Official Luthiers Forum!

Ok Guys We ALLL do it , we have the dumb mistakes we all Make and might as well fess up to . And the winner voted By the academy will win the coveted Golden Doofus award .







I will start the ball rolling with my latest . As many of you know I split my fingerboard for the purple heart guitar build . I am also working on a Padauk mando tru oil finish .

I purchased a new finger board and set it up and drilled it for new inlays for the Purple heart build . I made my dowls and glued them in and cut them down sanded the finger board and buffed it . Set down to admire my work and realized .......yep you gessed it .... I have a Beautifull NEW Finger Board with some really Sweet Padauk Inlays for my Purple Heart Build !!!



OK YOUR TURN !!

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Does this have to be lutherie related or can any doofus move enter? Because if ANY doofus move can enter, dont get up for your Award just yet.
Last Saturday, I went to visit a friend to show off my latest guitar. After a few beers and a few tunes, we decided to play X-Box Kinect. You know...that game system where YOU are the controller? Anyway, while running and jumping the 100 meter hurdles, I came down on the edge of the carpet, twisted my ankle, and broke the 5th metatarsal in my right foot(Thats the long bone in your foot that runs from the ankle to the pinky toe). Great. A broken foot. But it does NOT end there. It was a nice clean break but the bones displaced and no longer lined up so the doctor could not simply put me in a cast. Nope. So on Friday I had surgery to insert a couple of pins into the bone to hold it together while it heals. I can not put weight on my foot for 4 weeks. That's a real doofus move if you ask me.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

OK, I'll play. So I braced a lutz top with red spruce braces for the sapele 000 I'm building for myself. I wanted to trim the excess around the perimeter of the top in preparation for gluing it to the ribs. I don't remember why, but I had traced the shape of the sides onto the top by tracing around the inside of the lining. I figured I could cut a quarter inch outside that line, giving myself the thickness of the ribs, plus a little room for error. Well, I failed to account for the thickness of the lining and ended up with a top too small for the guitar. Looks like my next build will be an 00.

Next...

I layed out micro dot fretmarkers on a guitar,
and at the 12th fret I wanted 3 across on an angle.
I put them on the 15th instead.
Looks cool!

I bought the biggest baddest motorcycle around. It was also the least maneuverable. I rode it around for a while until I crashed it and broke a lot of bones.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

You did that last week? Is that what the toe picture was from that I saw?

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Oh, did it have to be last week? Sorry. That was 2.5 years ago, the toe picture was from a related foot surgery. I had a clawed foot, the foot hardware was one of the remedies, in addition to other measures. Tendon stretching, joint fusion, all kinds of neat stuff. My foot still doesn't work properly, but at least I don't gimp around like Quasimodo anymore.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I already posted my table saw 'doofus moment' earlier this month, but since its such a classic, here it is again

The finger is still in one piece, but kerfed at an angle, right through the the nail and most of the bone.

Beat that!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

A couple weeks ago, I was sharpening up my scraper. I decided to try using some oil as a lubricant, to see if I could get a sharper hook than usual. Went to wipe the excess oil off... turns out, rubbing along a nice hook will slice right through a paper towel, as well as skin

Fortunately it wasn't very deep, and the missing flap of skin has since grown back. I don't think the oil made a difference anyway, so I've gone back to burnishing dry.

You know I count my frets 3 or 4 times because I know sooner or later Im gonna do that ! I can make sure I have the right fret location , just not right materials.

Thanks everyone who has posted , there is no fast rule here Btw , I just hate to hand a doofus award to someone who got hurt . However the incident SHOULD be in last 45 days or so .

" Looks at all the Lurkers" OK whose next !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Why not start a doofus of the month club, and sell t shirts?? with that logo ??

Mine was all too similar to Dennis K's moment. Mine wasn't a scraper blade. It was a 3/8-inch twist bit just removed from my drill press. I was wiping some wood residue out of the grooves. Do you guys have any idea how sharp a twist bit can be? Even when it's not spinning in the chuck? Duhhhhhhhhhh...........

So, to make me the biggest doofus of all,
on the very next fretboard I did,
I layed out the 2 12th fret markers on the 13th fret.
luckily I caught it before drilling,
but you can see the counterpunch marks.
I bet I never make those layout mistakes again.
Maybe I should learn to COUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just tell people that it got bit by a vampire....

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Thanks for bringing this up, Arnt. I remember when you posted about your accident earlier. It made me more careful then ( I even added a safety measure or two to my table saw protocol), and your reminder is timely. I'm noticing that a comparatively minor finger injury I incurred a few months ago has lingering effects that grow worse, not better. I think rock climbers distinguish between "difficulty", and "exposure". Power tools maximize exposure. Sure it's easy. Of course you've done it a thousand times. What are the consequences if things go wrong?

I was all set to write a post about my latest idiot blunder (I hate it when amateurs brag. You want to see real stupidity?), when your post reminded me that anything that doesn't involve bodily injury is just an inconvenience.

I don't think you've told us exactly how the accident happened. It may be voodoo, but I like to believe that if I know the details of enough accident stories, I'm somehow safer.

I actually kerfed my hand on the tablesaw as well, about 3 weeks ago. My left hand, right below the pinky finger, just nicked the bone, but didn't sever the finger, just the nerve. My pinky finger has no feeling on the outside edge, but I can still feel the inside, and have full movement, so I can still play guitar. I haven't figured out how to upload the picture off my phone. They only put 4 stitches in it.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I feel good that I can join this club without any blood. I only wrecked a crappy guitar trying to get the neck off last night. Yeah, the guild won't be funding my future guitar build. I squashed it. I put plenty of steam in that baby and nothing I could do would budge it. So what did I do? I got a bigger clamp to put more pressure on the heel. I've got this monstous c-clamp that surely would free this thing up. Nope, just cracked the sides really bad. The neck still hasn't moved and I got the steam needle in there really good. Guess I'll put this one aside and start building it's replacement which I'm pretty sure will be a much better guitar anyway.

Looking forward to winning the prize. There is a prize right?

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

UMMMMMMMMMMMM did you check to see if it had a bolt in it as well ? Thats the kinda thing I would have done too .



I LIKE that Idea !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

No bolt that I can see. I'll be sawing this off I think and then there will be a bolt or 2.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Is this a build you did , or someone else ? One thing Ive learned is , if its someone else , you never know what your gonna find .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

No I didn't say exactly how it happened, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it... I think it was a reflex thing, akin to grabbing a sharp knife that has fallen off a table in mid air; not a very good idea, but the body reacts faster than the brain, in order to "save" it. I was resawing a 2x4, and as it was about to fall off the outfeed end of the saw, I somehow grabbed it with my left hand, too close to the spinning blade, and... Wham!

What was I thinking? Obviously not enough on the matter at hand(!). Even though I've done similar cuts a million times times (or maybe because? It is easy to complacent about your skills) I was not really on home turf, as this was not guitar related work. I was also probably absent minded, and I was in a hurry... Those things by themselves should make the alarms go off, and that is one important lesson in all of this. State of mind is probably the single most important safety feature with any tool.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I sympathize with the broken metatarsal - I took out my left one a few years ago by kicking the wall in a swimming pool while playing Marco Polo with the kids at a big get-together of friends. Break your foot in a swimming pool? That qualifies!

But, turning to the time period in question, I was stringing up a newly completed classical guitar for the first time about two weeks ago, and thought that the strings looked weird - too far apart at the bridge. Sure enough, total string spacing was 68.5mm rather than 58.5 mm. How the heck did I do that? Why didn't I notice it before the bridge was glued onto the finished guitar?

Well, I learned heat lamp bridge removal tech, and the re-french polished top gets it's new bridge tonight. If I can plug the holes in the old bridge tie block, I may even get to re-use it somewhere else.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I had been stewing over the neck on a 000 for my son-in-law that I JUST KNEW would blow the truss rod out of the back for a couple months.
I strung it up last week with him here and we loved the initial sound.
Jokingly I said " Ya know, I have half a mind to break the neck so I can keep it".
Two days later I was gonna set it up and when I tightened up the truss rod I heard that sickening sound of the truss rod emerging out of the back of the neck.
I`m glad that he wasn`t present when I pulled out the chisel and hammer and promptly removed the fingerboard and heel cap in a couple minutes. Yes, butchery at it`s finest.
I still don`t have the nerve to tell him what happened yet.
I`m just glad that I have two necks prepped and ready to go.
Maybe this time I should leave a wee bit more wood under the business end of that rod.
I knew better, but just HAD to prove myself wrong.
Dad always said that I had to learn everything the hard way.
I think the award for Doofus of the month should be a jar of putrified hide glue, and I`ll respectfully take a taste...
Coe Franklin

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

After reading the thread on Gibson being raided again , I am sorly tempted to give the Doofus of the month award to the FBI !!

ANY VOTES ???

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

+1 for the FBI.