Category Archives: instrument building - Page 3

plans and accountability

Posted by on May 13, 2010 No comments

My brain is on fire with ideas, but the will to execute is running low. This happens seasonally for me. I don’t know if it’s the academic calendar that was drilled into my head for who knows how many years or if it’s the added pressure of the summer in Texas that is to blame (probably a combination) but come May, I am done. And by done I mean, “Get me a beer, I’m gonna go sit on the deck and stare at the lawn” done. Not “Let’s go on vacation” done. No. This is vegetative in nature.

To break out of this last year, I read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and it promptly kicked my butt out of the chair and into my studio. Of course I gave my copy to my brother and had to go get another. I’d buy that book 10 times and it still wouldn’t repay Pressfield for the good it did me. I’m going to see if that works. But in the mean time, I will put out a list to the world of the three things that I have to complete before the end of the summer.

mmm...shellac...

First, I need to plan and source my next guitar. It will be another OM with 14 frets to the body. This time, I will do some cool inlay on the headstock and try to push my construction to be closer to perfect.

Second, an EP of the tunes that I have been amassing for the past 6 months. There is plenty in there and another instrumental album is only a week or two of sessions away.

Third, a cloxco EP with Jason and Astra. We worked up a lot of material and we have some stuff that just needs to be ironed out. It all starts in my studio with me laying down some tracks and getting them sent out. No magic. Just a little time in the woodshed.

So there they are. Those are the things and I need to get cracking!

focus and flow

Posted by on May 11, 2010 No comments

The new guitar is getting a French polish. Shellac and a wad of cotton wrapped up in a t-shirt scrap traveling over the surface of the wood in tiny figure eights. With a little boy running around it can be difficult to focus, but this task seems to demand all of the attention it deserves. The result is so uniform and shiny. And deep. It’s like the wood blooms right there as the shellac coats it. The colors change and the detail is more pronounced. It’s hard to ignore the beauty in what has been dubbed a labor intensive process.

Like sanding, where a little material is removed with each pass, the polishing action adds a little at a time. It’s precision work. It would be easy to space out and miss something or ignore a finer detail, but the meditative nature of such a task provides focus. For me, it’s easy to achieve flow in these moments. When the coat is complete and the shellac needs time to cure or when more needs to be made, getting up from my chair feels good. I’m rested. My mind is clear. I feel refreshed.

By the weekend I should be ready to glue on the neck and mount the bridge. I can shape and prepare the nut. The instrument may even be strung and playable by the beginning of next week. Then it’s back into the studio for some recording and back to the drawing board to lay out the next guitar. I wish I could imagine a better pass time, but I can’t.

more guitar building

Posted by on May 3, 2010 1 comment

This past weekend wasn’t fantastic as my beloved wife was down with a flu or some other nasty crud. She was pretty incapacitated and our son, who had recently conquered the same virus, was up and about and in need of activity while still recovering his energy. This is generally not how a success story begins around our house. On days when The Dude is recovering from illness he tends to think that he can do more than he is able at moment. This weekend was no exception, but he did help me in my quest to further the building of my latest guitar.

All of the binding work is now complete. I added a detail near the neck joint that I think looks pretty spiffy. When I’m done sanding it all down and get the neck mounted, I will post some detail shots. This is really my first attempt at an instrument that I’m making without a lot of help from a kit. The process has been really, really enjoyable and I have a list of things that I have learned and a pile of TODOs for my next build. I think that I’m starting to really get the basics. In fact, it could be said that I’m almost a real novice!

There are still a couple of purely decorative additions for the headstock, but I think that from here on out it’s mostly finishing and doing the frets. Not a particularly long list of things that need doing, but time consuming enough that they won’t be wrapped up for a couple of weeks (unless I sneak in a really productive weekend).

And tonight, I’m back in the studio. Tunes soon!

making things

Posted by on April 22, 2010 No comments

I took last week off and spent it with my family. We camped for two nights and that was fantastic! We also made a trip to Austin to visit friends and family (they can be the same people, you know). I spent the time when we weren’t traveling in the garage working on my newest guitar. It’s another OM style instrument. This one has higher quality materials and I’m certainly paying more attention to the details since I know where they are now. I think it will be a better instrument overall and is moving much more quickly toward completion than its predecessor.

Building the instrument has brought up a number of issues for me, not the least of which is the question of the artisan and quality. Easy credit and over-consumption has done horrible things to our culture. Everything is a commodity. As a result, there is little to no attachment between people and the things they own. I find that disturbing. Not only do we own too much stuff, we don’t care about any of it on a more than superficial level (how much money and time will it take to replace?). That’s sad. Now, I don’t much care about the perception of others when it comes to the things I have, but I care about my perception and relationship to the things. If I have something that I use every day, I want it to be of high quality and meet my needs in a way that is better than just getting something done. Isn’t it better to buy a hammer that will last a lifetime than to buy one every two or three years?

clamped!

It’s also starting to sink in that objects made by artisans have two relationships that are more and more important to me: the relationship between the creator and the item and that of the item and its final owner. This is a small part of why I drool endlessly over the Saddleback Leather bags. They are handmade by artisans. They are of high quality. They will outlast me. That last bit may be a part of why it’s important to me to build a great instrument. I have the hope that someone will enjoy it after I am long gone. The hope that it will persist. This could appear to be very romantic and silly, but if we don’t have a relationship with the things we make and use, there is less depth and ritual in their use. Is that important? Yes!

An instrument that feels good, sounds good, and looks good can inspire a player. There is a certain characteristic of an instrument that draws a person to play it. There isn’t really any good way to quantify that and we shouldn’t try. What works for me will not work for someone else and, frankly, I don’t care. That give and take is unique and beautiful. Whatever it is in that instrument that inspires joy and literally forces someone to make music doesn’t have a suitable word in English (that I know of) and is more important than the monetary value attached to it or the fashion of the day.

I’m looking at the things in my life and trying to simplify them. I need less stuff, but the stuff that I have needs to be more than just stuff off of some assembly line. I would rather pay more for the character and experience. It comes down to this: if what you’re doing matters, then what you’re doing it with has to be seriously considered. Surrounding myself with inspiration is the surest path to results that I know.

a little setup

Posted by on April 2, 2010 No comments

When I finished building my guitar, I put my Martin on the guitar hanger and haven’t touched it since. I love this new instrument. It’s not pretty, but it sounds wonderful and feels great. The neck is wider than most steel string guitars I’ve played and that allowed me to set it up more like a classical guitar. Finding my way around the fretboard has been a lot of fun. There are only two adjustments to be made. I have to replace a tuner because it’s all flavors of not working and I really need to take the action down a little bit. I’ll attack the saddle this weekend and mess around with some of the slots in the nut. The D-string is being pinched and that’s not cool.

Noticing how much I enjoy playing this instrument has brought up the temperature of my current build. The other thing bringing up the temperature is, well, the temperature. I have to get the body assembled before the heat sets in. It’s humid as all get out down here and I need to be able to work without sweating all over my stuff. That means getting all of the power tool work done in the next two or three weeks. I’m hoping to have the sides ready and the kerfing in before the end of next week. Then I can get to the business of carving some braces and then finishing the body entirely.

I love making things that make noise.