How handbuilt is handbuilt?

So, I have a bit of a dilemna.

I need to figure out exactly how far I want to take this project. See, in addition to advice and some confidence, Bill also gave me a copy to the Stewart-MacDonald catalog. If you don't know already, Stew-Mac is one of the major suppliers for luthiers and instrument repair.

I have had a long-standing fascination with catalogs since I was little. We used to get the Sears catalog in the mail, and I remember carefully reading over every description in the thing and circling all the stuff I liked. Most of it was toys, of course, but I still read all the descriptions for the power tools and small appliances. It is a habit that I apparently have carried with me all these years, because I've spent an inordinate amount of time with the Stewart-MacDonald literature.

Anyway. I find myself wonder exactly how much time I want to put into this instrument. There are many, many pieces to learn. The more I tackle now, of course, the better off I'll be... but the depth of work involved looks overwhelming.

I could buy ready made pickups, nuts, necks, bodies... or I could learn to wind my own pickups, shape and slot my own nut (and I've already decided to build my own body and neck, obviously). The trade off is, of course, that each step I decide to take on by hand puts the completion date further and further back... nevermind the possibility of doing something incorrectly and ending up with a less-than-ideal instrument.

Ultimately, I think it's worth it - I'll never know everything about a guitar or whether it's worthwhile to do everything by hand until I do it myself. I also have to consider business at some point. If I ever manage to establish a business building and repairing instruments, I imagine that repair work is going to be a much more frequent occurrence than someone commissioning a new guitar.

Additionally, I'll end up with a stable of tools to use for later projects. So, I think (as of right now, anyway) that I'll make as much of the guitar by hand as possible.

Meeting the Mentor.

So, first things first.

I have one follower. Hi Mom (EDIT: Make mine a double. Hi to you too, Lindsay).

I also asked a question in the last post and got exactly one less response than I have followers. To express that as an equation: Number of Answers = Number of Followers - 1.

For those of you who are even worse at math than I am, that equals... zero.

So I have an idea that I'm basically just speaking to myself on this thing. Whatever. I will march bravely onward, telling the walls on my room and them Internets how the guitar build is going.

I've made a couple of trips out to Clayton since the last post. The body of El Kabong is now roughly shaped... meaning, if I stop this project RIGHT NOW, I would have a Stratocaster-shaped cutting board:

None of the cavities have been routed yet, nor has the neck pocket been started. I basically got as far as Keith's help alone could go before we wandered into completely unknown territory. We got right up to the border and then...

I called Bill Allen. Bill is the mentor I referenced a couple of posts ago. He invited me out to his home in Smithfield, so I jumped in the car... and drove to the grocery store.

Then I drove home to unload the groceries, then drove out to Smithfield.

Bill is an extremely nice guy, first and foremost. Secondly, he has built about seven guitars and repaired many others. Third, he plays bass as his primary instrument, which earns him bonus points in my book.

Bill had a look at the work we'd done so far and informed me that it was off to a really good start (whew). We looked at the plans, he gave me a tour of his instruments, then a little advice on next steps.

So, basically... I have to finish shaping the body first. Maybe you can't tell from the above pictures, but that body is monstrously thick for a guitar. It currently sits just a hair under two inches thick, which is almost half an inch too much. So, that needs to be trimmed, and then I'll look at carving the contours into the back and sides to make the thing, you know... comfortable to play.

This also includes routing the cavities for the electronics - all those weird shapes you saw in the templates where the pickups and wires go. I've decided to wait on that until I actually have the hardware in hand - most Strats have their pickups mounted to the pickguard, and I want mine mounted to the wood itself. So, I'll have to adjust the plan slightly.

Now, another topic...

FAIL.

Well, not completely. I made my way back out to Clayton today for more work on "El Kabong" (working title). Two steps forward, one step back.

I finally located and paid a visit to a hardwood seller in Raleigh. Let me say first that Capitol City Lumber is exactly the kind of lumber yard I had hoped to find. They carry large quantities of any hardwood I could ask for: Bubinga, Cocobolo, Mahogany, Wenge, Pao Ferro (actually, not Pao Ferro. Nevermind.), Maple, Swamp Ash... seriously, the list goes on. Even better, they'll happily cut you a single board length as long as they have at least six feet of board left over.

Buying lumber this way is a little odd. It involves math and being finicky (which sounds exactly like the normal way of buying things, now that I think about it). Here's a breakdown:

Step Uno: Walk in, look around in a confused manner (as if to say, "Where is all the wood?") until somebody notices I look lost. Get directed to front counter (actually in the back of the store).

Step Dos: Talk to man at front counter. Get a price sheet. Ask where the wood is. Get directions (Go to the hardwood building).

Step Tres: Walk out of the building and try to find the hardwood barn. Stop in first building because, you know... there are piles of wood in there. Oops. That's all pine and moldings. Locate hardwood building (denoted by a large sign that says "HARDWOODS.").

Step four is the interesting one. I had to ask for an explanation on the price sheet, because there are about five different prices for each type of wood. It goes like this: Each wood is offered in several thicknesses. For some reason, they are all described in "quarters," so if you wanted, say... a 1.5 inch thick board, you ask for six quarters. Additionally, the price is higher for wider boards. Then you tell them how long the piece you need is. The guy does some math to figure out how many "Board Feet" you're getting (the formula is LxWxH/144 or 12, depending on how much wood you're buying), hands you a ticket, and you go pay for it while he cuts it up.

Whew.

Long story short, I left with a 30-inch long piece of nice maple (about 1.5 board feet, I think) for my neck, for about ten dollars.

Then I made my way out to Clayton. Keith and I decided to go ahead and get some prep work done for the guitar body and finish up the template I started last week.

First problem: For the body blank, I need a piece of wood about 2 inches thick, 19 inches long, and 13 inches wide. Keith didn't have a single board that was wide enough, so we decided to glue it up.

So, here's where worrying starts. Wood glue is actually stronger than the wood itself when applied correctly, so I'm not concerned about the body falling apart. I am curious, however, to see how having a glue joint in the middle of the body will affect the overall tone.

Anyway. Joining wood is a common task, so I was glad to get the practice. On to the neck pattern.

I have never been so upset over an eighth of an inch. Last week, Keith cut out the body patterns. This week, I wanted to have a go at the bandsaw. I knew that I wasn't going to cut it (pun intended) on the first go-round, so I practiced. I took plywood, drew random lines on it, then tried to follow those lines with the blade. I got pretty good at it after about 30 minutes of practice, so I decided to go ahead and tackle the template.

Monkeys could have done better straight lines. I was back and forth across the lines inside of three seconds of cutting. I decided to go ahead and finish cutting it out just for practice, then took it to the sanders (more for fun than anything else, since I had already screwed up).

I sanded it down on the sides (no big deal), then went to the float sander to finish the top... and ended up de-plying the plywood. Basically, I sanded so unevenly that I removed several patches of the top layer of wood. I still brought it home so I could compare it to the body patterns.

So, I really need to practice on the bandsaw. At least I only screwed up a piece of plywood... but I really have to slow down and focus of the details. I think that's going to be the case throughout this project.

Now then. Since I know some of you are reading this, I have a question for you:

If you were to design a guitar, what kinds of specs would you ask for? Materials, pickups, neck profile/radius, body design? I'm just curious.