Official Luthiers Forum!

How long were you into the craft of guitarmaking before you felt all the elements of building them, including method and design started "coming together"- is there ever a day where you stand back, look at one of your completed guitars and think you've made a breakthrough?

What are/were those elements you are (or were) striving towards- excluding the earlier efforts of fit and finish?

I am asking this, because at the early stage I am at with the third guitar, there is constant study (which I enjoy doing) to see how professional luthiers have met certain challenges and copying the designs with due credit-- I am still striving for getting those basic elements right!

I look forward to your replies.

Sam my friend I built about 7 guitars before it felt like old hat to me in terms of the construction aspects but that was only part of what I needed to learn - a very small part.........

I wanted a signature "tone" for my guitars and I was not going to find that unless I developed some designs for the things that are important to tone. For me this meant that my bracing needed to change from traditional bracing to some degree and I needed to learn to "voice" a guitar for the tone that I wanted.

By the 8th guitar I was trying new-for-me bracing ideas like parabolic bracing, thinner tops, larger bridge plates, and a bridge design of my own with several prototypes. Although my 8th guitar is IMHO my worst sounding guitar the 9th got better in large part due to an honest evaluation of the 8th..... and shortly I found my way with the new set of design elements that I employed.

People tell me that my last 5-6 guitars all sound like the same builder made them - I am not sure if this is a compliment or not........

But it is a sound/tone that I like, better than my early guitars, and some other things came together too for me.

I would recommend using the earlier builds to help you find your own way in terms of the kind of tone that you seek to produce. I would also recommend trying to limit the variables on each guitar so as to assist you in knowing exactly what changes that you made are having an impact on what you are hearing and feeling. Remember too that a guitar has a "feel" as well and I am not speaking of the ergonomics or playability - I am speaking of what the player feels in terms of vibrations on their body when they play your guitars. This is one of the reason that I personally am a fan of light weight guitars.

Lastly if I could do it all over again I would limit the woods that I used to the core woods of guitar building i.e. mahogany, rosewoods, spruce and WRC. I say this only as a way to again limit the variables in your building so as to assist you in knowing how your changes are impacting your success.

And really lastly and perhaps controversial here...... try to avoid building your dream guitar that may employ things like sound ports, cut-aways, etc. for a while. Learn to build a great sounding great playing simple guitar first before introducing complexity in the build process and things that could skew your evaluation of what results. Get the basics down.

Sam, I'm working on my sixth guitar so I'm still developing fundamental skill and knowledge, no real breakthroughs. For me, the element or elements I'm trying to acheive are simple to describe but I think difficult to arrive at--a classical with nice tone and volume, well built, and respected among players.

For me no mater how long I have built, how well defined my parameters each guitar is a single and independent rung in a ladder. Even if a guitar turns out to be less than my anticipation that rung takes me one step further up the ladder. This craft, because it has so many variables that are outside the control of me or my tools is a constant lesson in humility. But then again there are times when I realize I have reached a new plateau. The exaggeration that comes with that awakening is wonderful but often short lived because there is always a new challenge to achieve or problem to deal with.

Personally I hope I never reach a point where I feel it has all totally come together. For then there would be no emotional drive pulling me in to the shop each afternoon.

The first guitar I built was an "OK" guitar. The next few were disasters. By the time I reached #9, I had decided to make some changes and strangely enough those changes were similar to what Hesh changed in his guitars. #10 was a LOT better sounding and playing guitar. I made 5 of these at the pattern I had been making and then made another change by lightening the bracing and changing to an "X" braced back. WOW what a difference! That was #16. One more change to the bridge plate material and I finally found the sound I was looking for. I am building guitars that have a pretty consistant sound now and one that I like also.

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Reguards,

Ken H

bout 50 or so...

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

What a great question, Sam. Thanks for thinking of it.

I'm very comfortable with different parts of the process, less so with others. I'm not ready to sell guitars yet, but I'm ready to build them for friends. I'm sticking with the core woods like Hesh mentioned. Indian Rosewood and Mahogany for now, although I do have a set of koa and an extra-special set of tiger myrtle that I'm saving for my dream guitar (along with a handful of Italian tops Mattia sent me from Italy). I redesign that guitar about once a month

Sam...I'm actually trying to avoid becoming comfortable with the building process. I feel it's the only way I will avoid boredom and improve my skills. After 8 acoustics and almost 4 electrics, I personally look to continually challenge myself. I have found that the search for tone and tailoring it to my mood now takes a second priority to fit, finish and playability. After the 4th guitar, I finally began to understand how I could affect tone and how I could voice a top. This clicked all of a sudden upon watching the John Mayes DVDs on voicing and learning how to listen and react. That doesn't mean that I have finally settled on a voice because each model seems to sing based upon its own personality. And I will forever be tweaking things. While I would not characterize that as "everything coming together" I do believe that it was the beginning of a level of confidence that was sort of an epiphany.

So I now actually look forward to working on different assembly methods, more artistic appointments as well as cutaways, soundports and possibly even double sides. The work I'm doing with carved top electrics will eventually lead me to building an archtop and possibly even other stringed instruments. Those challenges will certainly help to keep me out of a comfort zone and satisfy my need to push the limits. I guess I really have no destination in mind and just enjoy the journey for now.

Good question...thanks for the inspiration to be a little more introspective!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

You're welcome, JJ!!

Thank you everyone, for such thoughtful and quality responses. I have enjoyed reading your posts.

Geezz I did not see where my spell checker changed exhilaration to exaggeration

Actually the finishing part is still the most challenging for me. But it all depends on expectations, how "perfect" one wants the finish to be. And also the medium, I use oil varnish and it can be crazy-making (if one strives for a "factory-perfect" finish anyway…).
I think the quest in endless. Almost every instrument presents a new set of challenges, while more rarely, some seem to literally build themselves IME.
I try to implement one change at a time, sometimes two, but I want to be able to see/hear whatever those changes affect (or not…). There is little to learn by making too many changes at once, and it is disorienting.
I think it's important to keep repairing/restoring instruments (or start) as it is the best way to learn new tricks by being faced with situations that do not arise while building from scratch (but will appear down the road).
To answer the question more directly, perhaps after a dozen builds one becomes sufficiently familiar with the process and the quirks. Also by this time I think one had a chance to keep the techniques what work, and discard those that don't (and it's different with every builder).
On the other hand I worked for a little over a year in a production shop (that puts out about 8 guitars/week), and it was an invaluable learning experience. While I am absolutely not production-oriented (quite the opposite in fact), I had the opportunity to touch/see/hear a lot of wood, probably saw most of the problems that may occur (and how they were fixed), definitely learned new techniques, and benefited from advice/discussions with far more experienced people than me. That was a great leap in my learning curve.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I'm not sure I have, yet. I feel like I've got a fairly good handle on electrics; I've got the construction, feel and sound aspects figured out, and the designs are almost exactly where I want them - for now. I think/feel I've got the aesthetics under control, ie the solidbodies and the acoustics look like they were designed by the same person. Nothing groundbreakingly original or wacky there, just me trying to nail the 'modern classic' look that appeals to me. In terms of overall design and trim, I'm trying quite a few different types of things, with a number of very ornate projects (which I try to keep tasteful, and not too OTT) and a few very slimmed down, organic design. I'm still fine-tuning most (but not all) of my designs, though; just last weekend I refined/slightly redesigned four of my electric solidbody models (one doublecut, three singlecut models, another doublecut variant is halfway through tweaking) in preparation for making some definitive templates with the scrap phenolic I picked up at the local building site. It's not that I dislike the versions I've done, but there's room for improvement, and only time and building instruments lets me identify the parts of my designs that I want to modify. I've only recently finalized/tweaked my headstock into something I like, and I'm still fiddling with logo refinements/improvements. As for incorporating other design elements (sound ports, wedged bodies, adjustable bolt on necks, maybe an arm rest in future), I think it's too early to say for sure whether they 'gel' properly. But I haven't build that many guitars yet, certainly not acoustics.

As the saying goes in Jazz (playing) circles; the first 20 years are the hardest...
-C

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