For all you builders out there...

Curious how you guys all got your start? Your backgrounds? What was your first order? The feeling you got when you made that first customer ecstatic?

Me. I'm small time. Very small time. I do a lot of repair, PU changes, and some setup/fretwork stuff. I do about 3 builds a year..lol. I build good quality P's and J's, with some extras for gigging and recording guys that want a dead reliable, good sounding bass. I don't do the custom shapes or exotic wood thing.
I'm a finish carpenter by day, hence the woodworking skill. Been playing bass since I was 14. And rolled them together around 8 years ago.
My first build was a P for a friend who at the time was in the biggest band in the area. Built him a really nice P. I was so proud of that thing. He picked it up 4 weeks after he ordered it, and was VERY happy. He still owns it today, and it still is his main bass. Not near as pretty as it was due to is 200 show a year gig for 5 years. Still plays great though. And since then have wanted to make every single person who I do work for as happy as he was.

Funk

I started off in a friends Dads woodshop, modifying my guitar players explorer knock off. It was a lot of fun, and my friends dad taught me a lot. I was also a fixture at the local repair guru's shop picking up tips and tricks. By the time I was 18 I had a small repair bussiness going while attending College and grad school. I built some instruments here and there, and ended up working in a prduction shop during the summers. I figured out Electrical Engineering wasn't for me, went back to school and continued to work doing repair work, and production work for other companies. I finally decided 15 years ago to make it more than a hobby, now, I make a meager living doing what I really love doing.

As for making everyone happy, good luck, 99% of your customers will be ecstatic, but there will always be the 1%, that will never be. It's not a bad trade off.

I started building basses back in 2004 when I enrolled in the Musical String Instrument Repair- Guitar program at Southeast Technical College in Red Wing, MN. In that program I learned to repair, set up, and build guitars and bass guitars. I graduated the 9 month program in the spring of 2005.

The next year I went to school at Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount, MN and got a diploma in Wood Finishing Technologies. Red Wing gave me a decent foundation on how to build an instrument, but I wanted to learn more about how to really make my basses look their best, so I decided to go to DCTC. While at school there, I learned to apply, repair, restore, and remove many different types of finishes.

As far as my work experience with guitar repair and building, I started off at a small music store maintaining rental instruments during the summer, then moved on to doing repairs and setups on new and vintage guitars/bass at Brown's Guitar Factory in Inver Grove Heights, MN. While at Brown's, I also did some bass guitar building, but never completed an instrument there.

Now I'm working for Carey Nordstrand at Nordstrand Guitars, doing a fair amount of the woodworking for both the custom bass line and the Nordy (jazz bass) line.

Now I'm working for Carey Nordstrand at Nordstrand Guitars, doing a fair amount of the woodworking for both the custom bass line and the Nordy (jazz bass) line.

This sounds to be a lot of fun!!

I dont build for anyone, I dont build professionally either (yet) I just thought you guys could get a good laugh from this one. I built my first Bass on the carpet in my bedroom... hehehe.. I didnt even know what the hell 'scale length' meant !

I dont build for anyone, I dont build professionally either (yet) I just thought you guys could get a good laugh from this one. I built my first Bass on the carpet in my bedroom... hehehe.. I didnt even know what the hell 'scale length' meant !

Don't feel bad. My first experiment was moving a Korean Squire neck onto a Ibanez Roadstar body. I did it in between classes at high school, in the cafeteria. Funny thing is..its fretless now..and I still own it. No pickups in it, or routes...yet another project of mine I need to finish.

Funk