Official Luthiers Forum!

OK, time to flood the forum with ocious narratives of irrelevant self-fulfilment. i´ve been trying to get into guitar building for some time, and for the past 6 months i´ve been part-time apprentice to a luthier friend of mine. so far it´s been kind of hit-and-miss (more miss than hit, evidently) but today, for the first time i was able to joint a couple of tops (three actually) in less than 10 minutes, all by myself and, above all, with what i can only describe as "feeling" : feeling the weight of the plane in the hand as it travels, the resistance and profile of the wood, checking for straightness, rectifying until i felt it was ok. and, to my surprise, it WAS ok. and then the second came out ok, and then the third! i can´t tell what has changed in my methods or my skills (very few, i would say) but this was an eureka moment i will not forget very soon.

slightly annoying and self-centred happiness mode off, now back you, pros.


(and thanks for reading)

cheers,
miguel

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Congrats man.!
Its a good feeling when it comes together
I had a bit of a humbling one last week though as
I chased a chink of light up and down a figured Koa back for about two hours..
Just when I thought i had it down....
No reason not to celebrate though progress is progress

Very nice! Still over an hour per plate most of the time for me. Hopefully one day I shall join the club!

I look forward to the day!

Yo, miguel

you just keep following your "feelings" with the wood,

now its time to start talking to the wood and

one day you gonna find you don't need the calipers or the measuring tape,

and the wood , she be talking back to you.


blessings
Padma

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Cool! I spent some time on that very task this past weekend. It took me a while, but I successfully joined the top and back for my next guitar. Fun and satisfying!

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George :-)

thanks guys! it felt really good, but i´m not shure i´ll be able to pull it again that soon: it also used to take me almost one hour to get it "average". still, the feeling that i´m improving is well worth it per se, even if the next ones will take longer.

cheers,
Miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Miguel,

Congratulations! You have attained what some educators call, "flow."

It's at this point where you might say to yourself, "why was it so hard before?"

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Keep working hard and this sort of moment will return. I just finished my 4th year and at every guitar there is this and that that goes better than on the last, resulting in a lot of satisfaction. Of course each guitar comes with a new error or two or three. More satisfaction when the error is fixed....
I think we can hone our skills really for as long as we live.

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Build log

thanks again, guys! it´s nice to keep learning! of course even small improvements seem bigger when you´re just starting, because you´re comparing them with almost nothing...

cheers!

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Ah yes, the hands teach the mind.

Well done.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck