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meddlingfool really started it.

Here's only one of my many: Tightening the vise that holds my solera. The neck and top of a classical had just been glued together, clamped on the solera, then the sides were glued and clamped. I went to tighten the vise holding the solera, just to make sure it would hold the extra weight of the clamps I was adding, only I loosened the vise, letting the solera crash to the floor, breaking both sides and the top. Only lucky thing was that the glue hadn't fully set, so I salvaging the neck was easy.

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

Uggg!!!!

Just the other day I finished a beautiful torch inlay on the head piece and thought to myself 'I'll just take this over to the sanding board and sand it flush and it will look beeee-Utiful!' Only I failed to realize that I was sanding the top edge of the fretbaord where the nut faces off with it along with the head plate.

Sigh.

I've done something similar. I couldn't decide whether to throw up or smash something in a fit of rage.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

In a number of contexts (not just guitar building, but including it): Failing to take precautions to prevent the driving of a screw from wedging and cracking the wood into which I was driving it. Got to, got to, got to drill a pilot hole the size of the shank of the screw, clamp the wood across the grain before driving the screw, and wax the screw prior to driving it. I don't care much about deck boards or plywood, but when I crack a slotted headstock (tuner screws) or a heel (strap button), it tends to put me in a bad mood. I now have the zeal of the converted regarding this risk.

Another: Hang onto that guitar body sled when moving it around under a binding channel tower, because if you let it get away from you during a climb cut (half of the cuts, at least), all heck can break loose. I had to replace a back over this mistake (thank goodness it wasn't the top).

Another: Letting the bearing that is guiding the binding channel cutter slip into the neck tenon slot, thereby taking a huge bite out of the back right behind the slot.

Another: Failing to clean up glue immediately after gluing in the kerfed linings. Scraping hard glue off the insides of the sides, between the top and back linings, is miserable work.

Another: Failing to COMPLETELY detail the sides BEFORE cutting the binding channels. Result: Spots where the binding is thinner than it should be, because I had to further detail the sides after gluing on the binding.

I could go on and on . . .

This isn’t where you set your depth of cut. Also, test first.




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If using a bearing guided bit to cut binding channels, check the bolt that retains the bearing is tight prior to each cut. A bearing guided bit where the bearing has fallen off mid cut will have you searching LMI to see if they stock 3/4” wide purfling …

Binding routing is certainly a hotbed for mistakes. I have also forgotten to tighten the nut when changing bearings. I got a phone call just as I was hand tightening it and forgot to use the Allen wrench. Bad.

I have also dropped a bearing into the neck mortise which I normally don’t rout out until the binding is on but got out of synch on that one.

I have forgotten to lift the router over the end graft when routing for mitered purfling on the binding.

I have forgotten to shellac the rosette channels before using thin CA.

I measure critical stuff using the one on the ruler as the starting point but forgot to add the extra inch on the other end.
I keep a top with a beautifully installed abalone rosette hanging on my wall. One problem, the soundhole is an inch north!

Oh yeah, bending the wrong side for the cutaway happened once

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

How about bending two left sides.

Or putting my fingers thru the top while French polishing.

Breaking master grade Koa Ukulele sides. Sometime I get these a short period where I don't bend anything for awhile. Then I seem to always break the first one I bend so now I have a timing sequence I follow when bending so I don't have to reinvent the wheel each time.

Sanding off too much of the end of fretboard at the sound hole so it doesn't cover the purling joint.

Cutting a sound hole for a Kasha Tenor on the upper bout instead of the lower bout.

Flipping a plan or template upside down.....smh

Bending the sides opposite of each other so the grain matchup is all wonky at engraft.

Spraying lacquer so thick I had to razer blade it off and start over.

My first Stratocaster was Fiesta Red, I think I painted it 6 times before I got it right, then during assembly I chipped off a 1" chip from installing the neck. That damned guitar turned into a relic after I hit it with a hammer and called it a day.

Routing the truss rod 1/2" off center and then thinking for a 1/2 hour that no-one will ever know. I still have this neck around to remind me to slow down.

I build mostly Ukuleles, the fretboard markers are the same as guitar except for #10 on a an Uk, I've put a few FB markers on Guitars on #10.

Shaping the neck on a master grade flamed maple Strat neck and thinking hmmmmm there has to be a quicker way to get this to its rough shape. head over to the band saw and start free handing the shape and cut right into the fretboard about 1/2". This one went in the trash after a slew of profanities about how building houses doesn't apply to luthier work.

Doing chisel work and putting the chisel pretty much thru the top.

Doing inlay work while wearing a loupe and seeing something move out the side of my view and then realizing it was the exacto knife that rolled off the bench and landed perfectly plumb in the top of my leather shoe standing plumb.

Hitting the purchase button on another master grade set of Koa. I mean how many sets does a dude need?

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Great idea for a thread Pat!!

Be mindful of gravity when adding some thin CA to a clamped fret so it doesn't run onto the neck *&*&^$^&^^&*&%$

When your bridge is not a belly bridge but instead more of a rectangle, and you’re using hide glue (I.e. need speed), and you glue that sucker upside down!

Made worse when you are using vacuum and you don’t realize it’s upside down until the glue is completely set!


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Just cut my finger with a Stanley knife AGAIN!
Think I'll never learn

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Never ....... I MEAN NEVER cut an upper bout port Before cutting binding slots

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
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The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
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i have no idea how i managed to cut one of the slots too close to the edge and then had to add a thin strip of wood. Wife told me to start over, but i'm pretty stubborn...

Used one of the side cutoffs so the ebony side looks ok, still planning to use this neck. Guess the neck mahogany will have to be quite dark to try and hide the obvious extra wood strip; wish i had a good idea to hide the interface of the back mahog veneer with the bird beak...still thinking about that.


Roy

Make dam sure to check that a router chuck is probably tightened and before that check that the chuck and router bit shaft are lean and free of debris. I’ve had disasters from router bits creeping out from the chuck more then once dang it.

Oh, God. Too many to list. Yesterday I looked in the soundholes of the two bodies I've been working on all summer and noticed there were no back joint reinforcements....

^ Fortunately hundreds of thousands of guitars have been made without them and are just fine…

Tuner holes in the wrong place. Nice to have a cool jig but it still needs to be located properly - .

This is an experiment otherwise I’d be making a new neck. A dark stain inside the slots should make it less noticeable.



Steve

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Steve, Nice work. With some effort, could finally see the original hole plugs. Good camouflage, and I think the pix are helpful in explaining what exactly happened. I've never been happy with how tight my X cut is, nor how the brace ends should just 'snap' into place, and not sure I understand some of the previous descriptions well enough to duplicate. Will spend more time trying to figure out a fave process using these descriptions with the next guitar. Roy

Thanks Roy, I was lucky on this one - I realized the holes were wrong before I cut the slots and the tuners cover up the plugs on the outside. And I agree, it can be difficult to follow written directions from other folks.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

When cleaning fret slots with a tool like the one below, don't ever pull towards the end of the slot. I made that stupid mistake cleaning CA out of slots after gluing the binding on a fretboard. Blew a hole right through the binding in the blink of an eye when a piece of the CA in the slot let go as I was pulling the tool. I should have turned the guitar around so I was pulling from the opposite side and away from the end of the slot.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

An alternate method is to take an exacto knife and heat the tip with a flame and just run it through the ca. Clears it right out. Sand the point off the blade a bit before.

Good one for the tips and tricks thread

Yup,did the exact same thing recently.
I had to remove the board and put a new one on.
Luckily there were no inlays in the fretboard.


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If it’s Straight grain wood you’ll be OK there’s been plenty of guitars built without them.
I’ve restored plenty of 80 year old guitars without a back reinforcing strip on the joint is still tight.


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I have done this one also!
Don’t you just love those Rubner tuners?


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