Official Luthiers Forum!

Today I was cutting the wood out for the guitar form. Then I proceeded to trim it to the master piece with a pattern bit but was too concerned about the noise and being able to hold it down, so I used a robo sander, but it wasn't long before I ended up burning out the sandpaper. Frustrated, I decided to put everything away and call it a day...

Living in an apartment with other neighbors sometimes does get on your nerves about getting a project done. You want to be considerate and not make too much noise to upset your neighbors (unfortunately routers are really LOUD) on the other hand you want to do what you love, even though you have to put up with constant 1/16" layer of dust that gets on EVERYTHING and despite your best effort to tame them they would not go away. Sometimes however we get too carried away and just wants to get things done quickly because we want to see the finished project NOW. Hell we all made that mistake sometimes before. Especially when painting my first few guitars I did not have the patience to wait a month for the paint to cure properly so I just buffed them 3 days after spraying and was wondering why they never came out right.

I suppose my random thought is, when a project starts becoming frustrating it's time to stop and call it a day. Working in frustration will not get you any closer to your goal and in fact you may do something which you must repair later on, which is not good. We're mostly doing this for a hobby and it's not like we must get it done within a certain timeframe, and even if we are it still pays to be patient and know when to stop. One example I can think of is I was reading this book and the author was talking about someone who enjoyed writing. So he started submitted his writing to publishers and little did you know, they liked what he was writing and was contracting him to write more. However after several years he would be writing and not pay any attention to what's around him like his family and other stuff, so one day feeling frustrated, he hit the desk really hard while his wife is sleeping, which scared her. It turns out the guy had been doing what he "enjoys" that he actually stopped enjoying it and was frustrating him to no end. Not only that he was ignoring his family and other things that are more important. So he decided to just stop and not submit so much work to the publishers and write as a hobby instead of a business, and little did you know it became enjoyable again.

I would say don't work more than an hour each day unless it is your job, in that case you should still walk away for about 5 minutes an hour and just take a break and come back to it when you feel ready. There's nothing worse than making an error in judgment and having to start over.

Oh and also when you are drilling tuner holes just drill the correctly sized hole with a drill press... don't try to enlarge a hole with a drill bit, because there's a good chance that the bit will grab the piece and spin it around, which it did and enlarged the hole too much. Good thing I am using schaller style tuner so it will be covered, but if you are enlarging holes, use a reamer...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

This depends on your own threshhold of what you find enjoyable.
alot of hobbyists will not work on there guitars all week and then spend a whole day in the shop working on there guitars.
this can be both relaxing and enjoyable for those people.

also you will get jobs that you find frustrating and while its not good to work on a peice if its causing frustration the best thing to do is just to put it down for an hour or so and work on another peice until you feel ready to go back to the problem peice.
quite often you will look at the problem in a diferent light once you get back to it.

learning any trade is about leaning to cope with parts that may not be the most enjoyable for you.
for example i hate binding but the more i do it the more i come to enjoy it.
i just have to make sure that i take my time doing it and dont rush.
its allways tempting to rush a part you dont enjoy.
but in actual fact if you take your time you avoid making mistakes and this will save time in the long run.

as for drilling out your tuner holes,
i allways go up in two steps (pilot hole and then actual size) with a 1mm bit and a brad point as its more likely to be dead center as long as the headstock is clamped to the drill press table the headstock will not spin.
i only use a reamer if i am installing larger tuners on a guitar
reamers tend to make tapered holes which look a little untidy.

Joel.

Not all reamers are tapered. You can use a milling reamer, which has a small champfer at its edge to help you enter the hole. It may take more than one to go in small increments. Still good to have the headstock clamped down. You can use a pin made from a dowel of the appropriate size to center the hole under the bit on your drill press. Clamp a board (plywood is fine) to the table and drill it for the dowel pin. Then don't move anything. You can then flip the headstock over and ream from the other side, again with the appropriate size pin.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.