Posted by Dan Pennington on Thursday, August 5, 2010
Before I started making block rims, I made the occasional banjo and about 10 years ago, I built two guitars. After I got into banjo rims full time, I forgot about guitars and hardly even played one. Nothing but banjos. Last year I bumped into Kit Guitar Forum web site and that got my interest up for guitars again. Why not build a guitar kit? Nothing to it. Top and back are already joined with the sound hole ring already installed in the top. The sides are bent and the neck is shaped and drilled for tuners. Most of the detail work is done. So, in the fall I made a copy the the Martin 0-16 New York parlor guitar and during the winter in Texas, I put together another kit guitar, a copy of a Martin 00-21. I like the smaller guitars for blues and fingerstyle stuff.
This summer I went to a guitar luthier weekend in northern Minnesota and met a pro luthier who lives in Andover, MN - about 30 minutes north of where I live in Brooklyn Park, a close suburb of Minneapolis. Look up Todd Lunneborg on youtube and hear him play some great music and see his guitars on his website - tlguitars.com.
Todd offers guitar building classes at his shop in Andover. So, I signed up for the class which started this week and as it turns out, I'm the only student. The next set of classes starts in October and is almost filled up. Three hours every Tuesday evening and a couple of Saturdays. This week I glued the two top pieces together and the two back pieces together, and sanded the sides thinner to be ready for bending to shape next week. There are photos on my BHO home page in the Guitar Building album. I'll add more photos from each class as the build progresses.
This doesn't mean that I am getting out of banjos. I'm building a custom bluegrass banjo and a couple of rims for some customers right now.
2 comments on “Back To Guitar Building”
Dan Pennington Says:
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 @3:48:31 PM
10 weeks has gone by pretty quickly. The luthier classes are all done and I've got a lot of detail work to do at home to get ready for the finish to be applied and the gluing of the dove tail joint of the neck and body. I have two other guitars in about the same stage at home. I think I'm going to try to use a brush on water base lacquer on one of the home guitar bodies and if that's a success, I'll use it on the luthier class guitar. This will be the best guitar that I've made and I want to get the finish right.
Sultans of Claw Says:
Monday, September 26, 2011 @2:59:31 PM
Nice work! I especially like the shape of the heel.
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