Official Luthiers Forum!

After ridiculous amounts of reading and probably more trolling through forums and website resources, I've gone ahead an ordered my first serviced kit from LMI. I like to start out with a bang, so my first kit will be Engleman/Cocobolo OM. I think it's ambitious for a first build considering the quality and type of wood that I ordered, but God willing, I won't screw up so awfully as to make a complete waste of the wonderful wood that I'm sure will come. I'll throw pictures up when the box arrives and update on my progress from there on. ^^

Congrats Michael and I am sure that you will not screw up and surprise yourself by building a killer guitar!

I think just about everyone would recommend you order a low cost kit for the first try. Cocobolo is hard to work with and can provoke nasty alergic reactions and Engleman is easily damaged. They will make a great guitar but unless you are very talented you would be well advised to build a much cheaper kit the first time out.
Think about calling John at Blues Creek and have him put together a beginners special for you. Then build the LMI kit. My first was a disaster, my second a cheappy and my third was a keeper.

Good luck what ever you do - go slowly and ask lots of question on the OLF

Steve

I still haven't figured out what exactly I'm going to do about the finish situation yet given the fact that I've absolutely no finishing experience and no spray equipment... I guess I'll wing it as I go along. Hell, maybe I'll tackle a FP job on my first build.

As for ordering cheap on the first kit... I definitely considered it, but the damned cocobolo was just so pretty... I could not resist. ^^;; I'll just have to put that much more effort and focus into it, I figure. I'm not so horribly worried about screwing things up because everything is a learning experience in the end, right? =)

Besides, I'm getting it serviced so it takes out at least some of the more parts I would be more concerned about with expensive wood (namely the bending thing).

Good luck Michael! You've been around here long enough to know what a wonderful resource all the OLFers are. I can tell you on my first (and only so far) build, I made mistakes on 75% of the steps, but it seems that you have to really try to screw up so badly that it's not fixable.

I've been thinking that I ought to do some practice builds. It seems like such a waste for me to use really good wood, but I can barely play, so shouldn't they at least be pretty hanging on my wall? Even so, the next three I'm working on are going to be plain wood. Of course, if I can close up that binding joint, they'll be beautiful, won't they?

Just remember to take your time. It's amazing that day you look down and see a guitar instead some box of wood that was sold to you as a "kit."

Miek

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Mike Lindstrom

Congrats on the purchase!

There was a thread on here a while back about our first guitars, and it seems that most people hang on to them. Some of the first attempts are killer guitars, and if you take your time I'm sure yours can be one of the first try killers too!

Welcome to the addiction....I mean forum!

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Reguards,

Ken H

Way to go Michael! I'm looking forward to seeing your journey in pictures/words!

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

first - good luck.

second - what glue are you using? I know of people who've had problems gluing cocobolo - think you might need to use epoxy or something - don't think titebond will do it.

I honestly haven't yet decided what glues to go with. I do have a bottle of titebond, but I've recently been looking into fish glue. This is something I've also wondered about given coco's oily nature. Can anyone else that has had some experience with this wood chime in here with a suggestion? One thing is for sure, I don't feel like I should tackle HHG until I'm more familiar overall with all of the steps.

Fish glue works well on coco, just make sure you scrape the surfaces immediately before gluing to remove any gunk on there (important no matter what type of glue you use).

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin