I've been working on a 000 kit I bought from Steve Kovacik last November. It has been my first guitar. And as I'm nearing completion of it (I'll drop it off to be finished by Joe White on June 14!), I'm thinking back on the many mistakes I made working on this one. I've learned a lot. I've felt pretty stupid pretty often. Anyway, maybe some of this may be of interest for those that have yet to get knee deep into a kit for the first time.
I trimmed the bottom of the neck block, when I should have left it way proud and then sanded at an angle to accomodate the angle of the back. I wound up using a shim under the block.
my external body mold made a small crack in the top, near the tail block when I glued the back on. I had a piece of wood glued to the mold that kept the mold even, when it was sitting on my work bench. and the overhang of the top touched that piece of wood. the pressure from the rubber bands on the back pushed the top into the piece of wood, which I didn't see right away, as it was upside-down. to make matters worse, I super glued the crack and sanded it with a sponge-sander rather than a block with sandpaper on it, making a divot in the top near the end block. I may still glue a spruce cleat under that divot, for insurance.
another thing that happened when I glued the back on the first time, was that my neck block was resting on my back's internal center strip. if the neck block had been tall enough, I would've noticed that before it was too late.
my bridge plate doesn't butt up right against one of my cross braces. I read about how it should do that after I had closed up the box.
I used a two year old bottle of titebond to glue on the back braces, before I read that it should be fresh. so I went out and bought a new bottle to use to glue the braces on the top and for the rest of the build.
The cantilever on my neck block sat on top of my popsicle brace when I put the top on. so I had to chisel out a space in the popsicle brace so that the neck block wouldn't rest on top of the brace.
I didn't plan out the peghead holes for the tuners well enough, and chose to re-do them using birch dowels. (my kit didn't come with a peghead template.) I found a template here at OLF, after the damage had already been done.
I didn't get a good fit the first time I glued the back on, and re-did it by first removing the back with an iron and a pocketknife.
I sanded the guitar throughout the process, making surfaces look clean, but I probably could/should have done this all at the end.
I glued the back binding on with epoxy, which was messy. masking tape doesn't hold down very well over top of epoxy.
The maple binding on the back is getting pretty thin. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the finish sanding doesn't wipe some of it out altogether.
when I installed my herringbone purfling, I joined the two pieces near the end block off center! I was able to cut it, and rejoin it, making it look like it was centered, but if you look closely, you can see the cut.
my soundhole is just a tiny bit not in the center of the top. (between 1/16" and 1/32").
my back strip doesn't exactly line up with the point on my neck's end cap.
I think those are the major mistakes, unless my unconscious has selectively forgotten another. in addition to the mistakes, I also redid several things, in order to get them better. this being my first time, I had to do this, in order to "practice," to get a good result. but it often felt at the time that I was just having a hard time because I am an idiot!
I made four tail wedges, installed them all, and removed three of them, before I got a result that I liked.
I wrecked the nut that came with my kit, and am currently working on the second one, although I won't finish that one until I set up the guitar. so we'll see how that goes.
I removed the back 2 times, and re-glued it on. after that, I partially removed part of the back (near the lower bout) and re-glued that portion of it.
It took me two tries before I got the dovetail right. (about 30 hours went into that alone). the second time, I relied on a combination chisel-chalk and angled-sandpaper-wedge technique. the first time I let the neck get too far down into the mortise without realizing that my fit wasn't very good at all.
I was unhappy with the way my braces fit into the notches in my kerfed lining. so I removed all of the sections that had notches, glued new ones in, and re-cut the notches.
There are some good elements to it also, so I'll be really excited to string it up.
I did a pretty good job on the fretwork. I've done that before.
Mark Swanson says that it has a pretty good tone to it. i spent a lot of time on the bracing and located pictures of bracing on guitars that I liked, and tried to make mine look like them. then, I solicited professional opinions and made alterations based on those.
the neck's center line points right at the center line on the top, near the bridge. my lower bout is exactly 15" and the center line at that point on the top is exactly 7.5" away from each side.
my saddle and my second nut look really nice so far. the neck angle is even on both sides of the neck and is just about perfect.
my binding is really clean.
the peghead inlay looks kinda cool. and probably the best thing it's got going for it, is it's going to be finished by Joe. I'll learn about finish for my next one!
I used to set up guitars for a job, so I felt that if I got the box to be tight, I was home-free after that. little did I know, there was so much more to it, than that.
hopefully with a mixture of both good and bad, it'll be a nice guitar, but yet have that whole necessary life yin yang duality thing going on, as well.
... 
moments but there have mostly been 
, 
, ![[headinwall]](./images/smilies/headbangwalluf8.gif "Mad")
moments. It's reassuring to know that it is all part of the learning process!
)