So here it is. I am building a guitar. When I thought about the process from start to finish, I realized that the project would be one of my greatest undertakings. Seeing as how a lot of people demanded pictures the instant I informed them of it, it was only natural that I should document the WHOLE process, as opposed to just the finished product. Thinking about how to document it, a blog came up in my head as a great way to keep track of the whole process, with pictures and thoughts that I have while I worked on this. I've always wanted to start a blog, so why not?
One of the first questions that other people asked me was, "Why? Why build a guitar yourself when you can just buy a nice guitar for yourself?" For the longest time, I wanted an electric guitar. Okay, you've got me, I already own an acoustic and an electric.
The acoustic, I've owned for nearly 6 years, has been lovingly named Leigha. If you're curious on the history of the name, I'm sorry to say that I have no response to that; it was just a name that came up to me one day while playing, and it sounded 'right' in my head, so it's stuck with the guitar ever since.
The electric guitar, I had bought about 3 years ago off of Craigslist. I was happy to find a Squier Stratocaster for the low price of $50. It was inexpensive because the guitar had some electrical problems: some loose soldering and the sound cutting out. As a computer science major and somewhat savvy electronics guy, the soldering issue didn't deter me from this amazing deal, so I jumped on it as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, my 'savvy electronics' skill proved to be lackluster, and despite my best attempts, I couldn't get a reliable sound to come out of it without it randomly cutting out while playing (the problem was likely beyond just soldering). I then resorted to playing the guitar only at night, since an electric is a quiet thing, but even that eventually stopped. My electric guitar now sits neglected in my parents house.
So back to why I should build a guitar: I had recently begun searching for a DIY project to keep me occupied. My friends in the area had been keeping themselves busy with their own projects: a 3D printer, a ballista, a quad-copter. These are all fantastically cool projects, but if I ventured into it myself, the project just wouldn't feel like it was mine. I would have felt like a copy cat. Additionally, I realized that if I wanted to invest time into something, I would like to get something useful out of it. Not saying that the aforementioned projects aren't useful, I just couldn't justify it for myself.
One day though, it hit me: What if I build a guitar? I could get that DIY project and that guitar that I have been looking for. Success! But my elation was cut short when, after some research, I found that making a guitar from scratch practically required "some significant wood-working experience." Since my wood-working experience extended to hammering nails and pretty much nothing beyond, I thought that my idea had died before it even began.
But while I was looking at guitars online, I came across an interesting note. It seems there were some obscure corners of the web beyond Amazon (gasp) that sold guitar 'kits.' These kits contained pre-cut wooden parts and all the electronics that I needed to make a working electric guitar. Joy! The project lives again!
So here it is. I am building a guitar, and this is my blog about the 'journey' ahead of me. I confess, I've actually already started this project about a week ago, and my research has been mostly completed (which took a surprising amount of time!). I'll keep on working on this blog in parallel, and hopefully it'll catch up to where I'm currently at.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment