Official Luthiers Forum!

I have been reading along and keeping up , and I condfidently send my vote to phil !

After mind u , understanding that he was in fact alright , im sorry i had to laugh my butt off .

Of course , I laugh at my own stupidity as well so , no negativity meant.

" Hands Phill my copy of " Buffers for Dummies "

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
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 !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I sheepishly nominate myself. Table saw vs. my left hand. The table saw won:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=24234&p=329348#p329348

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Jim Womack

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. "
Will Rogers

Heal Fast and well sir . These kind of incidents happen to even the most experienced. I have been woodworking for years and never used feather boards. At 50 maybe its time I rethink that idea. Its one thing to do somthing dumb and make it out with minimal if no injury. its another thing to have a mistake change ones life. Be safe everyone .

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
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 !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Well, this post is a little tough for me since I never make mistakes....

Actually, I should be referred to as "The mistake King". Mistakes feel like my children and I have a lot of them! Anyway, there are many of the worst but one that just kept leading to more and more offspring mistakes was when I tried to rout the cavity for a fairly complex vine inlay in a fretboard without my glasses (spilled CA on the lens). When I finished and finally looked with a new pair of glasses I was stunned. I should have cut my losses but fixed it which led to an endless string of about eighteen thousand more fixes. It was good experience (I tell myself)....and produced the world's most worked over fretboard.

The worst for me was spending a lot of time on something before I noticed the mistake. I was near complete on my first neck (or the farthest along that I've gotten on a neck so far). Completely fretted, carved, threaded inserts installed in heel, headstock slotted, nice squarish string ramps into slots which took forever, tuner holes drilled, mostly fitted to the body, just a few touchups left on the shaping.

Then I realized that when I had cut the outside shape of the headstock, my router template must have moved or else I accidentally aligned it to some random mark that wasn't the centerline on the neck. So the headstock was slightly skewed from the rest of the neck. Not really noticeable unless you look at it straight on, but once you've seen it, it looks bad at any angle. Probably structurally/mechanically okay but I'm going to start over or find a way to salvage it. If anything, it was a good practice run on shaping and neck fitting!

Here it is part way through, still lots of work to do until I bothered to look at the thing straight on:

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Jon maybe that is what happened to Leo Fender too?

That is a great looking neck BTW - very nice work!

When I first got my buffer, I was touching up the back of a dred that had been strung and ready to go. I had actually called the customer to let him know it was ready.
I didn't put on goggles, and a microbolus of rouge and fiber hit me directly in the center of my eye which caused a reflex relaxing of my grip, catching the instrument on the wheel and sending it crashing into the bench and then the floor. I was ultimately able to repair it (new top binding/ purf and some creative drop filling). Needless to say it ruined my day....

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

Martin Size 2 use this 24.5"scale. I just ordered a FB from LMI
This isn't a great error but ties in with yours- I ordered a 13.75" scale mando FB instead of 13.875" by accident. Didn't even notice for weeks, because, I was expecting to see 13.875, so that's what it read- for a while. I'll try it on something, sometime. Heck it could become my trademark!

I did the same thing on my first one in Alan Carruth's class. It was quite noticeable. We cut the head stock off and put a new one on using a V joint. It took me a long time to get the V joint fitted but now I've done one. After that we put on a new faceplate and then I cut it out way more accurately. It now looks like I meant it. So I got to learn how to do a scarf joint and a V joint on the same guitar. That was the worst of many mistakes I made on that guitar but the biggest thing I learned is that almost any mistake can be fixed.

Matt

Well it's good to know I'm not alone, thanks. I am planning on eventually filling in the slots and tuner holes, adding some mahogany on the sides, new cover plate and back plate, and cutting a new non-slotted headstock properly lined up. It'd be a shame to let a chunk of nice Honduran go to waste. I'm not in too much of a hurry, though. On the guitar the neck was for, the granadillo back split after a dry winter when I wasn't working much in the shop so wasn't keeping it humidified. I attempted to glue it but it pulled apart again this winter. I think I didn't let it acclimate long enough after I got it before I braced and put the body together, so I suspect I'll always have problems with it.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Well, the second time I glued purfling and banding on my OOO Pau Ferro (.....umm, yeah the first time I glued it, I glued the banding off - kilter so that it "ran out" short of the top. .......so, the SECOND time, after removing the banding and purfling, I reglued it and managed to glue the purfling backeards, so that on one side I've got a nice WBW accent, then the black ebony binding, on the other just white black. Didn't notice til the next day - I'm stuck with it.

Nice to know it's not just me. I am pretty new at this, just finishing up my 9th creation. I placed the top onto the sides, and noticed that the center line is not straight with the neck. This was just a free prototype for a friend so I will live with it.

I was going to post my tablesaw vs finger picture, but the one previously posted was a little worse than mine. After they started stitching up the second finger (my index finger) I realized they had not numbed my middle finger. Ever had stitches without being numbed up ? I left the blood on the wall where I do my wood working as a reminder.

Hi Lactose and welcome to the OLF!!!

Your instrument looks pretty cool and I am looking forward to seeing more of your creations.

Great to have you here and we are lactose tolerant here at the OLF....

OMG! You will attract vampires!!

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

Leaving the braced back for my blackheart sassafras OM on top of my car while I tidied my workbench.
It wasn't there a few days later when I was ready to fit it.

Fortunately Tim Spittle was able to help with a replacement

Or sharks!!

Or Lawyers !!!

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
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 !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Same, same, right?

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Careful.. we have some OLF members who are stinkin Lawyers....

Love ya Steve!!!

It`s cheaper to build guitars rather than buy them.
Boy, am I learning a lesson.
Coe Franklin

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

I started building this about ten years ago. It's a copy of a late 19th century Panormo-style, with a european spruce top, inlaid brw sides and a laminated maple and brw back. My first mistake was not doing the rosette to a high enough standard. My reasoning was that the guitar I was copying was like that, so it was ok for mine to be. Seeing the finished result kinda put me off completing it. I then then put it in a box, moved house a couple of times and came back to it a couple of years later. I guess the top would probably have cracked anyway given the state it's in now. The wood was old and dry when I started building it, so it must just have been humidity swings that did the deed. The staining on the top is a half-hearted attempt to get the top to swell and glue up the cracks with hot water and animal glue - was never going to work, so time for a re-top now. Learned a few lessons on this one..
Cheers,
Bri

Yeah Coe my friend that is a mistake that many seem to make.... I've seen some pretty good first guitars but what usually happens is that the builder gets hooked and can't stop at one... That's when this gets expensive.

I've done more than my share of dumb things, but here's one I still laugh about.
My young "apprentice" Lucas was coming into the shop to work on his first guitar & found me happily gluing up a few stacked heel neck blanks. He spent quite a while watching me as I was clamping the heel to the last one. After letting me get all done, he asked " Is that REALLY how you want that neck to look?"
Even after this, it took an embarrassingly long time to notice I had glued the heel to the TOP surface of the neck blank!
Luckily, the glue hadn't grabbed too hard & I was able to pull it apart with no damage.
More recently, while measuring a commissioned guitar for a custom case, I whacked the top with a sharp corner of my 36" stainless steel ruler... The new top is all braced. I start carving braces tomorrow. Sigh........

Daniel that is the great thing about having an apprentice - you can blame them for everything....

Where would you like me to start,there are only so many that can be made and then they are out of the way. One must look on the positive side and realize how much one can learn from mistakes......Gee guess I must be some smart. But why oh why do they keep happening...? Hope the answer lies in my signature..! Good luck folks.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!