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Ever do something that made you go DOH!? Then here's a story for you.

Six or eight months ago, my dad and I found some beautiful crotch mahogany at Austin Hardwoods and we decided to make guitars out of it. Now, this is a bit of a risky venture, because crotch mahogany is about as opposite as you can get from straight, quartersawn wood, and this mahogany was no exception. Unstable as the day is long. But I figured that if I braced it well and gave it to one of my sons with the understanding that he needs to be VERY careful, it would make a handsome guitar.

I finished the guitar this weekend, and it exceeded my expectations. I'm thrilled; my kid is thrilled. Pics to follow.

My dad was working on his guitar out of the same wood this weekend. He had to fix a few cracks along the way (I had too --- this was very tempermental wood), and he was repairing one on Sunday. The five minute epoxy was apparently old, though, and after five minutes it wasn't as solid as my dad had hoped. So he decided speed up the process by setting the guitar out in the sun.

A couple minutes later, he notices that I had used the same epoxy to repair a minor defect in another guitar I have started, and he lets me know that the epoxy cures a bit slow. He suggests I set it outside to dry faster in the sun. I point out that radical temperature changes can have unintended effects, and that I'm in no hurry anyway. My dad thinks for a second, and goes out to get his soundbox. Sure enough, three minutes in the hot sun turned a 1/2" long hairline crack into a massive 10" long gorge. We're talking 1/8" wide.

I felt really bad for him. I told him about the time I tried to make nitrocellulose lacquer dry faster by putting one of my early guitars right underneath a pair of 500W halogen lights . . . .

I still make mistakes, but fortunately the really dumb ones seem to be fewer and farther between.

Kelby:

Love the story and fun to see three generations into guitars. Kudos for that.

My take on mistakes is that I am sure I make more now than ever before, or maybe I just notice things better, but maybe I am just a little bit less attached to the outcome if I know I did my best. In my youth I never made mistakes, now that was a big mistake.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Out of curiosity, what happened to the finish under the lights? I assume that it was not pretty, but I don't know finishes that well.

Donovan

Donovan, it was ugly.

The lacquer literally blistered. Not just a little. If you had taken a picture, you would have thought of a pot of water at a rolling boil, with bubbles popping up everywhere.

Patience eliminates many problems.