The sides, the neck, and the old, cracked top from the acoustic bass guitar kit

As of this post I have never made a wooden instrument.  I do play the piano, drums, guitar and bass guitar and have for several decades, though.  In the interest of transparency I have to date cut a coconut in half, and that is it.  I can now make percussive sounds akin to Monty Python’s Holy Grail’s skits wherein the knight rides with his manservant clopping coconut halves together.  Now that you know that I’m under-qualified, let me tell you the following:

About three years ago [maybe four, I haven't kept track very closely] I received, as a gift, an acoustic bass guitar kit that someone had started but was unable to finish [they died].  I stuck the kit in the closet and it has sat there until this last month.  I got inspired to dig it out because my brother’s neighbor makes guitars and I realized that I wanted to learn how to make guitars and pursue something with physical results since I make software for a living.  Since my brother’s neighbor lives 1,000 or so miles away, and since there are books, blogs, forums and various online resources like the O’Brien Guitar video series on YouTube, I decided to get reading and watching and learning so that I could finish the kit.

One more thing: the guitar assembly was started in Florida where the humidity is somewhere near 110% and was then shipped to Colorado.  I believe our average humidity is somewhere near 35%.  The guitar kit (shown at the top this post) has some rough bits and I even started to remove the kerfing because the accuracy wasn’t what I thought it should be.  I’m glad I stopped because a plane will take care of the waves in the kerfing.  Additionally the spruce top that was started cracked badly due to the humidity difference.  I had to order a new one top and bracing for a new top.  This will require a bit of reverse engineering, but we’ll make it work.

This blog is going to journey through my making of the acoustic bass guitar [ABG],  as well as notes and discoveries I make along the way.  I hope to assemble other guitars in the future, including a classical, a steel string, an arch top, and a mandolin.