Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, I think I can officially be called the dumbest builder ever to attempt to build guitars. Here is the latest bonehead move. I was clamping the tail block and neck block on a set of sides, not sure what happened but the one side just cracked about 8 inches at the neck. ok, thats bad. BUT! I had another set of sides already bent so not that big a deal, just insert a side from the other set (its honduran mahogany all from the same billet so it was a perfect match). Well, glued the back on when I noticed soemthing strange. Stupid me inserted the wrong side from the second set. So, as you know, half the contoured side is towards teh top, half towards the bottom. Well, nothing worse than a mistake from just plain carelessness. I think i am just going to throw it all together anyway as a fond memory of my dumbest move yet

Frank,
just call it a reverse bookmatch. So you don't feel too bad, when it comes
to mistakes (I like to call them judgement errors), you have company. Lots
and lots and lots of company. You probably won't make this mistake
again, but trust me, there's another one lurking down the road. It'll visit
you right after it leaves my shop!
Craig

Craig, at least they leave. Mine sort of linger and loiter about the place. Absolutely no hurry whatsoever.

Frank--go ahead and keep building that guitar.
See how many more mistakes you can make.
Then charge an upcharge for this model.   

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Hang in there Frank. We all make 'em. At least I know I do. And I'm probably gonna make 'em all again.

Frank,
Don't feel too bad, I did the same thing on mine! However, I hadn't glued the tail block yet. I just rebent it flat and rebent it again. It came our very nice. Also, I help Robbie at the guitar school and I have see guys snap their sides completely in half and we just super glue and keep going. All of them turned out great. I can understand not doing this for a customer, but if it is one of your own, I say forge ahead and just keep fixing the mistakes.(until you find a mistake that is not fixable )Good luck, I do feel your pain!
Tracy

Oh Frank, that's easily fixed...just heat the sides at the blocks with an iron and use the correct one. That's nothing compared to using one's fingers as a side-push-block on a piece of wood going through the table saw.....trust me...that was a minor thing you did!

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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."

I think we all have a lot of misfits laying around. I generally refer to them as "tuition"

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

YOU ALLWAYS LEARN MORE FROM A FAILURE THAN A SUCCESS!
   I know I made a few . Hang in there as the mistakes get less and less as you go
john

Or at least you get to do more "interesting" mistakes. What I find is that your "creative recoveries" get better and better as you build so that in some sense you relax a lot more and learn to deal with it all as part of nornal building.

Just remember that if we didn't make mistakes, the world wouln't have quite so many children

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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

I love seeing mistakes posted. Not that I enjoy the suffering of others, but it reminds me how much company I have. Recently:

while sawing a side to profile, split it and sawed into my finger

snapped the heel off a neck

inlay dot on fretboard the wrong fret

gouged a side trimming the back

glued bridge off-center

drilled neck-block holes off-center

lost delicate peghead inlay, found it next day taped to my shoe

All this on my first, and I haven't started on the finish yet. Sounds swell, though, and it might even end up presentable!

Been lurking here - you guys have been an inspiration.

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

I laughed for about 5 minutes reading about the inlay that was taped to your shoe, Burbank. I have lost so many pieces of inlay, and man they show up in the strangest places. My wife found 2 pieces in the clothes washer once. They had somehow landed in my shirt pocket when I thought I dropped them. Don't ask me how they got there.

I figured since I haven't seen many mistakes posted lately I figured everyone needed one

This guitar I am working on is for a friend and of course, everything is going wrong. I shouldn't have said "want a guitar? No problem, i will throw one together for you piece of cake. No fancy inlay, no high figured woods, no fancy anything. i'll have it done in no time!"

I am keeping what I have together and hanging it on the wall with the other cracked sides and other mistakes as a reminder. Just bent new sides tonight.