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I'm sitting here, filing and sanding dried copious amounts of CA glue off my dainty little hands...a bottle of CA glue tipped up and in desperation I picked up tools and other items saturated in CA glue, and that is why my hands now have this undesirable coating.


I have been thinking about my build, progressing albeit slowly and quietly, the purfing and binding channels now hand cut with a purfling cutter and sharp chisel, and how many "rules" I have broken already. So far the job has been intensely enjoyable, and ideas are just blooming to the point that my little Stewmac dreadnought kit is proudly becoming a custom built.

Are you the type to break rules, or do you stick by the book? Surely guitar building techniques and materials can evolve as much as other disciplines...
Sam Price38915.7516666667

Both....

Fun ain't it..?

"Rules are made to be broken". True statement there, no doubt.

But you have to know something about the rules to know how and where to break them. After all, they became rules for a reason, right?

Kinda like music itself. Music is continually evolving, new ideas and techniques are being discovered every day. Even new scales are being discovered. But it all still revolves around a few basic mathematical rules.

Like Dickey said... both. His tag line says it too in other words...

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

What Wes said.

I started out imitating the techniques of the masters, but found myself changing things here and there. Some changes were duds, and some worked out surprisingly well. I believe it is a quite normal evolutionary process. If it didn't occur, the craft of guitar lutherie would have stagnated in the Renaissance.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Just like the matrix Sam, some rules you can bend, others.... can be broken. You just need to know and understand the rules first.

Journy on Neo.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Read the book,(Cumpiano & Natelson) but I venture far afield in a built. Mo' better for me I think, being resistant to direction.... maybe not so good for the guitar... and maybe I make more mistakes than I should, but that's the way I do it.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

If rules were never broken, nothing new would occur in guitar building and life in my opinon. It would be the same old boring routine world still stuck in the stone age.

For me, there's no fun at all in blindly following all the rules. Some maybe, but not all. They so often get disproven anyway. Take Frank Ford's practice of cross-grain sanding on spruce. I tried it. It works. How far back does that rule go? I think it's part of my DNA. burbank38915.9750578704

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Break Rules....Get Creative....Think outside the box....

BUT FIRST....learn how to build the box

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Breaking rules is the foundation of creativity......


and disappointment!!!

Break onlt those rules which can be repaired within budget!!!

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My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

[QUOTE=martinedwards] Breaking rules is the foundation of creativity[/QUOTE]

Yes, and a number of current inmates used that in their defenses I'm sure....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

hahahahah!!!!


There are some great potential sigs in this thread!!!

Rules?!!!

We don't need no stiking rules!!!   

All kidding aside, it's pretty much like Andy's great reply... You can break rules as long as you know which ones and why...

That's why as a newb, I try to stick to the 'proper' rules as much as I can. This being said, when a 'learning' oportunity arises (read: I screwed up big time!) I'm not afraid to experiment...

In the end it's all experience gained.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...