A new month, a new post

So, I have been busy. I have not updated the blog in a while. And I may update this sucker a lot more now that I have a little more time, a hobby, and a very good reason to update it. The reason you ask? My desire to create more cigar box guitars. I have successfully created two of them. The second one being a whole lot better than the first and also the one that I am going to post pictures of. It took a total of 25 man hours to complete this project and I have learned a ton from the experience.

First off, I learn that without the proper tools, any project is nearly impossible. A couple things that I would recommend and will be purchasing to complete my next project: A FRET SAW!!! (I had to cut every fret hole by hand with a kitchen knife on three different fretboards because I messed up too much and wound up actually making a mini miter block to help), a fret hammer, dremel tool (mine broke during the project), planing tool, and a hole saw. But most importantly, get a carpenter's square (preferably one that you can clamp to the neck or body, etc..)

Second, I learned that filing off the burs on metal makes the metal really freaking hot (kinda self explanatory really, but even after several years of college experience the concept eludes me) And that you have to be really careful with the filing cause you don't want to accidentally file the fretboard or neck of the guitar. Just be careful in general with filing unless you want torn up hands and fingers. (I do have rather large hands, so maybe it was just me.)

And lastly, stain, staining took up most of my time. Mostly because I have not performed a whole lot of staining procedures before this project. I had to teach myself a lot of the procedures like not using paper towels because they leave lint, don't use new rags (oxymoron, but you know what I mean), and let the layers of stain set in between soaks. Although, it makes the whole procedure go a lot faster if you plan to perform some other acts of building (i.e. sanding, cutting other boards, etc...)

But that is it. On the next posts I will put pictures of the process and other fun stuff like that for Mark III.