently provide a vestige of his contribution to both my craft and life. Anyway, it turned out well:

Next will be to "attach" the next, but first, here's a dry-attached preview of where it's going:

Attaching the Neck

Now it's starting to look like an instument! Finally the merrying of the two major pieces!

Basically, now that I have the neck angle and alignment set correctly (I hope, I have to bolt the neck on and glue down the fingerboard with white glue (white glue can be heated and removed in case the neck ever needs to come of for some reason...)

It's a fairly straight forward procedure, but it's a crucial one:

Well this is a short post...bummer. Hey, it's on, yeeeeaaaahh....

Ooooh Scary, Attching the Bridge....

Next on to a more scary glue joint--the bridge. According to gospel, this is the most crucial glue joint in the entire construction process. It's said that the bridge has to bear the forces of nearly 200lbs. of string tension trying to shear it off of the soundboard, so naturally the quality of the glue joint is of concern. However (and I could be completely wrong here), unless you're doing a string-thru bridge (which does not use bridge pins) I don't think the forces acting upon the bridge are that strong and exclusive. If you think about it, the ball of the string is actually pinned so that it makes contact on the underside of the soundboard, so the shearing force is actually transferred and thus shared but the "bridge-sandwich" of the bridge, soundboard, and bridge plate. I think a string would effectively rip a gaping hole through all of these laminated pieces of wood before the bridge was simply sheared off. But who knows. In any case, I intend to have incense lit and pray at least three times, followed by profuse and humble bowing before attempting to execute this glue joint.

But before the praying commences, I have to locate where the actually glue the bridge down.

The bridge's exact location is actually subservient to the precise location of the saddle. Failure to exactly locate the saddle will result in impossible intonation, since you're effectively setting the string length which is what allows for intonation. The tricky thing here is that the saddle must be exactly twice the distance from the nut to the 12th fret, PLUS a specified amount of compensation to account for the increased string tension occurring when a note is fretted, which acts like a pitch "bend."

Locating the bridge involves the projection of the fingerboard's center line to determine the bridge's center line (it's not necessarily exactly the center line of the guitar body, mine is about 1/32" off), which doesn't really matter. If you can eyeball that my bridge is 1/32" off to the right, that's awesome. I can't. But I can be sure that when I string it up my low E string won't slide off a crookedly aligned fingerboard when I play. One method involves painstaking measurements to the 100th of an inch, in several triangulated directions to find the exact NASA approved spot for the bridge...

Or you can by a "Saddle-matic" (I didn't name it)

Basically this geniusly simple alignment tool can be bought from StewMac for under $20. You position it on the 12th fret and set its distance from the nut to the 12th fret and lock it in place. Then you turn it 180-degrees to where the bridge will go, with the 12th fret as the pivot point. The beauty here is that at the end of the block are two protruding pins that you set to be the extra compensation distance, and presto, assuming you checked for a center line, that's where the bridge goes! Trust me, this little tool is worth every penny.

Once I was comfortable with the bridge's location, the next trick is to gently scribe its location into the soundboard's lacquer--but not too deeply so you don't see it as a scratch in the end--and proceed to taping and scraping.

The scribed line is barely perceivable, but it's there. Next for some tape:

After about an hour or so of careful scraping, (approximately 1/32" to the inside of the edge), here's the soundboard denuded of lacquer:

Now as happy as I am with Ghost Bridge, I decided I had to get the bridge on before calling it a night. The book calls for one 4-1/2" deep C-Clamp and 2 wooden cam clamps--hah! maybe if you have a ton of cam clamps and happened to have some small ones--I couldn't get them all in the sound hole, so I had to make a late night hardware store run--fortunately they had some more 4-1/2" C-Clamps. You should clamps it all together without glue first as a dry run to make sure you have all the necessary tools ans set up--I'm glad I did.

Here're some bridge-clamping-in-place-please-don't-blow-up-Mt. Rainer-for-at-least-an-hour pics:

4-hours later (actually the next morning) and it was like Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever) This time when I picked up the guitar to move around the bridge didn't fall off and threaten to slide under the refrigerator...

Almost There--Little Things

Now that the bridge is securely glued in place, the next few steps are little pre-set up tasks such as drilling out the bridge pin holes, etc.

First, using the same brad-point bit I used to bore the holes in the bridge, I extended those holes through the soundboard and bridge plate without inadvertently widening the bridge pin hole:

Super-stealthy-wife-taken-inside-guitar-camera shot:

Isn't it amazing to think that that's what we all look like on the inside?

Oh yeah, by this point I think the guitar case is a pretty great way to hold the guitar and work...

Now that the holes are through, I have to use a reamer to widen them a bit to the correct taper to match the bridge pins. Many pins (Martin style) are a 5-degree taper (I think, I could have this backwards) and the lutherie shop will sell you a special 5-degree reamer for something ridiculous like $60. Grizzly Tools makes a special reamer designed just for bridge pins for $15, but it uses a 3-degree taper. Plan ahead and buy 3-degree tapered bridge pins (same cost, you can get them from Maury's Music) and save some money.

Awesome reaming action shot:

Here's why they need to be reamed--see the untapered hole on the left and how the pin doesn't sit in quite as far?

Other fun finishing touches---pick guard. I debated this right up until the day I chose something and did it. I originally thought I'd like to not use a pick guard, since I'll mostly be finger styling this guitar. Then I thought I should have one anyway because strumming with a pick WILL scuff the finish, so I thought I might do clear one--you really can hardly tell they're there. The only caveat with applying a clear pick guard is the problematic occurrence of bubbles and / or fingerprints. I was certain I did not want a black one.

Then I spent some time going, "what does this guitar need?" Which also encompassed, "I wonder what I could do to hide that little blemish in the soundboard near the rosette that I had forgotten about but am now staring at..."

Turns out with a visualization help from some $0.99 black poster board (wife's idea-many thanks!) and a few pick guard concepts later, I decided that my guitar really needed a custom black pick guard to help tie it all together. Here are some paper ideas:

After choosing one, I was able to transfer it as a template to a traditional tear-drop shaped self-adhesive pick guard I had just bought from Guitar Center and cut out my custom new one. The tear-drop one was so big on my OM guitar that it hung off the sides. After some careful scissor maneuvering and some careful edge sanding (I went up through 1200 grit) to tweak the contour, I'm thrilled with the way it turned out:

Fretwork and Initial Set-Up

By now I feel like I've finally gotten the all the "pieces" put together, and the construction phase of the guitar is nearly complete. It's strange at this point because you begin to leave the role of a craftsman and instead have to become a sudden expert in guitar set-up. Since I have never really done a complete guitar set up before, why not start by practicing on the guitar that I spent 16 months making? Sure why not...

A successful guitar van be measured in many forms, but I think it's fair to say that the most crucial aspects are 1) does it sound nice? 2) does it play well / is it easy to play, and 3) did it explode when you first strung it up?

The way my guitar will sound is pretty much set in stone now; in fact, it's been fairly solidified for nearly a year (since I carved the top bracing). But how is PLAYS will be entirely dependant on my ability to selectively set the individual string heights above the frets. Since a taught string makes a perfectly straight line, the first step toward insuring a playable instrument is making sure the frets are as level as possible down the fret board.

Fret leveling is done using a metal straight edge and a large flat mill file. Basically you make judicial strokes across several frets at once, checking with a known straight edge until all the frets are level (in reality for the beginner, the book says to aim for consistent levelness shared among frets 1-14). I found that after fret 14 the fingerboard sloped down too much for me to be able to get all the frets level (a down slope is ok I guess--and up slope would be a neck-set problem). I managed to get 1-14 fairly even, but fret 1 remained a little low. I thought I could fix this later--which I eventually did, but I should have spent more time on it now.

Here's a picture of the top of a fret crown after being filed (notice that it's flat):

After leveling, you have to restore the domed top to each fret using a fret file (which is basically a file with an inverted dome shape cut into it so that it cuts a gradual dome as you use it). This tool typically runs about $40 or so, but you MUST have it.

Fret leveling doesn't really pose a risk to the fingerboard if you're careful, but fret crowning and end work does. It's best to tape off your fingerboard and protect the lacquered instrument before starting. It turns out that Pop-Tarts are both delicious AND useful...

Once I had the frets re-crowned, I needed to turn my attention to the fret ends along the fingerboard. If I had left them as they were, it would be like playing a razor blade guitar from hell and there'd likely be a fair bit of blood involved.... The fret ends should be smoothly beveled and flush with the fingerboard edge--basically they should not cut you when you play.

However, I made a mistake when initially installing my frets. My fret wire came in 2' long straight pieces, and my fingerboard has a gentle radius to it. I SHOULD HAVE gently bent the frets into a curve so that when pressed into the fingerboard, their inherent springiness would force the fret ends downward onto the fretboard--(because my maple fretboard binding is fairly wide, there is a large amount of fret overlapping it that does not contain any fret tang to hold it in place).

Here's the problem (in it's most exaggerated form):

I eventually remedied these with the careful usage of clamps and superglue, but I still wasn't happy with the way the fret ends were turning out....

...so I got an idea. A friend of mine has a guitar built by a professional luthier who actually rounds the ends of his frets into these perfect little half domes--it's unreal. Apparently he does so BEFORE he installs the frets. Mine, however, were already in place....BUT I figured since the ends didn't quite seat against the fretboard and since I didn't like where it was going, I might as well try to round each one off...

...and it worked! One of the better on-the-fly decisions I made. That move completely transformed both the way the frets looked and played, as well as how I felt about the whole thing. It took me about 3 hours to round all 44 fret ends, but it was time well spent.

Once I had crowned and domed my frets, I wanted to get them as polished and shiny as possible.

I found that after filing with a fine needle file, the frets were actually in pretty good shape. I finished them off with some aggressive #0 and then #0000 steel wool polishing. I think I did a good job--but not great. Had I wanted to spend the time with progressive sand paper grits and work up to a #0000 steel wool then I think it may have been more shiny, but I figure with strings on it and general use, they're pretty good. I also tried a final attack with a Dremel and some polishing compound--that actually worked really well, but it makes a lot of runny black residue so be careful when you tape things off.

Strings and Set-Up

Now...it's time.

The moment where I put on all the strings and start playing it and all is awesome---

Oh crap, wait, it's actually nothing like that at all. Sorry to be a buzz kill, but getting strings on is not accomplished in one fell swoop, and the first time you hear it, it will not be singing but instead likely coughing and hacking and surprised at the sudden application of physics.

As amazing as it would be to build a guitar, string it up silently, and strum the first pristine and pure chord, getting sound out of your box is a gradual thing.

The first step involves figuring out the string spacing on the nut. There exists such a tool that calculates the spacing for you, but I felt it was just as easy to accomplish using a ruler scale and a good eye. (Essentially, since the lower strings are fatter than the higher strings, if you spaced them equally from their center points the lower strings would feel closer together than the higher ones since they have a greater radius). To compensate for this, the two outer strings are located first, then the 4 inner ones are approximated, then fine tuned with a scale until perfect. Once you get the spacing down, string-width grooves are cut into the nut where the strings will finally rest. Here are the two "e" strings in place over the nut:

Here they are over the flat-topped rough saddle blank:

Finding the spacing for the remaining strings--tiny notches are cut to temporarily hold them in place, but not so deep that they can't be removed with sanding:

Here are all the strings in place:

That's not a final saddle--the sharp edges would eventually cause the strings to break, among many things. In this shot I'm deepening the bone nut slots for the strings--the depth must be approached slowly, as now you're affecting the string action and playability. It's best to get close, and plan on coming back later:

Now I've moved out of the bathroom and onto the dining room table--you might notice that I've been at this guitar project for so long that we've subsequently changed dining room tables (I'm not allowed to scratch this one this time...)

OK. So now some serious set-up work begins. First, a word about set up:

I am by no means even remotely going to suggest I have any idea what I'm talking about with regard to set up, but I here I go anyway. I understand that set up involves the careful adjustment of string height--too high and it's uncomfortable to play, too low and the strings will all buzz against the frets when played. This action can be adjusted at 3 points: the truss rod, the nut, and the saddle. As far as I understand, the truss rod is where to start. Basically, without one, the 200lbs. of string tension would continue to warp the neck until it became either unplayable or damages, so an adjustable steel truss rod is embedded in the neck to counter these forces. It has the ability to completely straighten out the neck against the tension--however, this is undesirable. As a string is plucked, it vibrated in an arched fashion--therefore it requires air space between its underside and the fret, else it will buzz when played. A straight neck does not allow for this, therefore you must loosen the truss rod with the strings at pitch to allow the neck to bow a bit. Here's my allen wrench in the truss rod slot--I'm turning about 1/8 of a turn and measuring until I feel that the bow is about right:

In all honesty I'm learning as I go. There's plenty of good reference material on the web about how to measure this, and you're unlikely to do any damage unless you make radical adjustments.

Once I felt that I had a suitable bow in the neck, I went to work trying to bring the strings down at the nut as low as I was comfortable with.

It's still a little high above the first fret, but certainly playable. I had the advantage of having had my Martin D-28 professionally set up, so I used feeler gauges to check various tolerances, and then decided to come close to them, but not all the way...

I've probably lowered the nut slots several times now. It's getting really close, and I'm going to take more of fin a bout 1 month after all the wood has stretched and settled, but its close. I think my low "E" has about .022" between it and the 1st fret--my Martin D-28 is at .008" !!! and it doesn't buzz!!! Not going there....

By the way, once I had the nut slots comfortably low, I took the nut of and removed quite a bit of material from the top--just until the top pf the nut allowed for the string top to be flush once seated. I also sloped the top and slots back toward the headstock a bit to help with the string angle change as they feed into the tuning machines. I sanded the bone nut from 220grit up through 12,000 micro mesh of something ridiculous like that, and it yielded a very nice glassy finish. They say to glue you nut in place in the end--mine fits very snuggly, and I like having the option to remove it later so I did not glue mine.

Next: making the saddle.

With the truss rod action fairly well adjusted, and the nut slots pretty low, the last element requiring attention would be the saddle. The beauty about the nut and the saddle is that although they are absolutely critical elements in the set up of the guitar, they are wholly independent from its construction, and you can ruin as many as you need without ever ruining your instrument. The same cannot be said for such things as cutting a sound hole, binding, etc. so there really is no cause for worry here.

The saddle effectively sets two things--the final string height and the intonation. Height is obvious--there are great resources for how to check this. Intonation is different. Each string's final length is slightly different from one another. The fine tuning of this is accomplished by subtle adjustment to the exact contact point between the string and the saddle. Typically, the "b" string should be longer than the rest, and each string has it's own ideal length so that when you fret notes up and down the fingerboard, the same note played on different strings will be exactly in tune. There's a method by which you string your guitar to pitch (assuming the action is relatively set) and place a small piece of high "b" or "e" string under the contact node for a specific string--you can then move this forward or backward over the top of the nut until the intonation is correct--then draw a pencil line. I tried this and pretty much found that I achieved the same results as if I had simply followed the contours inherent to every "compensated" saddle available for sale. Here's what my rough line looked like:

It's very easy to gently form a saddle using a Dremel and a little sanding drum. Then I polished it with Micro Mesh just like the nut.

FYI: I ran into some critical problems with my first saddle. The saddle slot I had chiseled was of a very inconsistent depth and more notably, width. I could NOT make a saddle that fit snuggly enough to not tip forward under string tension. I tried 2 saddles before concluding that I would have to route a bigger and more perfect slot WHILE THE BRIDGE WAS IN PLACE in order to remedy the situation. Sigh....

Lutherie is fun and challenging because it also involves problem solving and risk. I decided to make up a stupid looking jig that I bolted through the bridge pin holes that would a) give my router base something flat to move on, and b) have a straight edge that I could precisely align with my already cut saddle slot. I had to nail this cut, because it could only remove 1/64" of an inch from each inside edge of the slot I already had. I had to bolt this jig to the guitar because I couldn't very well have a jig moving and a guitar moving as I was routing.

It looks pretty hack, but every cut and position of that thing is precisely where it ought to be. That rout was one of the most nerve wracking things I had done to the guitar (failure= bridge removal) but unbelievably, it turned out perfectly! Now I had a perfect saddle slot to work with, and my 3rd saddle fit like a glove--the tone of my guitar actually improved when I fitted the better saddle. Finally, I made up a little label and affixed it with white glue onto the back on the inside of the body (covered up a small mistake/scratch with it!).

IT'S DONE! Well almost. It takes about a month or so for the action to settle, so in about as much time I'll come back and re-attack the nut and saddle, striving for a more perfect action setting. But it's extremely playable now...I'm just applying several coats of linseed oil to the neck until I think it's done...

Final Thoughts and How It Sounds

Some people have asked me to write about what I liked, didn't like, and what I would do differently.

First, how it sounds. I had been told that the way it sounds when first strung up is not how it will sound once it settles in. I had no idea how dramatic this statement would be. When I first strung it up, with action high and frets abuzzing, it sounded amazingly loud, deep and boomy. At first I was blown away by the fact that it made sound at all! Then I started listening and thought, "wow it's boomy, and a little muddy in the low register." Oh well, it was pretty sweet nonetheless.

Then the next day it started to become clearer.

Then I discovered that my saddle was messsssssssssssssed up, and made a new one, strung it up, played a little, and left it strung up for a few days untouched.

When I picked it back up to play about a week later I could not believe what I was hearing. The deep boom was gone, the tone was clear, and it was still insanely loud. It was like a different guitar--it sounds amazing (to me) now! It still has a very deep growl, but it's clean and clear.

Also, the side port was a great idea--add one to your guitar. It absolutely adds volume. Playing it covered and uncovered (as a listener out in front) it gets both louder and more 3D spatial with the sound port uncovered. I definitely rank the side port as a success. (Too big of one however would have been devastating--I guess I got lucky).

As I've mentioned previously, it needs to be played for a while before I do a final set up. But I suppose the point of my saying all this is to emphasize the point that you should not pass any acoustical judgement on your final instrument until at least a few weeks later, and it's likely to sound even better years later.

Here are some final pics--I'll get more comprehensive ones in the future:

FINAL THOUGHTS:

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with how my first instrument turned out. However, that's not to say it hasn't also been an amazing learning experience and a test of skill and patience. There are definitely things I will do differently next time, though minor:

-I don't think I will ever use a mechanical pencil to push an inlay into place again...stupid stupid...

-I think I will make my next side port slightly smaller--no particular reason, just a hunch. I might also try a design rather than simply an oval. I'd love to bind it, but I still haven't figured out a surefire way of doing so...also, a friend thought it would have looked cool had I not rounded the side port edges so much and lacquered them, but instead made the edge cut more squarely and perhaps unlacquered--I really like this idea and will try it next time.

-I would not worry about having too much epoxy or lacquer--I went too thin with the epoxy and it subsequently showed through the finish on the top. I may be the only one who really notices, but then again, who did I build the instrument for after all???

-Lacquer sanding. I would spend waaay more time and attention to detail leveling the final coats of KTM lacquer. It looks fine, but I think I could have gotten a more evenly flat final coat with better sanding. I did not notice any of this until final polishing. Also, I felt that the epoxy coats brought more of the grain out than the KTM did--perhaps I'll sand in between KTM coats to a finer grit next time--same for between the epoxy and KTM coat.

-I installed my tuning machines upside down. Oh well, I always do at least 1 thing upside down...could have been worse.

-Next time I will not bind my fingerboard with a piece of wood quite so wide.

-I will also be sure to make my binding ledges deeper--I lost a lot of binding material in the scraping process. I would have also liked more purfling on the soundboard.

-Oh! Pay attention here! BEFORE you epoxy, make sure there is NO sawdust--especially soundboard dust--in the pores of your back and sides. Trust me...

I'm sure there are more. Not to detract from how immensely satisfied I am with my final product, but there are all things I experienced and had I read about them from someone else, I probably would have avoid 80% of them or so...

Essential Tools and Materials to Get Started

Since I've actually had quite a few people email me inquiring about the cost associated with building an acoustic guitar, I thought I'd put together this list of what I thought the essential upfront tools and materials (excluding the actual tone woods, etc) should be and approximately what they cost me in 2008. This list is purely my opinion, and though I'm sure I've omitted a couple incidental tools that could easily be acquired cheaply, I fell comfortable saying that you could progress pretty far in your own guitar making process with these tools alone.

One side note, I was a bit surprised when I looked at the total for materials--it never seemed that expensive to me while I was building. I think it must be due in part to the fact that you're buying these tools a few dollars at a time spread out over time, so you never really feel the impact of one upfront lump purchase. (Have you ever actually looked at what you spend on food each month?)

Anyway, here it is:

Essential Upfront Tools:

-Cumpiano's "Guitarmaking" Book $35
-Stanley Block Plane $40
-No. 5 or 6 Fore Plane (look for used one) $60
-1" Paring Chisel $35
-Cabinet Scraper (1mm) $5
-Flat Bastard Mill File $3
-6" Ruler Scale (1/64" Precision) $2
-Dremel $50
-Dremel Router Base $20
-3/32" Spiral Downcut Bit (StewMac) $18
-Coping Saw $6
-C-Clamps (each) $6
-Quick Grip Clamps (2) $12
-Wooden Cam Clamps (each) $18
-Burnishing Rod $8
-Felt Sanding Block $2
-Side Bending Iron Supplies $50
-Cheap Dull 1/2" Chisel (Glue Chisel) $8
-Caliper (analog or digital, digital better) $20

Subtotal $398

Essential Upfront Materials:

Quicktite Superglue (Runny Type) $4
Elmer's Yellow Wood Glue $2
3/4" Plywood for Workboard $10
3/4" MDF for Shooting Board $10
3/4" MDF and Sandpaper for Sanding Board $10

Subtotal $36

Essential Tools For Later:

Spring Clamps or Clothespins $15
1/4" Paring Chisel $35
Sloane Purfling Cutter (StewMac) $40
Random Orbital Sander $35
Small Dovetail Saw $8
Carbide Tipped Center Punch $4
Tack Cloth $3
Drill Bits (specific to task) $15
Spokeshave $15

Subtotal $170

Essential Materials For Later:

Shellac Burn In Stick $2
System 3 Clear Epoxy $8
KTM-9 Clear Lacquer (1 Quart) $38

Subtotal $48
Project Total $652

Would Be Really Nice to Have:

Scraper Burnisher (StewMac) $20
Ryobi 9" Bandsaw $90
Ryobi Drill Press $90
Contour Gauge $8
1000 Grit / 4000 Grit Waterstone (Sharpening) $40
Sharpening Jig $35

Subtotal $283

So some people at this point might be thinking, "for the cost of tools and materials I could have bought a new guitar." That's not the point. The point is that for a fairly nominal cost (as far as serious hobbies go) you can create something truly unique and beautiful--both visually ans musically--and take part in a niche hobby that few people ever even consider. It is also incredible likely that your custom guitar--even your first one--will sound more alive than a $2000-$3000 factory production guitar, and you'll likely have chosen more original materials to build it from. You will also likely have found a hobby that you love and will continue to do, meaning that future guitars that could rival instruments in the multi- thousand dollar price range will only cost you a few hundred dollars. Lastly, instrument making and lutherie is a traditional art form that's steeped in artistry, craftsmanship, technology and pure mystery, and to me it's very cool to be able to be a part of that.

I still (occasionally) meet people who think an acoustic guitar is hollowed out and carved from one solid piece of wood.