7 Things I Learned From Building A Guitar
Originally posted to S&R blog.
Have you ever dreamed of owning a pristine instrument – one that costs well over your paycheck? Of course, you do, you’re a guitar player! I had the same dream. Unhappy with the status of my Epiphone Les Paul, I thought I could build a better guitar – but not a partscaster or a Warmoth piece-together guitar. No, this guitar was going to be built from scratch. It was a huge task but I learned a lot about the guitar from building one.
When I built my handcrafted axe, the internet is not what it is today. YouTube was about 5 years old and was not filled with the vast library of how to videos that fill its digital archives today. However, I did find two videos on how to build a guitar. One video was how to build an acoustic guitar which wouldn’t work and the other was an extremely cheesy 80s metal themed guitar building tutorial. After watching/studying the video multiple times, my dad and I set out to build a guitar. Here are the 7 things I learned from building my own guitar.
Appreciation For Craftsmanship
Guitars are beautiful tools. They are inspiring to look at and are begging to be played with their curves and colorful tops. Everything about them from the thickness of the body to the positions and depth of the cuts which give each guitar its unique look, style, and personality.
After spending many months working on my prized Gibson replica, the shape I printed out online to use as a template produced a much smaller and a bit off the center. Now I have been an avid woodworker for a while, but to shape a guitar body and carve a top from a blank piece of maple to create a beautiful flame topped instrument, was quite a different experience from what I accomplished during previous woodworking projects.
Lesson Learned: Appreciation for craftsmanship.
Sharpen Your Axe
The cool thing about these lessons I learned, do not only apply to guitar building or my guitar studies. I have found these lessons apply to the rest of my life as well. During the build, I was to measure from the nut to 24.75 inches down the neck of the body. This is the standard measurement scale length for Gibson Les Pauls. The neck was purchased from an online retailer so the length had to be perfect in order for the frets to produce the perfect pitch.
After I had measured out what appeared to be the 24.75 inches on a cheap tape measure I had laying around, I drilled the pilot holes for the bridge and continued my build. After finishing everything, I strung up the instrument and began to play. I quickly learned the intonation was off.
No worries I thought. Fixing the intonation is something I am comfortable doing. But to my surprise, I could not get the guitar properly intonated. This was due to the bridge not being far away enough from the nut so the frets would not produce the proper note. The bridge was so far off that the adjustable saddles could not bring the guitar into a playable position.
How could this be?! I measured twice and cut once – see #4. Long story short, the tape measure I used was incorrectly marked. I remeasured the distance from the nut to the bridge and I was off by half an inch! The guitar would never play in tune unless I redrill the bridge holes.
Lesson Learned: Sharpen the axe – make sure your tools are quality and in the best condition before working!
Close Enough Isn’t
Growing up, my dad would often say, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. During my build, I certainly learned that lesson. The main reason was partially due to the properties of compounding effects. When I was close enough to cut out the proper shape from the template I ended up with a guitar that was thinner and smaller than a Les Paul.
Now don’t get me wrong, the shape & thickness and weight that came out was a happy mistake. But not all encounters are successful.
Lesson learned if you think its close enough, it’s not.
Measure Twice, Cut Once
Like anything in life, doing things the easy way or cheap way will make itself known later on. I made this mistake early on in my building during the buying of lumber for the body stage. For a standard Les Paul, the body is made from two kinds of wood – a back and a top. The back is traditionally mahogany and the top is made from maple. Now for a one-off guitar, finding a piece of mahogany large enough for the shape is relatively easy to find. However, curly maple for the flame top is a bit more difficult to find in the correct thickness.
To achieve the flamed top effect, a piece of maple is ripped (woodworking term for cutting down the middle of the side) and folded open like a book. The piece of wood for the top needs to be twice as thick as the top, plus the thickness of the blade, and a bit more for sanding and mistakes.
During the build, I knew I needed a top 16mm thick so I doubled it for the flame effect. Though I forgot something critical – accounting for the thickness of the blade, and more for mistakes and sanding. This left me with a thinner top than what I originally set out to build.
The mahogany body was the correct thickness but I didn’t account for the amount of planing I had to do. The results ended in a very thin Les Paul.
Lesson earned: Measure twice, cut once.
Slow & Easy Wins the Race
Ah, the old tortoise vs. the hare story lesson. The old parable of a rabbit racing a turtle. The turtle wins due to the rabbit’s laziness and arrogance. And to show that slow and steady wins the race here is a real version of tortoise vs hare.
I learned this lesson while waiting for the glue to dry after I glued the maple top to the mahogany back. My dad and I were working on the guitar right before a big trip and I wanted to get done as much as possible before we left. Two days before the trip, we glued the top & back together. In order to “speed up” the process, I decided to use my sister’s hairdryer to dry the glue quicker. After the “drying” process, I decided my work for the day was complete and went to bed.
The next morning I discovered the two pieces were glued together but not well as the heat from the hairdryer created bubbles in the glue and in-between the two pieces. Because I learned not to cut corners I decided to rip the two boards apart, sand down the glue and try again – this time allowing the glue to dry naturally.
I was disappointed in my progress made before I left town, but when I returned the glue had dried perfectly creating a strong bond between the wood. This could have only been achieved by allowing the glue to dry naturally. A little time and patience paid off well.
Lesson Learned: Slow and steady wins the race.
A Little Dab’ll Do Ya
No, we are not going to be discussing Brylcreem today, but its slogan “A little dab’ll do ya” is certainly a lesson you can take away from building a guitar.
When it came time applying the finishing touches to the guitar, I was most excited about staining the body a midnight blue color. Though for a proper flame top, many steps of staining, sanding and restaining are required for the proper “pop.”
Learning from my previous lessons, I decided to practice staining junk pieces of wood we had laying around from cutting the body. I am so glad I decided to practice! I quickly found out the amount of stain needed to cover the entire guitar was minimal. It just goes to show you, a little can go a long way.
Lesson Learned: A little dab’ll do ya.
Quality Time is Worth More Than the End Goal
After the build, I had a gorgeous guitar that played well. My dad and I had the knowledge and skills to put pieces of wood together to look like a guitar; the electrical knowhow to wire pickups and pots to produce a sound; and the knowledge of applying stain to wood all to create a beautiful instrument.
Sure, this was our first time building an instrument and we lacked the knowledge fo the subtleties that make a guitar good and great. But I wouldn’t trade that guitar for any instrument out there.
Sure I could have used the 6 months it took to build to work a job and save up enough money to buy an equally great or better instrument, but I wouldn’t have had the quality of time with my dad. Not only were we building an instrument, but we were bonding by learning new skills, talking about life, cracking jokes and having fun together. You cant put a price on quality time with your dad.
Lesson Learned: Quality of time is worth so much more than the final product.
Until next time, let the music play!