First Day

This is a one semester class through Red Rocks Community College here in Golden, CO.  I've enrolled in the session that meets on Thursday's at 6 p.m. through 10 p.m. with Saturday's at 8 a.m. through 12 noon. 

So lets get started. 

Yesterday I began thicknessing my sides.  These are made of East Indian Rosewood and I feel very fortunate to have such beautiful wood from my LMI kit (Luthier Mercantile International).  I've been VERY impressed with the quality of wood found in this kit.  Besides, the woods were chosen by our very own Robert O'Brien.  Please check out LMI Inc. at http://www.lmii.com/ for more information as well as Robert O'Brien's DVDs. 

Okay back to the sides.  We began by thicknessing our sides to about 2.2 mm.  Our original bookmached pieces of wood were about 4.5 to 5 mm thick.  We first used a "safety plainer" to bring the thickness to about 2.5 or so mm thick.  At this point I immediately noticed some beautiful coloring in my wood.  I was lucky enough to have some light hughes mixed in with the dark rosewood.  These will definitely be my outside edges of my guitar.  Next, we put the pieces of rosewood through a drum sander to bring to a final thickness.  My particular wood was stiffer than most and I wound up taking mine down to about 2.0 mm thick.  Next, we will begin bending our sides and place them in our form jig.  Keep posted!

-Dallas

Introduction

Well, I've been wanting to build my very own guitar for quite some time.  Low and behold the country's largest lutherie school is only 10 minutes from my house.  What a deal!  Anyway, I've signed up to take the steel string guitar building class taught by luthier Robert O'Brien.  This blog will be a journal of my build process.  I hope you enjoy!

-Dallas