My Neck Thru Guitar Build: My Pretty Neck

My Neck Thru Guitar Build: My Pretty Neck: "So, today I glued my neck..No, not the one hooked to my body. I glued five pieces of wood together for my guitar neck, I think it is going ..."

My Pretty Neck

So, today I glued my neck..No, not the one hooked to my body. I glued five pieces of wood together for my guitar neck, I think it is going to look awesome. I used a combination of three different woods, I think they look great together.

I thought it sounded like a really good idea to use a four inch foam roller brush to apply the glue, however, I think that squirting the glue on and spreading it with a popscicle stick would have been just as good, if not better. Oh well, I had the foam roller already so it was no loss.

After gluing up the boards I decided to make a homemade fretboard sander, i made a ten inch radius sanding board, was a very easy project and very accurate.

I'm very eager to take the clamps off tomorrow and clean off the glue and true up the boards. Then if I understand correctly, I need to start on my fretboard..woohoo, fun fun fun.

When Is More, Less?

I was thinking today, "How do you know where to stop with pretties?".
For instance, i have noticed that a lot of guitars have one or two f-holes. An f-hole is a hole through a musical instrument to let sound out. It is not required on a solid body electric guitar because the sound comes from the pick-ups. However, I think they look kinda cool. How do you know what looks best? One f-hole, two f-holes? When is something added a good thing, and at what point does it become a bad thing? I don't think that 3 , or 7 f-holes would look good. Is that just 'cause I have never seen it?

Michelangelo's Statue of David is nude, but Leonardo's Mona Lisa is clothed, would they be as good of art if she were naked and David were clothed? Are they famous simply because of the artist? my mind is cluttered..

more on pretties later

Decisions 05/25/2011

I find it hard to imagine that I want to make a guitar. I mean I don't play a guitar and am not even sure that I will want to learn when I am done. Three of my kids play but that doesn't help me. However, I have made a violin, I don't play that either. For me, I guess the main thing is the art of it. I know it will look great but it would be nice if it sounds good too. Not knowing how to play kind of limits me. So I have been studying online for bits and pieces of knowledge, hoping that some will rub off on me.

I now know a lot of terms, Humbucker, hardtail bridge, nuts, frets and on and on and on. So many decisions to make about wood and finish and hardware.

Thankfully, today I was able to talk to a tech at a guitar store. He and I talked about a lot of things. What I gathered most from our talk was this, it really probably does not matter a whole lot in the long run, because I am not doing this for a specific purpose. I am not going to play in a band, make recordings, or even play in a coffee shop, I am just doing it for fun and will have a nice playable guitar regardless of my choices.

I do have my plans, a neckthru design, I also picked the wood I am going to use.. please join me on my journey.

loren