Official Luthiers Forum!

Evening, all.

I'm an apprentice cabinetmaker and absolutely brand new to luthiery. While my home shop is modest to say the least, I currently have access to professional tools at work that should facilitate my feeding the luthiery bug for now. Fortunately, management is currently OK with us completing personal projects after hours so long as workflow doesn't suffer.

I have some experience with joinery when it comes to furniture and staircases. I'm thinking the concepts where guitar repair are concerned should not be entirely different from this when it comes to ensuring proper glue adhesion, solid clamping and feathering in the repaired area to hide any evidence that a repair was ever done. In general, it seems that the more attention is paid to the details, the better things turn out.

I created a profile here because I have 2 guitars in need of some significant repairs that I would like to ensure are brought properly back to being playable again. As with anything I do for myself, I want to ensure I do it right so I won't have to do it more twice (already too late on one of these guitars). The first guitar I need to repair is an Ibanez AE (acoustic/electric) 12 string. It's somewhat cheap by professional musician standards though it holds high sentimental value for me considering I've owned it since the mid 90's. It was pretty sweet to play back then and if I can bring it back to glory, I'll be very excited.

The other is a Johnson brand spider-cone steel resonator that I've owned nearly long as the AE and has a long and storied history when it comes to my past. While it's probably even less financially valuable than the first one, the sentimental value there is absolutely through the roof. It's also the worse off of the two.

I'll be reading up on repairs here and possibly planning my own build now that I have access to obscene amounts of scrap wood and other premium material.

Pics and stories of the carnage soon to follow.

Cheers!

Welcome, Dan!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Welcome!!!!!!!!

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MK5acoustics.com

Welcome! There is a real section here but I don't know how much traffic it gets.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Welcome , this place is like hotel California. You can check out but you can never leave !

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Welcome Dan! I think Bryan was trying to say there is a Repair section here. There is a group of us who do check that section regularly.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Well yes I suppose I didn't mention the repair section too. But. . . I was referring to the reso section as one of your projects is a resonator. Auto correct onThis phone is killing me!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Auto correct is not my friend either. And fellow luthier correct didn't work real good either

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Ha! I'm always happy to be corrected here (in the interest of presenting good information). In this case it just presented new information.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Thanks for the warm welcomes. I've noticed that I've posted in the build section. Sorry. I know most forums prefer to keep discussion areas on topic, but I wasn't sure if there was a better place for an intro and this section seemed to be getting the most traffic.

I'll post up the carnage & stories behind them in their respective sections to help keep the scene clean.

I'll add my welcome, Dan, even though you've gotten one from our semi-official greeter, Wud!
Looking forward to seeing you around here!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Welcome Dancin Dan! Would like to see pictures as you progress, and if you need advice, there are plenty willing to help. I'm not a repair guy, but I find the discussions helpful for an amateur builder such as myself.

Hello Dan,

Welcome to the forum!
Lots of great people here that are always willing to help out and help us all become better at this somewhat addictive and obsessive craft...
One thing you will find out quick - there are many ways to do the same thing - and some are more passionate about "their way" than others....
And yes, post pics - no such thing as too many pics....

Rob

Hi Dan. What part of PA are you from?

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Howdy Dan. I find building a guitar to be more of a construction/engineering project more so than an art and craft for example, there is of course both, but having cabinet skills will certainly help.

Gotta be smarter than the lil box in your hand !

I know im NOT

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

And here I was about to change my online handle. Guess it won't be that one. Welcome anyway.

Dapper Dan

Welcome to the circus Dan!!
Look forward to your posts.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.