Official Luthiers Forum!

I never thought about that before. I will take that as VERY GOOD advice. Thats a good reason to put a second sound hole in! (see my avatar)

Mike

That's the value of this thread Mike my friend - so that maybe we won't repeat someone else's mistake and instead stick to making new and original mistakes on our own.....

I remember when this happened to my bro Bruce and as a result of his post I switched to using a 1" vac hose and being mindful of how much of the sound hole my arm was plugging when cleaning up the inside of a guitar.

Another thing that really stuck in my mind and horrified me was when, and I don't remember who made this post, a nitro sprayed and curing guitar that was nearly finished decided to go "CRACK" in the middle of the night so very loudly that it woke up the builder........ The guitar was not in an RH controlled environment and dried out.

That one scared me enough to go our and purchase a dehumidifier and humidifier and hopefully never experience this personally.....

Let's hear some more mistakes please?

I would have to say the dumbest thing i've done is routed too deep on a maple neck for the trussrod adjuster nut above the nut and sanded through to it on the back side of the neck.That one ended up getting a rosewood inlay on th back side of the neck.Sort of a short wide skunk stripe.

On my first, I spent hours betting the scarf joint right. It took me two tries. Then, I go to rout the truss rod channel. Turns out I hadn't tightened the collet enough. The bit loosened and ate right through the neck. Much cursing ensued.

Far far too many to name...

Impatience is not my friend.

I forgot to sand the sides down to a nearly finished degree before I routed my binding ledges. The curves were all fair and smooth, so I routed nice ledges. Glued in walnut bindings in thin layers because I thought that would make bending them easier (and it did). Then realized I had quite a bit of sanding to do on the sides to get rid of glue stains, shallow cups, etc. etc. I sanded through one layer of binding in three places, thus revealing glue lines. If it had been a
client's guitar, I would have re-routed and re-bound. Instead, I chiseled the goofs a little deeper, filled them with home made wood dough, carefully sanded them smooth and level, and stained the bindings, sides and back. Then I painted the goofs, which had stained much darker, to match the surrounding stain. And then I shot the lacquer. It was a very lucky "save" and is nearly invisible. I left one small area of darker binding in an inconspicuous place as a constant reminder to be more careful next time.

My dumbest? Probably finishing the inlay on a fretboard only to come back later and realize the 12th fret inlay was located on the 10th fret! Luckily, I was able to remove the inlay, route out the 10th fret block and replace with a matching block from a cutoff of the fretboard blank, and re-install the inlay in the 12th fret where it belongs. Quite and exercise, but it came out near perfect!

That's the positive side of dumb mistakes. They are an opportunity to expand on your repair skills by forcing you to sometimes find new and unusual ways to approach a solution.

Another dumb, and not overly uncommon, mistake was setting the fretboard locating pins too deep and uncovering one when I finished shaping the back of the neck. I was able to drive the pin back in and fill and finish it. The neck came out fine but it's not an invisible repair. It's still waiting to one day go on a personal OM for me.

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

Sounds cathartic, so I'll join in! Some years ago I built a large cherry entertainment center with raised panel sliding doors on the front. I have always been a believer in the measure twice and cut once strategy, but while building the 2nd door, I tossed the ol' strategy out the window. I thought I remembered the measurements from the first door and went from memory while building the second door. I had cut and routed all the panels as well as shaped all the styles and rails. It was just a matter of cutting the styles and rails to size, inserting the panels, and gluing up. I designed the panels to float a bit so I had some flexibility in width and height of the doors even using the precut panels. Well I cut the styles and rails to size, glued everything up, then went to install the door. As I was installing it, I noticed it was too small for the opening. My first thought was, "How could I build a crooked cabinet?" I thought I had cut one side of the cabinet too long. It wasn't until I held the door up next to the other door that I realized it was 1/4" too short! Arghhh! At this point, I had no more style and rail stock left, so I had to shape more, cut my door apart, and reassemble with styles the correct length. At least it was fixable.

I haven't been building guitars long enough to have a mistake that rivals the door fiasco. Most of my mistakes thus far are more attributable to ignorance of the process. With the door, I knew what I was doing and just screwed up. But, give me some time, and I am sure I"ll have a guitar related mistake to share!

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

built a right hand cutaway rim bass-ak-ward. I had to cut the mortice through the botom end of the neck block so that the back of the rim became the top of the rim. reprofile which ended up shallowing out a standard SJ from 4.5 to 3.5" deep at the butt. It was the insperation of my SJ thinline series

Ooohh, i almost forgot a good one. Anyone remember travis bean guitars? They had aluminum (really heavy) necks with headstocks shaped kind of like a tuning fork, with 3 tuners on each side. There was a disembodied neck floating around the shop for years, it got moved around when it was in the way, and was generally ignored. Somehow it ended up stashed on a high shelf above the workbench, forgotten until someone slammed a door (or something like that)and it came plummeting down to impale with both pointy ends of its hellish headstock the flat top guitar being worked on below.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

I think for side bending I will mark with a big black marker before bending. They have to do that with amputations also, even in hospitials.

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

Many moons ago, when I was a fledgling trim sawyer working for a store fixture outfit,
we were preparing the cabinet work for a Footlocker store. I was assigned cutting the
material for hundreds of small shoe shelfs......1/2" birch ply with solid birch trim on
three edges. Imagine my chagrin (and my highly excitable Italian bosses) when I realized
I had cut all left ends and no rights!

Haven't done enough guitars to match that yet!

Bob

That reminds me of another one, my friend had a crackly 1/4" jack in his guitar which i offered to replace before an important gig. I set out a new jack, removed the old one and cleaned all the electrical contacts, and then replaced the jack. A few days later i noticed a fresh new jack sitting out on the bench, huh... right where the old cruddy one should be. I called the guy and he said yeah, the jack still made the crackly noise, but he was too embarrased to complain about a freebie.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Two words - Super Glue. Took the top off a fresh bottle to use one of those pipettes during a fret job. Somehow knocked the bottle over while working. The worst part was I didn't notice because I walked into another room to get some tools or something. Doh! I glued a whole bunch of crap to my bench top.

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Tom Krebs

I totally spokeshaved through a neck. ...I feel I should mention that I carve my necks much much slower now.

While binding my first guitar, the bit slipped out of the router and took a chunk out of the side. I routed the entire ledge to the depth of the screw up, and installed double height bindings with a racing stripe in the middle. It ended up pretty cool, but most of you would have spoted it as a cover up from a mile away.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Starting the first one...

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

I had a doghouse bass in the shop for a new nut( $40.00 job)
After the new nut was installed and as I'm tuning it to pitch, the bridge just exploded into 2 pieces. It sounded so much like a gun my automatic reaction was to duck.
As I ducked the bass released from my hand and the following explosion was the neck launching out of the body.
This 1 hour job turned into a 3 day repair, neck reset, finish repair and new bridge.
Hardest 40 bucks I ever made.

Peter

Double that, spilled some on a customers 'wood' floor. It was real nice wood, so no big deal just sand it out. Hmmmm wait a second, this is laminate flooring....

Super glue should go into a non-spillable pot when in use.

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

Back in my race car building days, I screwed up many a piece of metal, by measuring with the ruler indexed at the 1 inch mark, thus 12" ends up being only 11". No fun when that quarter panel, or roll cage bar, all bent up and ready to go on the car ends up an inch too short. How does that relate to guitars you ask? In drawing out the plans for my last 2 builds, I found myself making that mistake. Lucky for me, I caught it early enough for me to correct it, long before I put saw to wood.

My most recent guitar oops came from dilling the jack hole in my Tele build before I routed for bindings. Makes a nice gap in the binding to the top when the bearing falls in the hole. Then on my latest build, in an effort to no duplicate said procedure, I was about to start finishing when I realized I hadn't even drilled for the jack yet

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Rob

Got three of my fingers stuck to a chunk of wood...yup, you guessed it, CA Glue. Took me an hour to prise all three fingers off the wood, using a sharp scalpel. Didn't cut myself either...

That's what the can of acetone is for

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I located the bridge at the right location for my first guitar, then using my experience from attaching electric guitar bridges (which is very forgiving as far as intonation goes since the saddles are adjustable) I measured the distance from the nut to the 12th fret, then from the 12th fret to the bridge and drew a line there. I used it as a guideline to determine where the saddle should go. Well the problem was that I took the compensated saddle (you know with the slant) and placed it with the line going through the middle of the saddle (so it meant that the saddle position at the D and G string would be exactly at the 2x 12th fret distance from the nut with the E string a little closer and the high E a little back.) Well I strung it up after the bridge was glued in, and then I was wondering why was the intonation way off (12th fret note being almost F instead of E) until I read the instruction for the Stewmac bridge position locator that you were supposed to measure the 2x 12th fret distance from the nut, then add another 1/16" at the high E string and 5/32" at the low E string to compensate for accurate intonation. So that meant I needed to move the bridge back by at least 1/4" for my guitar to intonate correctly. Since I did not have the proper tool to heat up a glue joint for removal (I only got a hair dryer) I chiseled the bridge off (something that I would not do on a customer's guitar) which made removal a little messy with pulled wood and stuff (this top has poor run out... it was a second grade top anyways) Then glued it in the right place, drilling new holes (I drill 2 outer holes to keep bridge from moving during glue up) then I glued it in. I got too impatient and started stringing it up only after two hours after glue up and I pulled the bridge so I had to re-chisel (more mess) then re-glue and this time I waited overnight. It intonates spot on now, but there's an eyesore to remind me of the mistake. This guitar is going to Afghanistan anyways so they are bound to see more dings.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

If your are not making mistakes, then you are not making progress.

Necessity may be the mother of invention.

But, frustration is the father of progress.

Try always to learn from others.

Mike

That's depending if you can get to it....