First impressions: Build a Guitar class

Last night I went to the first meeting of the guitar-building class that I signed up for with the local community college. It was definitely not what I expected. First of all, to say that I'm in over my head is putting it mildly. Second, it seems that many other people in the class are in a similar boat.

There's an odd mix of people in the class. There are two people taking the class who have made instruments before. One, a guy, went to a luthier school in 1983, but dropped out. The other, a woman, is hardcore and has made a dulcimer and a banjo -- also she mentioned casually that she has built a boat. O...K..... Then there's a old scrawny dude who knows everything about electric guitars and how they're made. There's another woman, who brought her 10-year-old daughter to be bored to death, who neither plays guitar nor has any woodworking experience. Then there's the rest of us, with a varied background in guitar-playing and wood.

I must confess, I'm a "work the plan" kind of person when it comes to projects like this. My ideal experience would be a box of lego pieces with a little plan sheet showing exactly which brick goes where. This, however, is not going to be that kind of experience. First of all, there is no plan. We're supposed to figure out what kind of guitar we want to build, and then draw up a design. Uh, right. Second, I imagined that I might build an acoustic guitar, something I might play. Now I find out that acoustic guitars are insanely difficult to make, and that the class is geared more towards electric solid-body or semi-acoustic (eg an archtop) guitars. I know squat about electric guitars and how to play them.

So my task for next Monday is to design the guitar I'm going to make and sketch a full-scale drawing of it on graph paper. I'm going to see if I can find something on the internet to help me. The teacher is a "do your own thing" kind of guy, which explains the class format, but hopefully there will be some actual teaching and learning during this experience. I guess I will get out of it what I put in.