This weekend marked the completion of guitar 002. It got its strings Sunday afternoon and a few minutes of playing before the reality of being a parent closed in on the fantasy of being a luthier. That said, I did get a good deal of assistance from novice’s apprentice in history. Some of the results of that help are still visible on the finished product.

The picture is from my phone and thus lacks some detail, but here it is!

It’s easier for me to pick out the things that went wrong than to talk about what went right. The truth is, this is my second build and I really don’t have a good handle on what I’m doing correctly. The stuff that’s wrong is glaring (to me) but the stuff that’s right is, well, elusive for the time being.

Lessons learned:

1. Take more time when routing the channels for the binding. Make sure it fits perfectly all the way around and makes a uniform surface on both sides. It can’t be fixed later.

2. Check the thickness of the headstock veneer before getting creative instead of after.

3. Improvise. It’s fun, makes cool effects, and generates points of interest. Besides, this isn’t life or death. It’s a guitar. Live a little!

4. Buy as many stupid rulers and templates as there are. It’s the difference between 30 minutes and 2 minutes for many processes. When working with an assistant who might not appreciate the nature of certain objects and must be supervised at all times (“Daddy! What this? Uh oh! I drop it!”), the time savings is crucial.

5. Take pictures of every step. Not some of them or most of them. All of them.

6. Set aside 4 to 8 weeks for finishing. Suck it up. That’s the only way it’s going to look good.

7. Enjoy being an amateur. It’s wonderful to enjoy doing something well. Have fun with it and relax.

8. For every fault or failure in execution, find a point of interest or something that was done perfectly.

9. Play it!

The next instrument is already in the mold. I have some more materials to acquire and a couple of tools have gone from “nice to have” to “dammit, if I’m going to do this more than once I need that thingy!” Most importantly, the temperature outside is reliably above 90 most days. That means that the ambient temperature of my garage is probably in the upper 90s to 100. That’s not really conducive to doing much of anything with tools or nice wood. So I may piece a few things together in the coming months or just shelf it all until September. It’s unlikely that I’ll let it go that long, but I have things to record and an EP that I promised myself would find its way to the world before the end of June.

It feels good to have so much to do.

I’m big on the Five Things List. There’s no way for me to know where I got the idea, but it was certainly from a blog and I know that I started doing it on 21 Dec 2009. In the little notebook in my bag, the pages are filling up with five things that I accomplished today. At first it was a neat little hack to keep an eye on the projects that were getting real face time. Job related items don’t make the list. Only things that are done on my clock count. As a result, there’s a tendency to pad things when only one project is in motion. But the technique is a great way to track values.

In most lists there is at least one reference to my son. Whether we baked some cookies or he “helped” mow the lawn or we read an extra book at story time, he generally makes the cut. There is also always some reference to a musical project. It could be a new recording or a new instrument. Maybe a tool finally arrived or I found a new way of doing something through trial and error. Those things make the list. And there are self care items. Trips to the doctor or errands that are finally done. Reading and listening progress. Things that I do.

But the things I mentioned above aren’t the real trick. The real trick, which I’m still trying to master, is imaging what I want the list to say and making it so. My mom does the same thing but kicks it up a notch. She makes lists of five things she wants to do tomorrow. I tried that too. It works for her because she’s OK with hitting three out of five. When I see that I can’t check off every item, I get bummed out. It doesn’t help that I write things like “Research the history of Luthierie in southern Spain” as list items. So I’m working toward making the list a certain shape. If I hit the general curve, it feels good and pushes me to do more. And I know that at the end of the day I need to write down Five Things, so I’d better have at least that many.

On the advice of my diminutive future Power of Attorney holder, I took a personal day on Friday to hang out with my family and work on my guitar a little more. In the process of looking for something (ebony end pins! I KNEW they were in there!) in my closet, I discovered that I have enough wood in good condition to start another instrument. I have a top and back that are joined and roughed out. I have a pair of bent sides (from my first bending attempt) that aren’t badly burned or horribly misshapen. There was even a neck that I had roughed out. That sounds distinctly like a pile of expensive kindling waiting to make music!

The current project, 002, is still in the finishing stage. I made a few errors with the French Polish that some alcohol (denatured, not Bourbon) solved and I should be ready to buff the finish later this week and get to the business of mounting the bridge and neck. A little time with the belt sander will have a nut ready to go and I can string it up!

The next project, 003, got some work too. I cut out the joint for the neck and routed out the block. I’m a little short on kerfed material, so a little time with the saw will be in order before I can get the stuff glued. I have a few things to order (bindings, purflings, tuners, and bone pieces) but I think I have wood for a rosette lying around waiting for me to get with the program. Plenty to do! The build will be much slower as the temperature of my garage is inhuman most days as we head into the summer.

On top of the projects I mentioned in the last post, this is quite an addition. Exciting stuff!