Oopsies

I haven't posted in a while and as of late I feel a bit discouraged from the progress I've made so far. I've take a few pictures of the mistakes I've made. Titebond glue proves to be a tougher adhesive than I had imagined and sets pretty fast. So is Jen right after all? Is my future as a guitar maker over? Will I be limited to just an Ikea furniture put-together-er??


Here's the first mistake. What you see is a pretty noticable gap between the sides held together by the end block. This was the very first step in putting this guitar together and it definitely shows a noobie mistake.




Here's the 2nd mistake. This is a picture of the kerfing bordering the back end of the sides. Kerfings are suppose to provide a platform enlarging the area of contact between the top and back to the sides. They're suppose to extend about 1/32 inch above the sides on either end and then file them down to the right size but as you can see in this pic, they're uneven.... another clamping fault.


Here's the last mistake I'll show for now. Its another picture of the kerfings but from another perspective. In an attempt to follow the curves of the sides of this guitar, I was unable to flatten it flush to the sides. So after the guitar is all done, you'll be able to look through the sound hole and see this ugly, ugly sight. I blame this contorted disfiguration on ineffective clothes pins and my fat fingers!



Above is a picture of what good kerfings should look like, of course without leftover glue residue on the right. All in all, I'm looking over these pictures now and it doesn't seem all that bad but believe me, they look much worse in real life. But I have to finish. Can't let a girl's banter get the best of me. Gotta find the will to get past to the next step...

Oh, by the way, does anyone want this guitar?

Motivational Factor

This post is commemorated to those who don't think I'm up to the task of putting this geetar together. Specifically, I have one person in mind but because I don't like drawing negative attention to just one person, I'll leave Jen Chua's name anonymous. The first time I mentioned that I was putting one together, her response was like, "Did you say, a guitar?" Okay, I'm not sure if those are the exact words she chose but I think its close enough. What I'm trying to get at is that even though her words may seem innocent, combined with the face expression and tone of voice, its easy to conclude that she meant more than what was said. It was more like, "You've definitely gone off the far edge this time. I mean, don't you have more interesting things to do with your time? And besides, I doubt that you can put an Ikea cabinet together no less a guitar." Hmmm, I may have dragged that out a bit but you get my drift, right? So, under my title, "The Jonas Project" is a space reserved for Jen's unspoken comment. I just have to think of one.... so for those reading this post, offer me some suggestions.

I leave you with a few pictures of the progress I've made so far.




Copying the cardboard cutout that came with the kit onto a piece of plywood to make a mold. Btw, this was not a recommended step by stewmac.







I initially cut the mold with a jig saw and retouched it using chisels, rasps and sandpaper. This was a grueling process that took at least 6 odd hours and I don't know if I'd do it again.




Finally, one of two mold pieces finished. But this was just the beginning.

Here, the two sides have been glued in place using some of the clamps I have. The end block is already in place and I'm just waiting for the neck block to set.

Just an intro...

Earlier this year, I got this itch to buy another guitar but somehow I couldn't justify spending $1200 or more for a quality piece soooo... one day I got this brilliant idea of building one. Now, a few months later, here I am building a guitar from a kit provided by Stewart MacDonald (http://www.stewmac.com/). This blog site is pretty much a way for me to document the steps in building this guitar. So check back every now and then or leave me a reply on how crappy of a job I'm doing (I think I enabled the function where you don't have to be a member of this blogspot to leave a reply).

Here's a picture of the kit I received from Stewmac. For those of you interested in the details of this kit, I ordered a 000 size guitar like those produced by Martin or for Taylor fans, the x12 series (I think...). The wood is pretty decent: AA sitka spruce top, east indian rosewood back and sides with a mahagony neck (12 frets). Don't know if you can see it in the picture but the tuner head of the neck is slotted which I'm pretty excited about. I also got vintage-type Grover gold tuners which I think will match the guitar well. The kit overall is well put together. It includes an instructional DVD hosted by this really boring, monotone dude but he seems like he knows what he's doing and let me tell you now, he makes it look really easy. Everything came well packaged and packed and got to my house safely. I would definitely buy from Stewmac again. In the far back of this picture is the mold I made for the guitar. I'll post again later with a close up.