Have any of you built a bad guitar?

[koolimy]

Hi, this may be a strange question, but I was wondering if any of y'all built a bad guitar before? If you did, what happened with it? Did you keep it, or did it go into the trash?

I'm asking because I'm on the final stretch of my first kit build and the build quality and fit and finish leave a LOT to be desired. It seems that most people on this forum and others usually come out with a pretty great guitar even on their first try so I was wondering if there were other people like me who have made a pretty bad guitar on their first try LOL.

[BradHall]

I may be building one right now. Closed the box on an all mahogany OM and the nice musical tap tone has turned to a thud. I’ve already carved the neck, made the fingerboard and bridge and am ready to cut the binding channels. It’s a gift for a neighbor and I want him to have a nice sounding build. I’m thinking I’ll complete the build short of finish and string it up. If I don’t like it I’ll put a finish on it and donate it to G4V as a learner instrument and start a new one for my friend. I built an identical guitar with the same woods for my grandson earlier this year and it sounded good. Time will tell.

[koolimy]

Originally Posted by BradHall

I may be building one right now. Closed the box on an all mahogany OM and the nice musical tap tone has turned to a thud. I’ve already carved the neck, made the fingerboard and bridge and am ready to cut the binding channels. It’s a gift for a neighbor and I want him to have a nice sounding build. I’m thinking I’ll complete the build short of finish and string it up. If I don’t like it I’ll put a finish on it and donate it to G4V as a learner instrument and start a new one for my friend. I built an identical guitar with the same woods for my grandson earlier this year and it sounded good. Time will tell.

I heard that taptones are unreliable in terms of predicting the final sound, so I wouldn't lose hope yet! I'm sure it will turn out okay. I am not at a stage where I can think about sound but it seems like finding out how to make a "good sounding" guitar is a whole 'nother level of difficult, even compared to just making a well built guitar.

[H165]

Yep. An experimental 14 fret Brazilian rosewood about the size 000 but with a slightly slimmer silhouette. Made about 10 mistakes:

1. Bad wood selection
2. Neck too slim (thickness)
3. Waist caul too tight when gluing up the back
4. Neck too narrow at fret 14
5. Nut string spacing too small (think of your worst old Gibson acoustic)
6. Incorrect saddle compensation
7. Incorrect fixed relief
8. Compromised neck joint due to impatience (glue not cured)
9. Failure to match filler to wood
10. Wood distortion due to very light bracing combined with thin wood

but learned from all of them.

I eventually took it apart, sold the back and sides set, put the neck on a shelf (it is still there), and threw the top in the repair wood bin.

The neck could be used for a nice lead electric guitar, but I'll probably never get around to it.

[redir]

I've built two bad guitars out of about 70 now. One was a dumb experiment that taught me a very valuable lesson, that lesson was stick to traditional designs and tweak them and make them your own but don't go out on a limb. That guitar got retopped with a traditional X-Brace and is now a wonderful guitar.

The second one was an experiment in light building. It sounded absolutely amazing till about a year later and it just sounded thuddy and dead.

Early on, all the guitars I built to spec sounded good,sometimes even great. So sticking to a plan is a great idea.

[mirwa]

Sure have, happens all the time when you want to experiment.

Example 1 - I had never used paulownia as a top wood, was given access to some wood, which would have worked out to be 5 dollars a top, so experimented and experimented, was never happy with the sound, so dud guitar.

Good luthiers and good builders will always have flops in there opinion as they like to push boundaries and make better products, it is not always like baking a cake, add parts a to parts b and mix

Steve

[Denandannie]

I've never built a good guitar.

[Rudy4]

I started an electric when I was about 12 that was destined to find its way to the scrap bin. I had absolutely no concept of how to do it.

Later in life when I built my first acoustic I started by reading the only two books I could find on guitar construction. One of them was by David Russell Young and I'll always remember one piece of advice he gave, "Have the integrity to destroy any instrument that you make that has uncorrectable errors".

I've never had to do that, but it's firmly embedded in my psyche.

[runamuck]

Yes. I built a guitar so lightly braced that it has no harmonics, no overtones - just boring and metallic fundamentals. It's just terrible.

[viento]

I recently built an acoustic guitar with the first pinless bridge I've ever dared to make.
As I was a bit unsure whether the bridge would hold on to the red cedar top without lifting it up , I made the braces a little stronger and I glued a small triangular red cedar plate beneath as well.
Unfortunately the bass was not loud enough, especially the E-string. So I removed the back again and reduced the size and weight of the top braces. Now the sound is better than before.
In addition, the angle of the headstock turned out to be a tad too flat.I really do not know why I made the angle less than15 degrees .Therefore the strings ran too flat to the tuners. To improve that I changed the head to an open one with the strings now going deeper from the nut. No problem anymore.
One learns from mistakes over and over again in order to make the next guitar better. But even with mistakes building a guitar is fun .

[Bruce Sexauer]

Originally Posted by BradHall

I may be building one right now. Closed the box on an all mahogany OM and the nice musical tap tone has turned to a thud. . . . Time will tell.

My guitars are all relatively dead till the binding goes on.

They say there is a person for every guitar, and I have found that to be true.

[koolimy]

Wow, the responses are a lot more interesting and insightful than I would have imagined!

My mistakes are qualitatively different from your mistakes but if I list them they would be:

1. Not caring too much about alignment when gluing in the neck block. Made for a very interesting time when I had to set the center line of the neck. I needed a shim (a/k/a popsicle stick) to get the neck to swing enough to have an acceptably centered neck.

2. Not checking the trueness of my sanding surfaces and tools before using them.

3. Not having a clean workspace. I have a lot of dings and scratches that I accumulated on the guitar unnecessarily because I left my guitar around my tools and sandpaper.

4. Not having something to hold the guitar parts while I built it. One of my biggest mistakes was that I didn't have something to hold the guitar in place. This was a recipe for numerous slips of the chisel and was also one of the main reasons why I wasn't able to sand straight for a while.

5. Not using (and not knowing what is) the correct tool for the job. I cut my binding channels using a gramil meant for violin purfling. A problem with that gramil was that it has a pointed tip and no straight surface. This caused my binding channels to not have straight edges, which gave me huge problems as I cut the channels with a chisel. Compounded with the fact that I did not have something to hold the guitar, it contributed to the mess that are my binding channels.

6. Not measuring for some steps. It seems like in almost every step one should measure twice and then cut. I did not take any measurements for some steps, such as when I was cutting my binding channels. I just relied on a eyeballing and thought the gramil would do everything for me.

7. Not having sharp enough tools. I let my tools go dull quite often and that lowered the precision of my cutting by an enormous amount. A lot of gouges in the guitar and my hands were the result of excessive force used to cut the wood.

8. Not understanding wood and humidity. My top cracked twice while I was building the guitar. That's because I didn't understand the importance of humidity and didn't care about storing and working in a space with proper humidity during the winter months.

9. Having somewhat of a miserly attitude regarding tools. This kit was the single biggest financial outlay I had ever made for a musical instrument. For example, my current acoustic guitar is a Yamaha FG800. This huge financial outlay made me want to penny pinch whenever I could, and that meant spending a minimum amount on tools and getting cheap tools whenever I could. I think it is possible to get creative and find cheap alternatives to tools, but having a miserly attitude and always trying to get by with the minimum is not conducive to a building a good guitar.

10. Sanding without thinking. I had major problems while sanding my neck. As stated above, I didn't find a straight sanding surface until I had done quite of sanding on the surface of the neck. That meant my truss rod channels were too shallow, and I also didn't think while trying to deepen the truss rod channel. Unfortunately, when I tried to deepen the channel I used sandpaper and was freehanding the sanding, and I ended up with a deeper and wider channel. I had to use a bunch of hacks (gluing on veneer to the truss rod itself) to get somewhat of an acceptable fit.

I also didn't find a good way to sand the top of the neck. The multiple problems compounded upon themselves. Without a straight sanding surface, and without something to hold the neck in place, I constantly had problems at the ends of the neck. I had to glue veneers to the top of the neck as I took too much material off the neck.

One of my biggest failures was sanding without thinking while trying to align the front bout of the body with the neck. I inadvertently created a substantial dip in one of the most sensitive areas of the guitar, which already had a crack! I should have trued the neck before doing any sanding. I glued some veneer to create a shim/brace in that area. I will have to see if it will hold up structurally.

11. Not knowing how to fix gouges and dings. I didn't know how to fix gouges and dings on the faces of the guitar. I just moved on because I wanted to progress to the next steps just to have a finished guitar, but the guitar suffered due to my ignorance.

12. Not sanding enough prior to finishing. I just gave the guitar a light sand, somewhat freehand, prior to finishing. I did not know that I needed a much more thorough sanding with a block to get a good surface. My finish suffered tremendously because the prep work was subpar.

Ultimately most of my mistakes came from carelessness, impulsivity, lack of patience, and lack of attention to detail. Nonetheless without making these mistakes I would not know how important it is to be careful with every step of the build. I really appreciate the replies in this thread because it is a bit of a list of mistakes from everybody, which can be a guide for ourselves in the future and for future builders.

[printer2]

I learned a lot of putting together thin pieces of wood by building radio controlled airplanes. So other than the binding on the first guitar I did pretty well, still does not sound bad. I built a guitalele once with mandolin spaced six string tuners that turned out to be the worst set I had bought. Because of the small size I could not replace them so it turned out as a wall hanger for a friend.

I built a walnut bodied guitar that sounded absolutely fantastic. But months down the way the top started to deform and the bridge peeled off. The would was not the best, I just was practicing resawing and thought I might as well use the wood as an experiment. It might have been ok but I messed up on placing the bridge plate, found out after the bridge peeled off. The bridge plate was forward of the bridge and the plate ended just behind the pin holes. I added a piece to extend the plate beyond the back of the bridge and glued on a thin piece to tie the two pieces together. After gluing on the bridge the guitar only sounded ordinary.

This is a good one. When cutting the slot for the neck make sure you have the body facing the right way.



Enter swear word here. Well at least it was just an experimental guitar and no big deal. At least I will never do that again!

Hah! Did it again on a walnut guitar that I put a lot of work into. That one I fixed up as it was not a throwaway guitar. I also built a guitar with one side of the lower bout being half inch wider than the other side. I build without a mold and I joined the sides to the tail block using the marks I had on the sides. I think I marked the side previously and used that marl as the length rather than the right mark that I missed. That is about it I think.

[Talldad]

Originally Posted by koolimy

Wow, the responses are a lot more interesting and insightful than I would have imagined!

My mistakes are qualitatively different from your mistakes but if I list them they would be:

1. Not caring too much about alignment when gluing in the neck block. Made for a very interesting time when I had to set the center line of the neck. I needed a shim (a/k/a popsicle stick) to get the neck to swing enough to have an acceptably centered neck.

2. Not checking the trueness of my sanding surfaces and tools before using them.

3. Not having a clean workspace. I have a lot of dings and scratches that I accumulated on the guitar unnecessarily because I left my guitar around my tools and sandpaper.

4. Not having something to hold the guitar parts while I built it. One of my biggest mistakes was that I didn't have something to hold the guitar in place. This was a recipe for numerous slips of the chisel and was also one of the main reasons why I wasn't able to sand straight for a while.

5. Not using (and not knowing what is) the correct tool for the job. I cut my binding channels using a gramil meant for violin purfling. A problem with that gramil was that it has a pointed tip and no straight surface. This caused my binding channels to not have straight edges, which gave me huge problems as I cut the channels with a chisel. Compounded with the fact that I did not have something to hold the guitar, it contributed to the mess that are my binding channels.

6. Not measuring for some steps. It seems like in almost every step one should measure twice and then cut. I did not take any measurements for some steps, such as when I was cutting my binding channels. I just relied on a eyeballing and thought the gramil would do everything for me.

7. Not having sharp enough tools. I let my tools go dull quite often and that lowered the precision of my cutting by an enormous amount. A lot of gouges in the guitar and my hands were the result of excessive force used to cut the wood.

8. Not understanding wood and humidity. My top cracked twice while I was building the guitar. That's because I didn't understand the importance of humidity and didn't care about storing and working in a space with proper humidity during the winter months.

9. Having somewhat of a miserly attitude regarding tools. This kit was the single biggest financial outlay I had ever made for a musical instrument. For example, my current acoustic guitar is a Yamaha FG800. This huge financial outlay made me want to penny pinch whenever I could, and that meant spending a minimum amount on tools and getting cheap tools whenever I could. I think it is possible to get creative and find cheap alternatives to tools, but having a miserly attitude and always trying to get by with the minimum is not conducive to a building a good guitar.

10. Sanding without thinking. I had major problems while sanding my neck. As stated above, I didn't find a straight sanding surface until I had done quite of sanding on the surface of the neck. That meant my truss rod channels were too shallow, and I also didn't think while trying to deepen the truss rod channel. Unfortunately, when I tried to deepen the channel I used sandpaper and was freehanding the sanding, and I ended up with a deeper and wider channel. I had to use a bunch of hacks (gluing on veneer to the truss rod itself) to get somewhat of an acceptable fit.

I also didn't find a good way to sand the top of the neck. The multiple problems compounded upon themselves. Without a straight sanding surface, and without something to hold the neck in place, I constantly had problems at the ends of the neck. I had to glue veneers to the top of the neck as I took too much material off the neck.

One of my biggest failures was sanding without thinking while trying to align the front bout of the body with the neck. I inadvertently created a substantial dip in one of the most sensitive areas of the guitar, which already had a crack! I should have trued the neck before doing any sanding. I glued some veneer to create a shim/brace in that area. I will have to see if it will hold up structurally.

11. Not knowing how to fix gouges and dings. I didn't know how to fix gouges and dings on the faces of the guitar. I just moved on because I wanted to progress to the next steps just to have a finished guitar, but the guitar suffered due to my ignorance.

12. Not sanding enough prior to finishing. I just gave the guitar a light sand, somewhat freehand, prior to finishing. I did not know that I needed a much more thorough sanding with a block to get a good surface. My finish suffered tremendously because the prep work was subpar.

Ultimately most of my mistakes came from carelessness, impulsivity, lack of patience, and lack of attention to detail. Nonetheless without making these mistakes I would not know how important it is to be careful with every step of the build. I really appreciate the replies in this thread because it is a bit of a list of mistakes from everybody, which can be a guide for ourselves in the future and for future builders.

Your problem sounds like it's all related to your mindset, you are so eager to see the finished product that you overlook the satisfaction and pride to be gained at every step.

Perhaps in future builds you could reward yourself for the less exciting bits. There is real pride to be found in sharpening a cabinet scraper so it just works, in building a jig that works accurately and effortlessly, in creating a perfect butt joint on the sides at the neck joint, despite later routing it out.

You can multiply your satisfaction tenfold if you can spare all the extra time. Of course, the downside is that the more you get perfect on the way, the bigger the rage when you do finally shag something up.
Best of luck, great thread!

[koolimy]

Originally Posted by printer2

I learned a lot of putting together thin pieces of wood by building radio controlled airplanes. So other than the binding on the first guitar I did pretty well, still does not sound bad. I built a guitalele once with mandolin spaced six string tuners that turned out to be the worst set I had bought. Because of the small size I could not replace them so it turned out as a wall hanger for a friend.

I built a walnut bodied guitar that sounded absolutely fantastic. But months down the way the top started to deform and the bridge peeled off. The would was not the best, I just was practicing resawing and thought I might as well use the wood as an experiment. It might have been ok but I messed up on placing the bridge plate, found out after the bridge peeled off. The bridge plate was forward of the bridge and the plate ended just behind the pin holes. I added a piece to extend the plate beyond the back of the bridge and glued on a thin piece to tie the two pieces together. After gluing on the bridge the guitar only sounded ordinary.

This is a good one. When cutting the slot for the neck make sure you have the body facing the right way.



Enter swear word here. Well at least it was just an experimental guitar and no big deal. At least I will never do that again!

Hah! Did it again on a walnut guitar that I put a lot of work into. That one I fixed up as it was not a throwaway guitar. I also built a guitar with one side of the lower bout being half inch wider than the other side. I build without a mold and I joined the sides to the tail block using the marks I had on the sides. I think I marked the side previously and used that marl as the length rather than the right mark that I missed. That is about it I think.

I love this picture, LOL! I think this picture should be the official picture of this subforum.

Your problem sounds like it's all related to your mindset, you are so eager to see the finished product that you overlook the satisfaction and pride to be gained at every step.

Perhaps in future builds you could reward yourself for the less exciting bits. There is real pride to be found in sharpening a cabinet scraper so it just works, in building a jig that works accurately and effortlessly, in creating a perfect butt joint on the sides at the neck joint, despite later routing it out.

You can multiply your satisfaction tenfold if you can spare all the extra time. Of course, the downside is that the more you get perfect on the way, the bigger the rage when you do finally shag something up.
Best of luck, great thread!

I found while building that the negative aspects of my personality are all the traits you don't want when building an acoustic guitar. Namely, impulsivity, lack of patience, carelessness, and attention to detail LOL. It is a testament to Mr. John Hall at Bluescreekguitars that I have something closed to a finished guitar, warts and all.

You are correct that I was a bit eager to see the finished product. I was worried that if I tried to fix all my mistakes that I would never finish my guitar at all. As it is my first build, I wanted to get the experience of going through all the steps necessary to build a guitar. Hopefully if I build another I will learn from this and be more careful with each step.