Official Luthiers Forum!

Been on the forum several months now and I am amazed by the craftsmanship of the OLFmembers rookie or pro.
Trying to build my first acoustic I encountered many difficulties and I really want to improve my skills.
I learned a lot on visiting the forum

How do you guys :
- get that almost invisible glue joint; everytime I get a more or less thin black line ,
- razer-sharp edges ( do you really use a razer or a scraper )
- beautifull finishing on back and sides; what about finishing the top ?

Secondly, it seems almost nobody makes a mistake or at least dare to admit it and show it on the forum.
One of the advantages of the forum is to learn from each-others mistakes, I presume.

Thirth, maybe I have to build at least 10 or more guitars to get you're level

Of course one of the benefits of showing you're work here is because you are proud or maybe to get costumers.

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Don't worry be happy.

Frans: A lot of the folks posting their first may be called rookies. But quite often that is only in relationship to guitar building. A lot of them bring years of trade experience working with their hands and tools. It's hard to develop a high level of craftsmanship without putting in the work and time. Some folks get it faster then others. If you have been incouraged starting from childhood you can make an easier transition. As to the mistakes there are lots of those but the more skilled with more guitar experience generally come up with work arounds and/or make less then folks with less experience. The first mistake in any particular area is really a learning opportunity,when you do it more then once it becomes a mistake. Check out my signiture below.
Tom

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

If you want mistakes go read my build threads at luthiercom.org. I am a newbie at both woodworking and guitar building and it shows. Its painful at times but I am learning fast heh.

And sorry I can't answer your questions!

Exactly, when I started I had no woodworking skills at all. I approached it from a players perspective. Now, after over 50 guitars, I am just starting to feel confident in how they will turn out cosmetically. Maybe another 50 and I'll be confident about the sound?

My advice: keep working.
On mistakes: fix them. The only mistake is to stop working.
Beware! your 4th guitar...

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https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

I could write a book about the mistakes I've made repairing and building guitars since the late 70's... but the first article I ever wrote concerning luthiery was published by the Guild of American Luthiers in the early 80's. It was about a mahogany Strat body I put in the oven...... anyone ever read that one?

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

What do you mean David...
Beware... your 4th guitar
Ronald

Maybe it is: beware your 3rd guitar!
but I forget...

I'll just tell about my first guitar ( oh, no, grandpa, don't tell the story again! )

My first guitar was so bad ( how bad was it grandpa? ) I hung it up on my front porch with a sign attached to it saying "David Newton, Luthier"

By the end of the summer, a huge wasp nest had been built inside it. Back then we torched wasp nests, and the guitar caught fire and burnt to a crisp.

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https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

That's funny! Where ever would you get a silly notion like that. Here's a good one. Last weekend I was carving a neck. Working up around the first fret I noticed a dark spot appearing. I thought it was a pin knot but as I kept carving it turned out to be hole directly in line with a 1/16" locator pin for the FB. And yes, I had a few choice adjectives realising I drilled the locator hole too deep. I was too far into this neck to trash it so being a long time woodworker, I'm pretty good at hiding screw ups. This one was tough though. I tried to match a plug. Nope. This L-OO is now sporting a very stylish burst that I'm very happy with. The dangers of being a weekend warrior and in a hurry constantly bight me in the bum. I have yet to build an error free instrument but the end product looks better every time.

Have fun with it and as you say,"Don't worry, be happy".

Cheers,
Danny

I'm only on #2.

I started out with ZERO wood working experience and very cheap tools (if any). My second is head-over-heals better than my first, and I keep a log of my - "OOPS" moments. Here is a picture of my first neck on my second as an example. Notice what's wrong?


Just keep working and love what you're doing. I have arthritis and sever fibromialgia, so I can only work about an hour or two at a time before my hands just give up, but I wouldn't trade this for all the therapy in the world.

Steve

I bet you can still make a guitar with that, just cut the dovetail from behind and cap that sumbeotch!`

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I made plenty of mistakes on all of my builds, but #5 was the "cake taker". You can see all my builds, warts and all in the link below. Sometimes small errors are not seen due to the fact that they are fixed before I get to taking a picture, not to hide it. Most mistakes are minor. On my #2, I ended up making 3 V-joint necks because I trashed two with stupid mistakes. One, I was able to salvage for use on my #4, which was a shorter scale.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I remember thinking 10 would be the magic number. Now that I'm at 14 I think maybe 20 might be the magic number.

This thread highlights one of my favorite aspects of woodworking/luthiery: craftsmanship is not an endpoint we reach, just an ideal we strive towards. The OP has a great point, these forums are truly inspiring, and every incredible project no matter how perfect also contains some masterfully hidden flaws. I'm in the middle of correcting a mistake right now, actually. While running a birdseye maple neck blank through a jointer last week I ended up taking off a tad more material than I planned and now need to graft a small block onto the headstock for a perfect grain match. This could just as easily be a matching headstock, but I've had the maple aging for over 10 years waiting for the right project and I don't want to give up easily. So to address one of your questions, I'll show you how to make a glueline truly invisible soon in a thread. Anyways, I'd like to share with everyone how I make Titebond colorless without mixing up a dye-free batch in the lab.

Same here (@ 11 and 12)

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Build log

A MISTAKE ISN'T A MISTAKE , IF YOU LEARNED FROM IT . Often we do learn more from failure than from success . I am on 129 guitars now and I am still learning. The most important thing I can tell anyone is that there is no one way to do anything.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

When I was a cabinetmaker's apprentice, the master cabinet maker told us "A craftsman is judged not by the ability to produce a perfect piece of work, but in his skill in hiding his errors..." After making a number of guitars (8 for me, so far), I have several that the mistakes could only be hidden by the judicious application of flame (as David did, inadvertently). But, one thing I brought from cabinetmaking is Practice makes (nearly) Perfect! My very first set of dovetail joints suffered from the same problem as Steve's first neck - completely backwards! Well, I made sure I never did that again, so mistakes do teach you a lot. It's better, though, if they're not quite as humiliating as my first dovetails

Making guitars is just like playing guitars - getting good at it takes lots of practice.

When I was a cabinetmaker's apprentice, the master cabinet maker told us "A craftsman is judged not by the ability to produce a perfect piece of work, but in his skill in hiding his errors..." After making a number of guitars (8 for me, so far), I have several that the mistakes could only be hidden by the judicious application of flame (as David did, inadvertently). But, one thing I brought from cabinetmaking is Practice makes (nearly) Perfect! My very first set of dovetail joints suffered from the same problem as Steve's first neck - completely backwards! Well, I made sure I never did that again, so mistakes do teach you a lot. It's better, though, if they're not quite as humiliating as my first dovetails

Making guitars is just like playing guitars - getting good at it takes lots of practice.

Guitar building is like everything else in life. Things that look like shortcuts typically result in twice as much work and half as much quality. Working smart and making nice jigs will speed things up AND increase quality. I think that the absolute most important thing to do is to enjoy your work!

Here are a few tips I've picked up for those things you mentioned:
1) thin glue lines - first, make sure the parts being glued are flat. Next, smear the glue with your finger to get a nice even coating on the parts to be glued (Titebond Original works for pretty much all woods, and is a proven adhesive on thousands of instruments). When you clamp up a glue joint, if you don't get glue squeezing out, then you don't have enough clamping force. Next, keep an old toothbrush and small cup of water nearby. A good way to clean up squeeze out is to use a damp toothbrush to scrub along the joint and then to wipe the area with a cloth or paper towel.

2) Razor sharp edges - if you are talking about cutting "clean" shapes, then most of that is done best with a well made pattern and a router. As for corners, I was always taught that corners should all be rounded over a little bit, due to the fact that most finishes will not adhere well on a sharp edge.

3) Finishing the top - the finish is typically the same on all sides of the guitar. The woods are different, but the finish should be the same. Pick the finish of your choice, read as much as possible, and if you have adequate patience and wisdom - finish some scraps first.

Good luck and have fun,

Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

Frans - great post - I'm on guitar #8 and I don't think I'm yet close to the magic number - got at least 10 more before I feel like I'm getting close to understanding what it is I'm TRYING to do......I won't share any more errors - but suffice it to say that on every guitar, I've made enough errors that for me, the measure of success is how gracefully I can recover from a really bad one.

On the glue lines - the key is in having a really good fit prior to gluing. Glue can't be considered as "filler" for an imperfect fit. The joins and joints need to be just about perfect before applying the glue. Especially on gluing bookmatched tops.

Finishing is an art form in and of itself. I think there's a lot to be said for focusing on your woodworking, and farming out the finish work to a pro like Joe White. I haven't done it yet, but I will when I think my fit and finish are worthy of it.

Razor sharp edges - razor sharp tools, whether they are planes, chisels, scrapers, or razors.If your tools are truly sharp, it's a lot easier to do very clean work.


Have fun!

When I think of craftsmanship in lutherie, I think of the phrase:

“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

Joe

Craftsmanship is achieved by not cutting corners in my opinion. If a joint is not tight, redo it. If there is a gap in the binding that you can not hide by filling it, redo the binding. If you judge your own guitars by the same standards as you would another manufacturer or custom builder, you will increase your level of quality greatly. On my first guitar, which I made for myself, I did not get certain things perfect, like the finish. I sanded through the lacquer around my side port. I touched it up, but did not do a great job. My feeling was that I wanted to get the guitar finished so I could play it! I said to myself that I would go back and fix it later, but I HAD TO HEAR it now!!
Needless to say, I never went back and fixed it and when a new person plays the guitar, they comment on how good it sounds, but they always rub their finger on the uneven finish around the port.
If I had judged my work with the same scrutiny I would judge a guitar in a store that i was considering buying, I would not have allowed that bit of finish work to slip by my QC department (me).
If I were looking at that guitar in a store, I would never buy it because of the lousy, bumpy finish in that one spot. It happens to be a spot that stares in your face while you play too.
On my second guitar, which was a gift for my brother, I made sure everything was perfect before it left my house because I knew I would not have another opportunity to fix it once it was delivered. Anyone who saw it would not be impressed by it if it looked like garbage but sounded like a choir of angels. They might appreciate the sound, but image is everything.
So my advice is not to judge your work with the attitude that it is your first guitar and you are bound to make mistakes. Judge it like you would judge a new Martin or Taylor, or any other instrument you would pay big bucks for.
You do not want someone to look at your guitar and say, "Oh, I can see you made it this" rather they should say, "You really made this?
I took my second guitar to a local, respected music store and the store manager and owner both accused me of having removed the label from a Martin and doing a couple of modifications, i.e. adding a side port and a new headstock veneer. Best compliment I ever got.
Now, I aim for that level of perfection with all of my guitars because now I am building them for other people, not just myself. Have I achieved perfection? Heck no!! But you have to look pretty hard to find the flaws.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Thanks guys, you're making my day ( good again ).

Special thanks for them who admit they make mistakes too , it takes some courage.
I will put more effort in the gluing and sharpening

When my first project ( koa/spruce build ) is nearly ready I shall post some pictures with the good results
and some pictures with the faulty things and if you find some time I really appreciated you're comment's on
how to do things better. ( If interested follow my building on : http://www.luthierforum.com/index.php?/ ... -00-build/)

One more question : how to color a cedar neck like a mahogany one ?

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Don't worry be happy.

Remember-It's not the tool that matters,it's the NUT behind the handle!

Craftsmanship is about attitude . Good enough isn't good enough. Yes there are times when things have to be done a way that may be less than perfect and knowing how to make it look perfect. I can tell you that there is more than one way to do any one thing . Learn as much as you can from others , even if it is not to do it that way .
Hand skills are not always easy to learn. Good tool and technique . You will be amazed at how simply one can do something well and complicated one can do something wrong . Simplicity and economy of technique are important things to learn. Most things go wrong because things get over complicated or you do more than you have to.
Sharp isn't an option , it is a necessity .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it