Tuesday, December 16, 2008

DIY - Building a Guitar in your Kitchen

Afternoon peeps!

When most people decide to pick up an instrument they buy, borrow, or steal one. But not my crafty brother-in-law, Steve! For the past year or so, Steve has been building a guitar right in his very own kitchen.

Looky-loo:


That is his workspace.







And Steve has been cool enough to keep a blog that shows the progress! I'll let him explain:
When I discovered nearly a year ago that I knew someone who actually builds acoustic guitars, I was shocked. I knew that fine acoustic guitars were hand built works of art, but I guess I had never really thought of building them as a hobby. Despite attempts to cajole me into building one of my own, I adamantly thought for a while that I lacked both the knowledge and the resources to construct one of my own (at the time of writing, I live in a small 4th floor Seattle condo without any extra space or anything resembling a workshop with power tools), so I wrote off the whole idea.

Six months later however, the urge to give it a try was too great and I finally posed the question, "Suppose I decide to build a guitar...?" I would have no idea of not only how possible it would be to build a convincingly fine acoustic guitar, but to do so without any prior experience, power tools, or a dedicated workspace.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage first-time guitar builders or anyone who may be interested in taking up this incredibly rewarding (and impressive) hobby by chronicling my building experience--both the successes and the arguably more valuable mistakes--and to dispel all notion that you must have a dedicated workspace and a myriad of expensive power tools.
Word, brother.

Steve keeps great track of what he is doing and includes helpful photos for those of us who don't always understand the "shop talk."

If your interested in seeing how guitars are made by hand, take a peak at his blog, Building an Acoustic Guitar in your Kitchen.

Here's to life,
Spoon

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is a beautiful guitar so far. I can't wait to see finished piece.