Official Luthiers Forum!

Oh to be human. Oten times the dumbest animals on the planet. Well, this one is anyway. After careful preperations of the back braces... Do ya see it?

You didn't did you?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

You forgot to turn off the iron last night??

Looks like one brace was glued upside down on the flat side?

Fortunately I use serviceable and reversible glue

I miss these mistake threads. They make me feel more. . . human. . .

I'm glad it was an easy fix!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I think the first time I was published in the old Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly was a mistake story. Embarrassing in hindsight. I made a terribly stupid assumption, and instead of doing the obvious to recover - I only made it worse. Sorry - no details, I'll never live down the shame.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I got more angry with myself then what it was worth. 20 minutes later it was fixed.

If you eliminate all the mistakes doesn't that make you a machine? Who wants that?

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

We don't learn anything when we do it right.

I'm very big on marking all over my sides now before bending to make sure they're oriented correctly.

I think it is a way to keep us from getting swell head disease. Works.

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Why be normal?

I once took a finished guitar to a fellow luthier. He had seen it several times while still being built. He had never commented on it before. His comment now?

"Wow, you really are good at fixing mistakes."

If I never made mistakes, I would never build guitars. Come to think of it, starting to build was probably my first mistake.

Been There, Done That.
It was head to the ironing board, take a hot iron, with steam, and iron away. It flattened much easier than I would have guessed. Back to the bender and what do you know? Perfect.

No machine made guitars here.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

That truly is one of the classic blunders. One of the two I’m working on right now had a side ironed flat and Rene the the other direction. I bet 80% of us have made that mistake.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I glued the head block in upside down on one guitar. Doubly dumb because it was on a guitar with a cutaway so the head block was asymmetric. Should have been obvious that it was wrong.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I’ve glued uke bridges on upside down. More. Than. Once.


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I cut a Manzer Wedge on the wrong side once.

I installed a bridge about 1/4" off center - after masking, finishing etc.

Didn't realize it until I drilled all the pin holes.

Now I own the StewMac Bridge Saver.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

All my sides have TOF clearly marked on the "Top Outside Front" before I start bending. Don't ask why.

I once took a nicely bent EIR side out of the bender, venetian cutaway no mind, only to see "Show side" written
clearly on the inside. That wasn't recently tho.

If that isn't bad enough, a couple months ago I remember placing my last two finished goncalo alves bridges in a jar with
steel wool/ vinegar solution. This works for me to get a nice black bridge to use with ebony fretboards. So... a couple weeks
later I was hurriedly cleaning up the shop when I came across two rejects on the bottom shelf of my work bench. I vaguely
remembered seeing one or two lying around somewhere. I just quickly grabbed them and tossed them in the bin. Fast forward a few more days... I was in my basement humidity controlled glue up area and low and behold I found two more obviously not up to par near finished bridge blanks. That sinking, what ! feeling came over me... I went out to the shop, rummaged to find the jar with the ebonizing solution...not there, nothing, nada. I couldn't believe I could be so absent minded.
Talk about your brain fart. Guess I need to set up to run a few more bridges.
Mind you I don't always do stuff like this... but I'm sure we all do.
We should have a competition to see who has the biggest/funniest faux pas.

Bending a set of Bubinga sides on the iron and ignoring the scorching thinking it would just sand out. I went ahead and glued on the head and tail blocks then started sanding. At about 40 thou I realized it was not going to sand out: time for new sides.

Drilling the hole for a fretboard dot on the wrong fret. At least it was Ebony.

Sanding through the rosette. Got to learn how to route out the rosette on a finished box and redo it.

And the list continues ...

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I never make the same mistake twice. Why bother when there are so many new mistakes to make.

Ed

I do this one all too often...
It’s a lot easier to get the neck bolted on with the holes drilled.


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So far I'd have to say that the reverse Manzer wedge is in the lead for the dumbest... sry Michaeldc all in good fun



I just made that mistake, to correct that one I just measure up and use a step drill bit, no biggie. But yeah... Duh! Did it again! BTW that join is tight! I usually leave a little slop there and don't really care. How do you join that so accurately?