Jump to content

Teaching A Simple Guitar Building Class


Recommended Posts

I've recently moved from a house (with a lovely, large basement) into an apartment, and as part of my search for somewhere to continue my guitar-building, I've got involved with a co-op style woodshop, metalshop, textiles place.

Part of the deal with this place is that they earn their keep by running classes, and so I stupidly mentioned that I could teach a class on electric guitar building - despite my own relative inexperience.

But the more I think about it, the more I reckon I could do it, I just need to figure out the details.

My basic idea is that the class is limited to 6 or so people and you force them all to build to the same design, which needs to be fairly simple. Obvious choices would be a strat or tele, but a) I think that's a bit obvious :D you can get excellent quality strat and tele clone for very cheap c) I really don't like strats and teles. So I'm thinking:

SC LP Jr

24.75" scale / 22-fret

2-piece mahogany body

mahogany neck

rosewood fretboard

jumbo frets

dot markers

1 vol, 1 tone

either 1 P90 or 1 humbucker (probs humbucker for price options)

wraparound bridge

I need to go through the build myself, exactly as I would teach it, and figure out timings.

The biggest questions for me are:

1) pre-slotted and radiused fretboard? Or is that an essential part of the building experience?

2) I think finishing is too big/too time consuming to really include if you go the sprayed lacquer route. What would be some simple ways that you could put some sort of sealing finish on, potentially achieve the cherry red or tv yellow finish and give the wood some protection. tung oil? linseed oil? tru oil? rattle-can poly?

any thoughts or experiences to share?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i have shown a few people, i enjoyed it and learned a lot from it.

I think i would struggle with a group of people at once and in your position i would focus on them making the bodies rather than necks. i would also let them design the body shape and make the templates for it. then you need a few standard templates for things like pickups, neck pockets and cavities.

it saves on specialist tools and breaks the process down into a few simple steps, but they could still end up with something unique. i would also get them to draw it to scale from front and side first to establish a few basic concepts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ive been eying up some courses for around a year or so, but none of them really offer what I was after. I think it would be an easy course, for you and students, to concentrate on fender style body construction and use pre-made necks.

You would still have a lot to get through with a few students. wood selection, thicknessing/jointing, basic routing. And as Wez said there is the element of design and being able to draw things/visualise them accuratley. Get them to make a strat / tele based design around a certain bridge and neck pocket config. then give them some artistic room to move with the body shape and control layout.

A basic oil finish will be more than satisfying enough for a novice builder. Not to mention electronics / setup skills which you would also need to teach!

How long would you have per session and how long would the course be? youd need to be quite conservative as to what they can achieve in the time available. You dont want 5-6 unfinished guitars being rushed in the last session!

edit: oh, and Wez is a great teacher. He very kindly gave me some instructions on fret dressing and helped me out alot with my first fretjob.

Edited by sam_c
Link to comment
Share on other sites

any thoughts or experiences to share?

My thought is that it sounds like you really don't want to teach, and teaching is for people who enjoy teaching.

For an easy example, do you answer lots of build questions here on the forum?

Do you help newbs out on a regular basis?

If not, I think you're just fooling yourself, you really don't want to get involved with this teaching gig, you feel forced to do it.

Maybe you feel like you BS'ed these people about your abilities...and that's not a good enough reason to accept students.

I would not want to be your student knowing what I know about the reasons behind your needing to teach, your heart's not in it and possibly your talents aren't really there either (yet? I don't really know)

Why not just go back to the co-op and tell them how you really feel about it, just tell them the truth, and see if they have some other option for you, would you be relieved if they said no problem bro, we'll work out something else more amenable to you?

Or maybe if you ASKED FOR HELP one or two of them will step forward and help you get set up to teach and actually help you through your first few classes, it sounds like the kind of place that might be willing to help you out if you asked.

BS'ing yourself and/or other people usually has no real payoff.

Ponying up and asking for help, or just being straightforward with people, sometimes has payoffs that you would never have guessed could happen. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

any thoughts or experiences to share?

My thought is that it sounds like you really don't want to teach, and teaching is for people who enjoy teaching.

For an easy example, do you answer lots of build questions here on the forum?

Do you help newbs out on a regular basis?

If not, I think you're just fooling yourself, you really don't want to get involved with this teaching gig, you feel forced to do it.

Maybe you feel like you BS'ed these people about your abilities...and that's not a good enough reason to accept students.

I would not want to be your student knowing what I know about the reasons behind your needing to teach, your heart's not in it and possibly your talents aren't really there either (yet? I don't really know)

Why not just go back to the co-op and tell them how you really feel about it, just tell them the truth, and see if they have some other option for you, would you be relieved if they said no problem bro, we'll work out something else more amenable to you?

Or maybe if you ASKED FOR HELP one or two of them will step forward and help you get set up to teach and actually help you through your first few classes, it sounds like the kind of place that might be willing to help you out if you asked.

BS'ing yourself and/or other people usually has no real payoff.

Ponying up and asking for help, or just being straightforward with people, sometimes has payoffs that you would never have guessed could happen. :D

all great points. I think the major problem is not lack of desire, but just being cautious about whether I've got the skills to pay the bills. And as I'm English, I err on the side of self-doubt, rather than on the side of self-belief.

the idea of teaching the class I find very exciting, and I'd like to be able to pass on what I know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the main question you need to ask yourself, is do you have enough knowledge to be able to teach someone else. It's not so much about the steps of building a guitar, because those really are not that hard. It's about dealing with problems as they happen. With 5 or 6 students who have limited or no wood work experience there WILL be problem, heck even with experience guys there is always a chance for problems. An example is your post about how to deal with the bowed bookmatched. You now know how to deal with that, but if it happened during class to a student before this post, what would you have done? If a student routes something in the wrong place or has a bad chip out, what will you tell them to do to fix it? We all encouter problems along the way, experience is what helps us determine how to solve it. And you don't have much experience yet.

This is not really doubting your abilities to build, but just trying to get you to think about what you'll do when someone else has a problem. Do you have the knowledge to help them fix it? People will not be happy they are paying for a class and come in, make a mistake and are told they will have to wait until you can find an answer on a message board about how to fix it.

I work as an ice hockey referee and the last few years I work as an instructor at our yearly seminars. Teaching the material from the books and the slide shows is the easy part, and really anyone off the street could do it with no background knowledge. The difference is when people start asking questions about stuff that is not covered in the books and how to deal with problems, that is where experience comes in.

Bottom line is you have to ask yourself, do you have enough experience to handle problems when they occur?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bottom line is you have to ask yourself, do you have enough experience to handle problems when they occur?

that's an excellent point, and why I'm a) leaning towards a set, fixed, unchangeable design for all (like the LP Jr) and :D having someone who is an experienced woodworker - who doesn't know anything about guitars - be alongside me.

lots to think about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the main question you need to ask yourself, is do you have enough knowledge to be able to teach someone else. It's not so much about the steps of building a guitar, because those really are not that hard. It's about dealing with problems as they happen. With 5 or 6 students who have limited or no wood work experience there WILL be problem, heck even with experience guys there is always a chance for problems. An example is your post about how to deal with the bowed bookmatched. You now know how to deal with that, but if it happened during class to a student before this post, what would you have done? If a student routes something in the wrong place or has a bad chip out, what will you tell them to do to fix it? We all encouter problems along the way, experience is what helps us determine how to solve it. And you don't have much experience yet.

This is not really doubting your abilities to build, but just trying to get you to think about what you'll do when someone else has a problem. Do you have the knowledge to help them fix it? People will not be happy they are paying for a class and come in, make a mistake and are told they will have to wait until you can find an answer on a message board about how to fix it.

I work as an ice hockey referee and the last few years I work as an instructor at our yearly seminars. Teaching the material from the books and the slide shows is the easy part, and really anyone off the street could do it with no background knowledge. The difference is when people start asking questions about stuff that is not covered in the books and how to deal with problems, that is where experience comes in.

Bottom line is you have to ask yourself, do you have enough experience to handle problems when they occur?

This is an excellent viewpoint,(all except the zebra stripes :D ) and should be read by anyone wanting to teach or take on an apprentice.

Doubts always come with the territory, but it is also about your ability to properly instruct, and be able to identify possible problems before something bad occurs. The "kit" idea is also a great idea to minimize risk, and achieve something playable.

Good luck with everything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another suggestion...if you move forward with it, make it fun and just toss it right out there what your experience level is, so no one can 'catch you up', tell 'em up front and lighten the pressure on yourself, take it all lightheartedly and don't try to be someone you're not (yet).

Within some time after doing it, you will then 'have' your experience, and you 'will' be that person.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has to start somewhere.

Being within and amongst a community of people who teach and are creative sounds to me like a completely and utterly kick-ass situation,

I think you would make some priceless future personal affiliations with folks such as they sound to be.

I'll tell you something, teaching and building guitars are almost two completely different things.

Teaching is something all unto itself.

Just because someone can build world-class guitars doesn't necessarily make them able to teach others how to do it...

Go for it, just be honest about what you can and can't do, and good luck with it,

I'm sure this situation is going to be a very positive experience for you in one way or another. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The good thing with this co-op is that it sounds like there will be plenty of people around to help you learn new things and help with you mistakes. Teaching how to build a guitar might not be your strong point just yet, but I'm sure if you give it some thought you probably have something that you are good at that you can teach.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...