!st Time Stuff Up

[GREGMW]

Hey Guys,

How many of you's stuffed up your first project.I mean completly stuffed up a body or a neck etc?

I am just curious.

Greg

[litchfield]

I fubared my second. First came out fine

[Im not good at this]

Im in the process of building my first bass.... early stages.... very early

Template stage early... and its already happening..

i just decimated a beautiful piece of plywood a few hours ago

,

Tim

[Guitarfrenzy]

I think if you've never made a mistake then your not in the ballgame. It comes with the territory, even when you think you've really planned everything out, sometimes things happen. But, you learn alot by making mistakes, and find corrective measures to insure that you don't make the same ones again. I've learned more from my mistakes though, than from my success. A mistake is just another small step toward your goal. You find out what was wrong and correct it. Most of the time, mistakes can be corrected or worked out so that no one will ever know you made one. It's just the times when you mess up so bad that a neck or body has to be made into firewood, now that's frustating. The first neck I made was going perfect, but I didn't take into account many factors and tried to carve the back of the neck too far, and a couple days later I noticed a small crack on the back of the neck, turns out that there was only a paper thin strip of wood left around the nut area. YIKESS... But all you can do is jump back in there and start over and write it up as one big learning experience, it's called planning out every detail before doing anything.. lol I've messed up finish work before, but all of those mistakes was solved, but it tries your patience when things don't exactly work out like you had envisioned them to. And I've talked to big time guitar builders about the same mistakes and most of them had similar experiences when they started, so I'd say that most normal people are gonna make some mistakes before they really get things down to an art.

[Phil Mailloux]

I'm building my first bass, I totally screwed up my neck had to start from scratch again but that was allright cuz I got to make the neck like I REALLY wanted it in the end.

Also screwed up my finish on the body twice, had to sand back to wood both times

[guitar_ed]

Howdy,

On my guitars, I have messed up lots of little things, but nothing beyond repair. And I have called a few little things features, relicing actually, when in fact they were screw ups.

My amp, on the other hand, is a different story. I had to send that little sucker back to David Allen because I screwed it up so badly.

But I just keep at it, and someday I will get a guitar "perfect," what ever that means.

Guitar Ed

[denny]

I'm really glad this post came up as i'm in this kinda stage myself, i've just finished the planning of Guitar1, I cut out the body and neck last night ..... on paper!

Hopefully the templates will be done soon and i can do a trail run on some scrap timber that i've glued together before i wreck the walnut body blank and wenge neck and fingerboard

I've gotta say though i have no fear about screwing up, which is very odd for me, then again i have no stupid deadline to work to (no deadline at all), which is even more unusual!

I've been reading up and planning since december and am planning to buy a neck if it fouls up anyway, so theres nothing to lose except a few quid/bucks!...is there??!?

Currently, this is the most theraputic thing I've ever done, every little stage has me grinning like a kiddy, i'm praying it doesn't lose it's magic!

[willliam_q]

I've just glued on my fretboard ready for radius sanding. I done something very stupid tho. I ran the clamps down one side of the fretboard when it was glued. This meant that one side was glued perfect flat and the other side has risen and left quite a big gap. I now have the task of trying to take the fretboard off

I've learnt my lesson though and plan to make (or buy) loads of small clamps to run down the length of both sides of the fretboard.

I also made a mess of the first bit of maple i bought for the neck. The electric planer I had cost my da all of £10. Cheap tools aren't good. Turns out the planer wasn't planing square and my neck ended up being planed at an angle.

Again lesson learned, don't use cheap tools.

I am not afraid of messing up either, altho it does frustrate me to no end when I spend 5 hours working on something only to find out i've done it wrong. All part of the learning process tho.

[johnsilver]

I'm finding this very therapeutic. My first guitar body was mated successfully with my second guitar neck. Neck number one was firewood, but I got the pleasure of ripping it apart to retrieve the truss rod. One of the reasons I took up building guitars was to develop more patience. I picked the right thing. Good luck.

[Dr. Jabsco]

It would be a lot more theriputic for me if it isnt at 102* in my shop, even with the AC kickin.

cant wait for fall