After some years lurking in this forum, a couple of months ago I finally started my first build. It'll be a 4 string short scale set neck for my daughter, though she'll lend it to me untill she starts playing (she's 2 years old 
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A very good friend of mine has a very nice woodshop at his parents' house, and I'd been nagging him trying to get him to build a bass for me. A couple of months ago, he said his father would start taking luthiery lessons, and asked me if I wanted to join. I was thrilled. So for a few months now I'm being guided in the process by a really great local luthier, Diego Huerga. Every saturday I go to my friend's house and work a bit on my bass. Along for the ride is my friend, his father and a friend of Diego's. Each of us building his own instrument.
As I said before, I have no previous expierence, so Diego decided we should all start from scrap. The idea is we learn to do as much of the process as we can with handtools.
The first couple of saturdays I spent them learning how to sharpen a chisel.
Next, we moved to block planes. I found a really old block plane at my dad's house, with an old peugeot freres iron. The iron was very rusty but in working condition. The wood "ship" was almost destroyed, so we decided to build a new one. I'm ashamed to confess that after lots of work, It's not finished yet... but I'm almost there.
I also had a bigger block plane, that we decided to make a bit smaller. This way it's supposed to be more fit for the work involved in planing blanks for a bass or guitar. This one is not done either... but it's already functional. Yesterday I went to Diego's shop and worked a bit on this.
So far, building the block planes has been really fun. I've become a bit obsessed with them, and plan on buying a couple more old ones to restore.
Two weeks ago we went wood shopping and got the body blanks. the wood is called "mara", comes from Bolivia and looks really nice. After some planing, I was surprised at how light coloured this wood is, since the blanks looked a lot darker. I guess they were really dirty.
Diego cut some gorgeous walnut tops for us from some wood he had got some years ago from a fallen tree.
So now apart from making the planes, I've already got my wood blanks, chose what part of the blank I'm using for the body, cut the blank, and started planing the body blanks.
Here's a link to the pictures: You'll notice apart from my bass, there's a telecaster guitar being built and also an acoustic guitar (my friend's father is building this one. hopefully after a couple of basses I get to build an acoustic guitar myself)
Enjoy the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
)A very good friend of mine has a very nice woodshop at his parents' house, and I'd been nagging him trying to get him to build a bass for me. A couple of months ago, he said his father would start taking luthiery lessons, and asked me if I wanted to join. I was thrilled. So for a few months now I'm being guided in the process by a really great local luthier, Diego Huerga. Every saturday I go to my friend's house and work a bit on my bass. Along for the ride is my friend, his father and a friend of Diego's. Each of us building his own instrument.
As I said before, I have no previous expierence, so Diego decided we should all start from scrap. The idea is we learn to do as much of the process as we can with handtools.
The first couple of saturdays I spent them learning how to sharpen a chisel.
Next, we moved to block planes. I found a really old block plane at my dad's house, with an old peugeot freres iron. The iron was very rusty but in working condition. The wood "ship" was almost destroyed, so we decided to build a new one. I'm ashamed to confess that after lots of work, It's not finished yet... but I'm almost there.
I also had a bigger block plane, that we decided to make a bit smaller. This way it's supposed to be more fit for the work involved in planing blanks for a bass or guitar. This one is not done either... but it's already functional. Yesterday I went to Diego's shop and worked a bit on this.
So far, building the block planes has been really fun. I've become a bit obsessed with them, and plan on buying a couple more old ones to restore.
Two weeks ago we went wood shopping and got the body blanks. the wood is called "mara", comes from Bolivia and looks really nice. After some planing, I was surprised at how light coloured this wood is, since the blanks looked a lot darker. I guess they were really dirty.
Diego cut some gorgeous walnut tops for us from some wood he had got some years ago from a fallen tree.
So now apart from making the planes, I've already got my wood blanks, chose what part of the blank I'm using for the body, cut the blank, and started planing the body blanks.
Here's a link to the pictures: You'll notice apart from my bass, there's a telecaster guitar being built and also an acoustic guitar (my friend's father is building this one. hopefully after a couple of basses I get to build an acoustic guitar myself)
Enjoy the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
) how japanese carpenters spend hours sharpening their tools, and then just spend a few minutes cutting. His approach is a bit "zen" if you will, in the sense that while you're working in an instrument you are really working on yourself, and you can only build an instrument as good as yourself, or something like that.
)
