Official Luthiers Forum!

Probably the worst thing I've done (involving guitars) is leaving a Gibson L2 (my wifes grandfathers guitar, now mine) hanging on a hook in my shop. I'd been doing this for several months, because I liked to play it and the humidity in
the shop is always right. Well the wife decided to sweep the wood chips up in the shop and, you guessed it, she snagged
it with the broom handle and down it went to the concrete. I nearly cried, family heirloom and all. That was about 2 years ago and I haven't played it since. I could have blamed her but it was all my fault. No more hanging guitars. By the way this one is coming with me to David Collins shop tomorrow for the Ann Arbor get together.

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Horton, MI

Get you some .005" UHMW pressure sensitive film McMaster Carr#85655K12 or Teflon pressure sensitive film #8569K16 and line your molds with it . Only makes .01" difference in the space inside your mold (you will never notice) and will save you headaches over and over again. I prefer the UHMW but it comes in 24" wide the Teflon is available in 6" wide. The both run about $1.26 per foot and are worth it to my point of view.

My latest goof was...

I was eating dinner with my wife Jenn, and she asked if she was about the same size as another lady in the restaurant, and I said "yeah about the same size". I now realize women just want to be lied to.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Now you see, that isn't a "goof", that's just "not real bright".

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Went to fill up the humidifiers before I left for work and a 6"x18" piece of plywood falls onto my Walnut/Cedar box that is waiting for binding cut. The plywood is from the FW jigs I'm building to cut the binding channels for that box. It was on its side but the plywood took off a chunk of the top about the size of a dime and half the thickness of the top. Good think this is my practice/test box, so i can still battle through with it and use it to test processes. Its the bottom of the barrel zoot. So in the end no big loss, but still a "You have got to be f... kidding me" moment.

My latest goof wasnt so goofy, so much as stupid - I was in the shop, and my mind was distracted with another matter, I was fuming about something while trimming some wood up on the bandsaw, and I got bitten!
Thankfully it was only a nick, but it reenforced the notion that Ive heard many many times here on the forum - get centered and concentrate on the task at hand!!!
Otherwise you might not have a hand to have a task at!
Cheers
Charlie

I once closed a box (top and back to sides) with the three sets of spreaders in!

Lucky for me, I was able to get them out through the soundhole, although this was not on the requirements list when I designed them in the first place...

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

John, I've been there. Now, my first thought before I stick my foot in it is, "what does she WANT to hear?"

We're both happier now.

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

Today my 4" sound hole changed to 4.25". I was in rosette mode and measured the bit to the wrong side of the line.

I have been having a nightmare binding a malaysian blakwood/redwood guitar i staryed ages ago.
first of all i messed up the side profile (my first attempt at this shape guitar) and put a realy sharp curve on the back at the waist.
when i came to route the the channels (another new method for me i usualy cut my channels by hand) the curve was so much that my channel was severly undercut into the kerfing.
i filled this with veneer and started fitting my rio rosewood bindings.
i had some bloodwood purflings to use but i forgot to glue them to the bindings so i had to put the side purflings in by making a thin channel and applying the purling as you would a binding.
eventualy i got this done and it looked quite nice.
now when i went to fit the bindings the back bindings would not fit becouse of the side profile. it just kept twisting so either i could have a huge gap at the top or at the bottom becouse the strip kept twisting as i tried to fit the binding on the upper bout.
i have now cut off the binding at the upper bout and intent to scarfe in another strip at this point but i am so pee'd off that cant even look at the look at the guitar now.
it just seems to not want to work for me this one.
i cant even strip it and start again becouse of the dang purfling channel .

To top all this off i got come cynoacrolate on tje top and it has stained it i think i will have to do a mild sunburst now to hide the stain.

oh well i am sur i will sort it but sometimes you have to make these fatal mistakes to be able to move on in this art.

by the way does anyone have a good method for fitting wooden purflings otjer that glueing them to the binding
strip.

What have learned from all this allways check that your side profiles work before commiting to the job.

Allway glue wooden purflings to the bindings before they are bent.

And i prefer cutting binding channels by hand (its much quicker and neater that way.

Also cynoacrolate and redwood dont mix.

This h.s got to be the most problematic guitar i have built.

All this and the top is so over braced it has no life to it at all.
Its a real shame i think this guitar is going to be a real pig.

my current epiphone cortez ( mad rose/alpine spruce and snakewood)is going without a hitch go figure.

joel.

I decided that I wanted to build a guitar and a mandolin and I thought that I would save money by building my own rather than buying my dream instruments.

I was wrong about the second part.



GregH
Fot Wuth

Don't Ask ! !

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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."

Joel,

Can you post some photos of the problem back waist area and the curves there? Also what are you using to cut the binding channels? You are welcome to come over to me and we can use my adaptation of the F-W binding jig to cut new binding/purfling channels. I'm sure there is a workable solution.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

If you haven't already done one, it sounds like the perfect opportunity to bind your first sound hole. And then it was a "planned" addition.

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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

That's actually a really good idea, Christian. I'm not sure my bending ability is quite there yet. The fit would need to be perfect. I could also cut an 1/8" wide ring to glue in place. Though I think the overall look would be too weighted.

There was this neck, see, with a trimmed fingerboard in place and excess mahogany on the edges. I had a router set up with a template bit, and figure 'sure, trim off the excess, it'll save me about 2 minutes compared to using a rasp'. Then - it was late, I was too tired to be operating power tools - in the midding of routing, I decided it was better to hold the router square to the face of the neck instead of flush to the edge of the fingerboard. Result: nice chunk out of the side of the neck. Ouch.

At the end of the day it was still salvagable, hardly anything there post-carving, and the rest was fixable invisibly with scraps of ebony (gotta love ebony) and hot hide glue (gotta love that too). A few minutes with some artists ink when I get around to finishing and it should be completely invisible.

Still, had to put it down, walk away, and do something else for a while. Like work on the pointy left handed shred electric that's gone (so far, knock wood) pretty much perfectly, and when assembled should weigh in at around 6 lbs. Not bad for a mahogany instrument with a double locking trem...

I forgot to choke up on my bit when drilling the tie block on my bridge, and now it looks likes Swiss Cheeze on both sides, with random holes. I probably needed to make a new one anyway, since it was a little thinl Just hate to ruin a piece of BRW like that.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Greg, I thought the same thing.......I have an Alverez plywood six string that I've been playing for years. I've always wanted a Martin HD28. Last fall I had a few extra bucks and went to every music store playing all the Martins I could find. Then one fateful day I was browsing around on LMI and got to playing around with their "Kit Wizard." Next thing I know, the money I had saved for the Martin was now in the hands of LMI. I don't know if I have spent as much as the new guitar cost but it's darn close, and still with no guitar....that I can play yet. Anyway, in the long run I think I'll make out better, cause I've been bit hard by the Zoot Bug. Hopefully I'll be making guitars for years.
Oh, I've made lots of mistakes on this first one. Nothing that has made me throw it in the burning pile but every little mistake I learn from. I started writing down each step and screw up so I'll do better next time. There are so many steps in guitar making and one directly effects the next step. It just doesn't work when you get out of step and try to do something you should have waited to do later, cause now you have to try to work around something you messed up.

I just read all this mess I've wrote and it don't even make since to me. I just woke up, I'm going to go get more coffee..... I always ramble on when I first wake up....blah...blah...blah

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
Jack Batts Maker and Repairer of Fine Violins

I decided to go all the way through on the sides for the top braces. Just eyeballed it. I think I need glasses. Thats whats still holding up my first one.Total disaster. You cant have a 'do it now or die' attitiude in this until you know the ropes.

From now on I will kerf to the brace and cut it, then glue it in, then add a kerf to the top of the brace, like Cumpliano does. Back and top will be kerfed in before glue up. Live and learn (and wait)

Im also using Martin necks so I can build the box and get these going, at least on the first few.

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

I was anxious to get the back on my first one attached to the rim, so I started to cut the notches for the brace pockets. It was approaching 2 a.m. Sunday morning when I finished cutting the pockets, so it was time to go to sleep and come back with a fresh mind and a fresh set of eyes. Sunday afternoon I finished the last pocket and placed the braced back on the rim and everything fit perfectly, but the back didn't seem to arch the way I thought it should and I couldn't figure out why. Then it dawned on me that I cut the brace pockets for the back on the top of the rim.

Vince

Okay picture this scenario. Youre half way through gluing up bindings and you stab yourself with a scalpel. What do you do? 1. rush off and try and find the band aids while the glue goes hard or 2. wrap a rag around the finger and carry on with the glue up trying your best to keep the sopurts of blood off the spruce top?

Wouldnt have been so bad if it wasnt the same finger I stuck the paring chisel through 2 days earlier

You sound like me. Scary Sharp has a whole new meaning in my shop. My Band-Aid and New Skin bill has doubled.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Maybe its just me, but I can't see where a scalpel would be a good tool choice to spread glue with. Hope you give your finger a chance to heal.

Oh, peroxide helps get blood out of things if it is still fresh.

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Aoibeann

You don't have to make the ring 1/8" James, you could make the sound hole 4-1/8" Dia by adding a 1/16" ring, and bending that isn't to hard. You could also get some 0.030 fibre paper and double it up. If you use black it will be very hard to tell. You can try installing it with a thick balloon in the hole. Wipe the inside edge and around the soundhole with shellac, tack the fibre paper at one end with CA and let it curl around the inside of the sound hole. Blow up the balloon as tight as you can without popping it. Wick in thin CA around the edges of the top and the fibre paper. Let is sit for 1/2 hr and than do the second piece. You could also go thinner and do b/w/b, that might look cool.

James I've bound a sound hole because I cut it to big also. Here's a picture for you. The binding is EIR (easy to bend) and it is 0.090" wide.

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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

I had already posted my goof, but thought a couple of pictures would bring out the details. It is amazing how much a little drill can drift in 10 mm of rosewood. Here is the drill side. Not great, but I might have let it go. Once strings were in the holes, it probably wouldn't have been very noticeable.
However, the other end of the block was a different story.. Unacceptable.
The piece the old bridge is leaning against is the new bridge blank.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars