"Fence" guitar almost done, learned a few things along the way

My "fence board" guitar is nearly done, it is playable and sounds pretty good. I really like the neck-mount design, but it is obvious that it could use some refinement. I did take a couple photos along the way, but I seemed to have misplaced my compact-flash reader. I'll post them soon.

Encouraged by the results, I decided to try something different. I started to build this guitar:

http://www.liutaiomottola.com/instruments/Ipomoea.htm

Or at least something like it. This guitar will also be made of el-cheapo Cedar boards.

One of the interesting thing about the Ipomoea guitar is its soundboard bracing. It is mentioned that Tacoma guitars used the same design. So I did a little bit of research on Tacoma guitars and found lots of interesting info, especially this:

http://www.fender.cl/other_brands/tacoma/tacoma05Catalog.pdf

You can see on pages 16-17 that the bracing is indeed similar to that of the Ipomoea guitar.

On page 27, there is a nicely-designed mount for an electric guitar-style neck. This gave me an idea on how to improve my design.

What else have I learned?

1) I suck at documenting my build processes

2) I am unlikely to improve

3) Everything I could possibly come up with, someone else has done and documented on the internet

4) What does not get documented, and is of the most value, is what "does not work"... all those things that are tried but didn't work out.

5) For me, I have found that most of the things that "do not work" has to do with the tools I am using. As such, documenting that probably won't be of much help to anyone, with the exception that...

6) Buying cheap wood and expensive tools will likely result in a better guitar than expensive wood and cheap tools. You can only use the wood once. You can use the tools over-and-over again until you get it right.


Enough for now, I'm going to go play my fence ;-)

Document, document, document

I'm helping a friend build a guitar. He doesn't want to spend a lot of money on wood until he has some idea of what he is doing (quite reasonably). I started to think about the 2x4 guitar and other ways to use "cheap" wood.

I wondered over to Home Depot and looked for the cheapest wood they had. While not the cheapest, per se, I pulled out several cedar 5'x6"x5/8" "fence" board for ~$1.80/each that where perfectly straight-grained & quarter-sawed. I ran them through my planner. The tap-tone is good.

Encouraged by the results, I picked put a couple more boards. I grabbed a wildly figured one for the back, and straight-grained ones for the sides, braces, etc. Looks like it will take 5 boards to build an entire body (~$9).

Of course I'd still need a neck. Looking around, I wondered if I could temporarily "borrow" the neck off my cheap "pawn shop" electric guitar. A chunk of 2x4, a band saw, and several clamps later, it looks like it is indeed feasible to use an electric guitar neck on an acoustic guitar.

So here we are a couple hours later and I have a 1/2 finished guitar and not a single photo. If it sounds like a $9 guitar, no real loss. If it sounds like a $900 guitar, I'd really wish I would have documented everything I've done so far...