It’s been a shaky transition between drawing stuff on paper and actually cutting and glueing wood, but I did one thing right: I started off with an experimental project that uses cheap materials.
I’ll right more about the project later, after I get the drawings for the circuitry done, but for now I’ll say that it’s an electronically modular guitar, built out of laminated birch veneer plywood.
Yes. Plywood. This idea is not going to appeal to Hendrix and Clapton wannabes, but again, more on that later.
The challenge at this point was actually laminating (glueing) the plywood together. I needed two pieces of 3/4″ and one piece of 1/4″ to make 1 3/4″–the standard thickness for an electric guitar. The original was to have the body shapes pre-cut with all the cavities cut out and then just glue it all together. Once I actually applied my woodworking skills using a hand-held jigsaw, I knew that wasn’t going to work. I just made rough cuts.
For the laminating itself, I tried clamps. (glueing the 1/4″ to one piece of 3/4″, which will be the back of the guitar) I got a huge gap in the middle because I didn’t have enough clamps, so today I came up with a new solution (below.)
Photo one is the bottom of the guitar (the previously and poorly glued part) covered in glue, waiting for the top. Two and three shows glue getting spread on the top. Then instead of clamping, I took a bass cabinet I bought at Savers for $7.99 and put that right on top of it. On top of the cabinet, my keyboard amp, and on top of that, a bass practice amp. (photo four)
I had dreams last night that I took the clamps off and the guitar just fell apart. I also had dreams of afunctionul in Dead Poets Society. But that’s a different story.