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I've built 3 guitars, and am currently working on #4 and 5. And I recently had the privilege of spending some quality time with a world-class builder. He suggested that I focus on making great-sounding and playing guitars, and worry about bling and cosmetics later. He suggested that increased competence in those areas would follow as I built more.

Apart from the fact that this played into my natural inclinations, I was curious about what others thought.

Now, I understand, right off the bat, that "great sounding and playing" and "beautiful" are not mutually exclusive, but it does become a question of priorities. I can spend time working on a beautiful custom rosette, or unique inlays, but that's time that could be spent on the next guitar. Do I spend 20 hours working on inlay, or do I make a relatively plain guitar and move on to the next one?

Whatever the case, I thought it might be worthy of discussion.

And, as always, thanks in advance for the input and the insights.

Steve

That is great advice. To that end, the best thing I've ever done is to make a body and try several test tops on it. No need for rosettes or binding. There is plenty of very cheap top wood around that is structurally fine but cosmetically flawed. If you aren't worried about appearance, you can make a top very quickly. That can give you many guitars worth of experience in a short period of time. If you are careful in removing each top, you can eventually put a real top on it and finish it up.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

I agree with the builder. I've only built 10 guitars, but I've kept "bling" to a minimum
on all of them. I have tried one inlaid rosette, and two cutaways, just so that I understand
the differences in building techniques required. I'm going to try a beveled armrest next
build. I haven't tried any intricate inlays yet, because they take a huge amount of time
that I feel can go towards building other skills. I have also built in three different sizes, and I
am spending more and more time on each guitar on deflection measurements and
developing chladni patterns, because I think these are very helpful in producing excellent
sounding guitars, which is my main goal.

The other area I've spent a lot of time on recently is setting up a resaw capability with my
bandsaw and a traveling table I built. I thought this was worthwhile because I can get my
tonewood much cheaper this way. I have also spent a fair amount of time in the last year
building other jigs that will help me to be more efficient, and perhaps more importantly,
more consistent in the future.

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

When someone plays the guitar, they can't see the front. They can, however, feel the playability and hear the sound. The decorative stuff is what you do just for fun.


Oh and you can make a great looking guitar with minimal aesthetic touches. Less, at times, is more.

Well, it depends on what your priorities are For me, the inlay, sculpting of the bridge, and other decorative touches are a lot of the fun that keeps me inspired to work. So even if I'm not positive that my brace carving will sound great, or neck will play flawlessly, I still do some beauty work. But my recently completed second guitar is what Kent described... a minimal effort box, designed to peel the top off and try different woods and bracings. Unfortunately it sounds most excellent with the first top, so I've been playing it every day rather than tearing it open. It does have some fret buzz problems though, plus a short fingerboard for easier top removal so I can't play some stuff. As soon as I know I can make more boxes that sound similarly good, I'll get back to experimenting on it

But since most players seem to prefer less bling, I figure if I get it out of my system on the first ones that I'll mostly be keeping for myself and family/friends, it won't be such a torment to leave things plain in the future.

I think anything you do will be helpful and a learning experience. Most of my bling at first was to cover up "ooopsie" anyways. I definitely need to build a few more before I start to know what I'm doing. Some of what I was first really confused and careful about is now relatively routine already to my pleasant surprise. A facility with the medium comes with repetition.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

I totally agree. Fit and finish will come with time - use your woodworking skills to the best of your current abilities, and concentrate on wringing the most tone and playability you can out of a given set of wood and model. I still play the third guitar I built as my primary guitar. The fit and finish isn't bad, but nothing compared to what I build these days.

But the tone... It turns people's heads. I concentrated on tone from the beginning, and it has served me very, very well.

-Mark

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Pullman, WA

The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

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Sound and playability, spot on intonation, and solid woodwork are paramount, and can make a simple guitar better than a pretty guitar, and therefore more appealing to the experienced player, and more affordeable for someone looking to step up from their beginner guitar.

In my opinion, the decorations make the guitar prettier, and command a higher price due to the extra time put into the instrument and the higher skill level involved, but only can make the instrument more valuable once the fundamental guitar is as good as can be made, prior to decoration.

I say put the time into making the guitar great, and the prettiness factor will take care of itself in time.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Blaze away! As someone already said, you'll learn a lot from your first dozen or so almost no matter what. At least with bling you can see it, tell what made it good and what didn't. I'm not so sure why some of mine sound a lot better than others, but I know why they look better. There is a challenge in both and there always will be, I suspect, and the challenge is the main appeal.

That's what I'm doing for now, Steve.
Simple guitars for now.
I like the way they look too!
I'm also doing completely different (from each other)
rosettes and binding schemes,
and asking people what they like better.
They all have different opinions....
To me, it's more important the guitar sounds good,
and holds up.
An instrument is to be played, and heard,
more than to be looked at.
Unless one hangs it on the wall,
to look at.

You could do both, build a bunch of really solid guitars, then go back and decorate them.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I am with Todd on this one, its a ridiculous statement. They are inextricably linked to craftsmanship, and there can be a tremendous amount of detail in the simplest instruments.

If you just want to crank them out to see how they sound that's OK. If you have the time though you might as well use the opportunity to get some of your woodworking chops down also. The details, I don't call that bling, are fun to do. I think it's a good idea to challenge yourself a little on every build, if you have the time. Try something you haven't attempted. There's no shortage of cool stuff seen here you can try. Mitred purfs, back straps and the list goes on. If you have 20 free hours to spend on a rosette, do it. It won't be time wasted.

Have fun!
Danny

Gotta learn to walk before you can fly.
Why make a great sounding/playing guitar with crappily done binding and purfling schemes?
Start simple, plan each step and perfect it as you go, make each guitar just slightly more complex each time.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Seems like most people agree that it is good advice. It's the advice I gave myself when I built my first guitar about 20 years ago. I've built a few with pearl inlay and fancy looking stuff since then but the last guitar I built was very simple cherry guitar with simple no frills lacewood bindings, no lines or anything and quite frankly I like that simple look better than anything. So FWIW some people don't really like all the fancy stuff anyway. It's nice to choose good materials and pleasing wood combinations and let the natural beauty of the wood speak for itself in it's simplest form.

Well, that depends. If you are too anal about details, you just might end up redoing stuff over and over again and turn out to never finish your guitar, and sadely hating to entire experience. Cumpiano has a article somewhere on his web site (or used to, can't find it anymore...) about the mistake newbees can make on trying to 'reach perfection' on their first. Often, it is better to live with the small gaps on a binding joint, a slightly off centered fretboard marker, or whatever other slip of the chisel, move on to finish your guitar and try to do better on the next one. Improving the sound of the guitars you make can only be done by making more and more guitars.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I think Alain put it well. Everyone aspires to great, clean work. And some of us new folks simply aspire to not embarrassing ourselves

By way of example, I've french polished each of my first 3. #2 and 3 are appreciably better than #1, but still a long way from perfect. I could spend more time on them, but to what end? I've got other areas to work on as well, and those're probably best served by making more guitars.

But thanks for all the feedback. An interesting discussion.

Steve

BTW, re french polish, Joshia de Jonge (http://www.joshiadejonge.com/) does a 1-day class in french polishing at her place outside of Ottawa. I'm going in the fall, and if any area OLFers are interested in joining me, we could probably get a break on the price.

Steve,
Your predicament is too similar to mine.
My simple, nothing-special acoustic guitar is my best all around player (high on the action, but it keeps me from getting spoiled by xtra light strings on my electric).
The pretty one hangs on the wall and I wish I hadn`t spent so much time on it.
The ugly gal of the bunch (although electric Tele-style) is my favorite and I`ve recieved good informal reviews on the tone without bringing up the subject.
Guitars #4 and # 5, I decided to dress them up.
It`s taking a lot of time at the bench when I could be finishing up rather than thinking "Well, I can do this..." -But that`s not sticking with the plan, is it?
All I can say is, "Forward, March!"
It`ll all work out for ya!
Coe

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

Very insightful advice and in my mind, so true. The two facets mentioned are the more difficult in terms of understanding and accomplishing and therefore should be the focus. Once you’re happy with the sound production given any wood you choose to work with the bling and cosmetics will follow. Playability will be left to the player. They can range greatly in what they consider a playable guitar, a challenge to say the least.
As Eddy once said “If you look after the pennies the dollars will look after themselves. “

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Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

Like Michael, I agree too. Spot on advice. Pretty much what Michael Gurian said to a group of us a while back, and the advice has served me well, so far.

Long before that, I built my first banjo. The neck is covered with vine and torch inlays, all done by hand (no power tools). My woodworking skills were up to making the neck, but my instrument building skills were not, so it was unplayable. I soon built another neck, this one less ornate, but it made for a far better instrument. I spent so much sweat and blood (literally, from routing the ebony FB by hand) on the original neck, I still can't bear to part with it. It still sits in a closet in the basement, nearly 40 years on.

I like what Kent mentioned, about having a guitar to swap tops on. I did something similar, only on fretwork and setup. I took a 70s era Yamaki Deluxe that sounded and played terrible, about the worst example of early 70s imports you could imagine: big, bowed neck, high action, all plywood, top too thin, a ton of finish. I decided I would learn fretwork and setup on that guitar and do nothing else to it. Over the next month, I reshaped the neck, shaved the fretboard, refretted it, adjusted the truss rod, and did a proper setup. It wasn't until the third refret that I got the fretwork right. Looking back, I think it was the most valuable month I spent on learning to build guitars. Today that guitar plays just about as well as anything I've built since, though it still sounds terrible. I hope to never forget what I learned with that guitar.

Pat

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

When I started building a friend of mine got really interested in trying to build one. I was on my 5th or 6th guitar, something like that, so I could offer at least some elementary tips and let him borrow the odd luthier tool. He's an aero space engineer.... need I say more?

Perfectionist to a Tee! It took him well over a year to finish is guitar which looked actually amazingly nice but I knew it would need a neck reset sooner than it should. By the time he had finished his first guitar I already had a good 15 guitars built and had finally gotten to an acceptable standard.

Point being, my philosophy was just build them and keep building them. If I made a mistake I'd try to cover it and move on. Having no prior wood working experience I was realistic in thinking that by guitar number ten I'd probably be able to actually sell the things.

I still have 3 of my beginners guitars and they still sound nice and play well. My 4th guitar was a 12 string and needed a neck reset in about 15 years.