Dawn of the Final Day - 24 Hours Remain -

Before I go anywhere with this post, I have provided appropriate background material to enjoy whilst you read this blog post. If the previous link does not suit your taste, then enjoy this instead.

I woke up on Labor Day morning with an overwhelming sense of trepidation. The day before, I had decided that the guitar body was completed, and the only step that remained was the assembly of the guitar. This was the final step, and after 3 months of (sporadic) hard work, it had all culminated into this final moment. Kicking off my blanket, turning off the alarm that had been ringing since 11:30 AM, and rolling out of bed onto my dog-eared climbing magazines, I was ready to take on the morning.

Well, then I decided I had to eat lunch.

After lunch, the day finally started. Figuring out the proper course of action, I sat the guitar in my lap and started working. The first part that had to go on was the pick-guard, since it sits underneath the neck of the guitar. Mounting this meant I had to thread the output jack wires through the v-shaped hole connecting the output jack cavity to the electronics cavity. This ended up being the most frustrating process, since the wire kept on getting stuck somewhere in the hole. After 30 minutes of random poking, I managed to finally thread it through by pre-bending the wires and then grabbing them from the other side with a pair of tweezers. With this out of the way, I screwed the pick-guard in place, then soldered the output jack to the wires and then mounted that too.

The bridge came next, because why not. After aligning the bridge and screwing in the screws, I put the claw on the backside of the guitar and attached the screwed that hold the bridge in place. Now, when I use the tremolo bar, a.k.a. the whammy bar, the springs will snap the bridge back into place. Next the guitar neck was mounted. With the assistance of some clamps that I still had not returned to the robotics lab, I attached the neck without too much difficulty.

Now, all that was left was the cathartic stringing of the guitar. This was literally the last step. If you don't know how to string a guitar, here's a basic rundown: You thread the string through the bridge and then up along the neck to the head of the guitar where you string it through its appropriate tuning key. Then, you pluck the string as you tighten it, to make sure you don't tune it too far, and to loosen the string up. So I sat there stringing my guitar, and listened to each string as they slowly started singing their song. One by one, each string began to play the right notes and then before I knew it, they were all singing in harmony together. After 3 months of hard work, the guitar is finished.

Fuck. Yeah.