A six-stringed venture - I'm all in!!

[jrstoner]

[jrstoner]

[ZekeM]

Those are some mighty nice looking instruments sir. Congratulations. You need a group shot ad all six together when they are finished.

[Diamondave]

Whoa! Those look like real guitars to me! We gotta meet up so I can take em on a spin!! We are so close, lets meet soon.... Very impressive, for real.... Thanks for sharing!

[seanmark]

Looks good! You're picking this up fast!

[Dazzer]

JR Those are some fantastic guitars!

The quality of your work is excellent

Dave

[clinchriver]

Great looking guitars. Are these two of the six you were discussing in 2009?

I'd think really hard about what to name my website, if you decide you need one, Stoner Guitars might attract a different crowd than what your after

[joeguam]

Great story! I live out here on the island of Guam and we have to learn and conduct our own builds, installations and repairs. I find this so relaxing and enjoyable!

I wish you the best of luck. Just a suggestion (you may not even think this will make a difference, but I've found great success with it): Try to keep everything related to your new endeavor positive and minimize the negativity. You sound like you have great ambition, desire and, with your explanation, skill work! Positivity will just be icing on the cake!

Good luck, God bless and know that some people like myself think it's amazing that you're an enabler for others to learn/make music - which will affect their audiences more than you could ever imagine!

Hafa Adai from Guam!

...
Joe

[jrstoner]

It's been over a year since I banged out on this old keyboard what sounded to many to be an extremely ambitious challenge of a naive woodworker. We'll I just want to state for the record that the mission has been accomplished and the method of making the challenge public pushed me through.

Initially the plan was to include a couple of OMs but the demand called for all dreadnoughts and so that was the determining factor. True, I missed my completion date by nearly 6 months but the bills had to be paid and rushing the process wasn't going to happen.

In the end I spent about 120-140 hours per guitar and I learned a heck of a lot in the process. All the books, videos and DVD's will only teach you so much. The rest has to come about by a lot of hard work and included many, I mean many mistakes. If I had to do it over I would have built each guitar separately from start to finish which would have allowed me to make adjustments and improvements as I went. But in the end all the guitars turned out better than expected and are in the hands of truly appreciative guitar players.

So what now? First, I plan on taking a couple weeks off to let the impact of the last 13 months of my life sink in. Is this the end of a great six stringed venture or simply the beginning of something bigger? I'll update this thread in another year and we'll see.

Below is a photo of the original prototype on the left and the last Sitka/Mahogany dread on the right. Thanks for following and especially for all the supportive and constructive comments to the thread.

[Tom West]

jrstoner: CONGRATS, not a lot of folks could take on such a daunting project and have it turn out so well. Going forward I hope for you that this is what you want for your life's work. Take care and keep us posted on you future with the guitars.
Tom

[jrstoner]

Thank you Tom. Always appreciate your sage like words of wisdom.

[Neil K Walk]

Congratulations, jrstoner! I think it's great that your creations were able to find their way to those who would appreciate them. I'm amazed at how quickly it all came together but then again you were extremely motivated. As I hack away at my own first build (going on 2-1/2 years now) I know how daunting it can be - but then I'm not a woodworker either. You had an advantage there and I commend you for putting it to use.

[arie]

congrats! -you did good.

are you going to continue building or?...

[kirkham13]

Great thread!

[LouieAtienza]

Congrats... the look on your face tells it all. Nicely done!