BUILDING MISTAKES

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Permalink Reply by BT Cohosh on February 4, 2009 at 11:49am

Hey!

Nice to hear there are mere-mortal screwups out there besides me....

I made a couple of matched 3 stringers for my little boys (ages 5 and 3) for Christmas with little Romeo & Julietta boxes I didn't think I'd use otherwise (I figured they were too small and that the tops were too heavy). Lo and behold, when I got theirs done I discovered they produced plenty of sound, a nice, nasally twang, and sustained like crazy.

Frankly, I was jealous.

So, after Christmas I set out to build myself one *just like theirs*, except that I spent a little more time getting the finishing stuff right. But I used the same materials, same dimensions, everything--with one exception: I put bigger corner reinforcers inside the box--I was planning to use them to anchor strap buttons.

Anyway, after laboring over the headstock and sweating about 800 coats of water-based varnish on, I finally got the whole thing assembled and strung. I went to play those first few notes and heard ... next to nothing. Puny little pipsqueak sound.

I couldn't figure it out. The only thing I had done differently was those stupid reinforcers inside, and I figured they couldn't make *that* much difference....

I finally disassembled the thing, and went to pry the reinforcers out ... and cracked the box at both corners. I did, however, get the offending pieces out, glued the box back up, and waited. Again.

Reassembled, strung, again played. Voila. Much more sound, though now with an "aged" look to the paper around the edges of the box.

I never would have imagined that such a small loss of internal volume could affect the sound so profoundly.

Moral of the story: when something works, don't screw around with it.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Krepak- Sole Food Diddley Works on February 4, 2009 at 9:04pm

When I made the "Electric Cheese Cutter" CBG for a friend's birthday, I made a fretted neck to 25 1/2" scales.
THEN, when I carved the box out for the neck, I discovered that the round "Oliva" box was too short for me to achieve the 25 1/2" for the nut to the bridge saddle.
What to do?
I took my Baby Taylor, and copied the scale and fretted up ANOTHER neck and got them just dressed enough to play on before his surprise party his wife threw. He was floored by it.
I still have the other neck, and might use it soon.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Krepak- Sole Food Diddley Works on February 4, 2009 at 9:10pm

One day last summer, I found a "Cuband Rounds" box that was very large. It was asking to be an electric CBG. I had built only three before this, and decided to make it a four string instead of the one or two string variety I had made before.
I had a super-simple sound guy gig at a friend's bar that night for his acoustic gig. So... I figured I might as well bring the box and the clamps and build it RIGHT IN THE BAR.
I did.
ONE PROBLEM.
1x2 Poplar does NOT like having four strings tuned to pitch on it! The headstock bowed within 30 minutes of tuning her up. However, I proved that I could run sound and build a CBG at the same time!

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Permalink Reply by steve vargo on February 4, 2009 at 10:38pm

awesome stories fellers! those romeo and julietta boxes are cool! good to know others are out there messing up! i screwed up a nice hickory neck i was going to rough out the other day when i pretty near cut it in half on the table saw... i was cutting the bottom part ofthe headstock angle and forgot about the table saw blade being ROUND. so i cut it to my mark on top of the blank, flipped it over and saw how i'd nearly cut it in half! stupid.

so, use a bandsaw always when you're cutting out necks! duh.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Krepak- Sole Food Diddley Works on February 5, 2009 at 10:11am

On the second Bass I made, we found out the hard way that purpleheart requires a bit of patience while drilling... the seven piece headstock SPLIT when my friend was drilling for the tuners. Apparently, he used a dull bit and DID NOT use an end-mill... It was a neck-thru and we were able to repair the damage.
Due to the lack of bench space in my shop, I have built in a set of guitar hangers in the rafters of the shop. That allows me to hang about a dozen guitars around the place. ONE PROBLEM: If you are taller than 5'-10", your head can knock one off. Don't ask...

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Permalink Reply by James Jensen on February 5, 2009 at 3:30pm

I have had a couple of machine tuners that the pilot hole I drilled wasn't deep enough, so when I screwing in the screw the head broke off. Needless to say I was in a panic. The first time it happened I was able to get a pair of pliers on it and back it out. The second time it happened I had to drill out what was left in the headstock and I was left with a hole too big for a screw to set in. I thought about it for awhile and decided to glue a round toothpick in the hole, let the glue set and cut it off flush with a saw and Viola! problem solved.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin on February 5, 2009 at 6:58pm

Love this thread. So far I have

glued a neck on backwards,
scarf jointed the neck in the wrong direction
drilled holes on the wrong side of the headstock so all my tuners were backwards
cracked the top of a cohiba box
forgot to set the depth on my drill press when doing fretboard inlays
drilled a pilot hole for one of the tuner screws straight through the neck

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Permalink Reply by BT Cohosh on February 5, 2009 at 9:09pm

Ha! Funny, I did that table saw thing, too, though luckily with a piece of plain poplar.

My dad builds wooden boats, and he says that every builder should have a "moaning chair" in his/her shop, conveniently placed to catch you when you tumble backwards having realized how badly you've screwed something important up.

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Permalink Reply by steve vargo on February 8, 2009 at 1:22am

aw, man.... tablesaws work much better on fingers!

tinyguitars said:

Good thread, thanks for starting this Steve!
Personally, I have never made a mistake, heheheheheheeee!!
Occasionally I do "take a new direction" on a build however. ;)
Oh, I didn't mention obliterating 2 finger tips in the router table did I?
Was that a mistake or an accident? :)

God bless!

jay

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Permalink Reply by Mark Vickroid on February 8, 2009 at 5:04pm

BT: IT was more likely the corner reinforcement restricted the movement of the top reducing the volume than the loss of internal volume.

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Permalink Reply by BT Cohosh on February 9, 2009 at 1:43pm

Mark Vickroid said:

BT: IT was more likely the corner reinforcement restricted the movement of the top reducing the volume than the loss of internal volume.

Huh. That's actually good to know. I'm gonna be playing with this guitar until I get the volume where I want it. My kids' axes are *still* louder than mine (and that can't stand).

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Permalink Reply by C. B. Gitty (Ben) on February 9, 2009 at 3:22pm

I make so many mistakes, I've developed a philosophy around it.

See blog post.

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