Aloha from Columbus, OH
Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 4:37 pm
Land locked here in the beautiful midwest since 2005, originally from the Islands of Hawaii. By trade I am a Pedorthist, and Orthotic/Prosthetic technician. But was greatly affected by our countries financial woe's in 2008...which ultimately cost me my position. Though I currently work as a Sterile processing technician, I greatly miss building custom projects...as well as the personal fulfillment of helping enhance another persons quality of life. I grew up with music, its in the family and the guitar and ukulele was always around in our house growing up....played at family gatherings, hooked up with some other guys in high school and played alot of music. Well fast forward and a busy life that left me hardly any time to seriously play, I made a commitment to pick up the guitar this year 2013 and take it to a level that would allow me to financially compensate some of the income lost to the household...and of course be my outlet to feed my musical passion. Early this year in the process I injured my cervical spine at work that knocked me out of commission for almost 3 months, and today I'm still not 100%....but much better...and extremely careful (proper body mechanics everyone). This summer I made a financial investment to my goal and picked up a new Larrivee L-05 ( I haven't purchased a guitar since 1998) , beautiful quilted mahogany with an alpine spruce top...but more important it was the pick out of many guitars in the line up....all custom models of Martins, Larrivee and Taylors....this one stood out to me the most sound wise...its true that the right guitar will speak to you. Upon taking it to a custom guitar shop for set-up and electronics, I was able to watch technicians working on guitars....hand tools, work benches, scent of glue, shop noise, machines!!!! I was struck with the thought that just maybe I could learn this craft. When I came back to pick up the guitar, I had a good long talk with the owner who was nice enough to answer my too many questions regarding the trade of guitar building. From that day on I researched a path and plan to learn guitar building with the idea of it becoming fulltime, along with my music. Taking a guitar building class (which was first on the list) is out of my means at the moment, so I decided for now to invest in required tools, equipment, books and videos to start me out. I'm glad to have called John Hall with Blues Creek guitar who provided a complete bending machine that just arrived last week. I have access to a family friends work shop as a place to start building, he is retired but still works on smaller projects...luckily he has some machines that will be helpful....and of course knowledge of wood. I have lots of experience in custom fabrication with metals, plastics, carbon graphite etc..., but not with wood. I am hoping that my skills will transfer over to guitar building. From what I have researched so far, for me I feel that joining the neck, fretting correctly, binding, set-up and finishing will be the most challenging for me. It seems each process has its own area of expertise that needs to come together to produce a high quality instrument that looks and most importantly sounds fantastic. I am hoping to start building in a few months, and would greatly appreciate all advice from builders...new or seasoned of what to do (and more important what not to do!!), feedback and any critical aspects that a noob like me should now. Constructive criticism is also welcomed.....I would not be offended, but thankful if it saves me a ton of grief.
Thanks for taking the time to read this looooong intro.....best regards.
Curt
Thanks for taking the time to read this looooong intro.....best regards.
Curt