The five secrets of building a Weissenborn guitar
For over twenty years I had always been very curious about building a guitar. I had played acoustic guitars almost since I could remember. I had a great mate who lived just down the road from and we did everything together so when he announced he was going to learn to play guitar, naturally, I didn't want to be left out! We bought a couple of new guitars and practised hard together even on cold Winter's night we went to the local Laundrette to practise when our folks threw us out!......Yes, my enthusiasm has never waned all through my great hippy youth until today where I find myself living on a yacht in Australia with eight wonderful guitars at the dodgy age of fifty eight..I even still do a few gigs!
But I digress! no matter how many guitars I owned over the years...and I have owned a few...I always had a secret desire to build one for myself. I proudly imagined how I would lovingly carve it all out, inlay it with black Coral, turquoise, silver and glowing mother of pearl. But, whenever it came to the crunch I just didn't have the balls to actually get stuck in and get to grips with it.
What was wrong? I couldn't work it out. I had achieved many other things I had set out to do along my journey through life. I'd built a 43 foot yacht, for one thing. I had learned that in order to finish a project off was to tell every living soul I knew that I was going to do it...that way, I knew that later,when my enthusiasm flagged, I just had to see it through, if I didn't I would get the reputation as a bigmouth 'gonna be, wanna be" I secretly thought of it as my 'insurance policy! It really helped, for sure.
However, as much as I loved playing, my life took a big jolt when I finally went to see a great Aussie guy called Jeff Lang play at a concert in my home town. I sat enthralled, spun out, totally blown away at the rich, vibrant, cool whiny sound that seemed to leap from this amazingly shaped lap steel guitar.
It just did not seem possible that a guitar could sound so full, so haunting, so melodic, to tell you the truth, I was so overcome with it all, I felt tears run down my face I felt such a fool...Well, what a state to get in!It was a big crossroads in my guitar playing!
This incident never left me the same again... I wanted one of those Weissenborns so bad it hurt. I felt I couldn't face my other guitars again. I sulked, we didn't speak for some weeks.....but I gave in, had to I'd wanted a Taylor all my life...now I'd got it, wasn't I ever going to play it again? Something was different though...I wanted to play that bloody thing like I'd never wanted to play before, so I did, you'd better believe it. I dont even want to think about how long and how many hours it took me to start improving but I damn well did.
I've taken all this time to get around to the whole point of this article. I had got over the indecision that had haunted me...I couldn't afford two or three grand to buy a good lap steel. No way.
I luckily have a great friend in Luthier Kim Hancock of Tamborine Mountain in Queensland. Kim, a kind soul along with his two boys ( also fearsome luthiers) Dane and Sean, build guitars that are something else already established as amongst the best in the World market...
Kim was really encouraging and gave me my first secret, unwittingly. If you start it and stuff it up...so what? It's only a piece of wood, see what you did wrong, chuck it in the garbage and order another piece..simple! Then, do it right the second time!
The second secret came right on the back of the first one.! Dont let the project intimidate you...take control of it..you are the master, it is the subject.
The best secret of all came as I started to build ....I remembered the words during our conversation a few weeks before....Treat every stage of the build as a separate project. The back, the sides, the bridge, the headstock.. a separate project. See, thats a good secret, I reckon. That way you can see the build as lots of small projects instead of one big overwhelming monster......Hey and give yourself a reward every time you complete one of those stages..a beer, a lollypop, go splash out people, dont get cheap on yourselves!
The next secret is this: During the build there is always something that will stop you dead in your tracks. With me it was" How in Hell's bells am I ever going to get the back join perfect or the front one, come to mention it?"Well, my secret was in the fact that I had a good guitar making book supplied to me by Kim. The answer was in there! Glue some sandpaper to a straight edged spirit level and then sand each section smooth as a baby's bum...see, simple when you know how!
So, find your way round every problem by thinking about it carefully...there is always a way round each problem you encounter, it may not always be the way you had imagined! Oh, yeah, the name of the book is " A guitar Maker's manual by Jim Williams" You can get that from Kim Hancock's site
www.Australian Luthiers supplies.com.au Let me say though, there are no plans for a Weissenbourn in there, you can get those from StewMac in the U.S. or other suppliers.
The final secret is a real simple one: Make a firm decision to see it through to the end. I actually live on a yacht in a Marina.. I nearly talked myself out of building the guitar time and time again. I have heard so many times" How can I build a guitar when I havn't got a shed, a bench saw and so on?" BS people, BS with a capital BULL. Make the best of what you have, get your timber supplier to cut up the timber to size, then get it planed so you dont need all that expensive gear, Man,THEY got it all!
There are a few more secrets too....I have written a book "How to build a Weissenborn Guitar"that will give you a few more lights to shine in those dark corners of that mind of yours! to help you do this thing!This guitar is really basic, just like the originals, no purfling ,no truss rods( they dont need 'em) bone simple but the sound! YEE haaa!
It tells you how to build the guitar of your dreams at your own speed right there at home, in the shed garage or flat with the very minimum of tools and experience. I have a temporary page called
" weissenborn" on my site www.dolphinboatplans.com that you can also see in the authors resource box.
There are some pictures of my new weissenborn there, made incidentally, with Australian Maple( a cousin of Koa) and an indian rosewood fretboard which actually does not have any frets on at all and maybe never will!
Finally, I do hope that any of you out there reading this article will want to know how my Weissenborn turned out.....bloody awesome! It is the loudest guitar I have ever heard in thirty years of playing... I can hardly sing over the sound of it!!! and that's saying something people cause I do have one loud voice.. not a good one folks, but a loud one!! It's been a levelling but incredible experience, thanks again to my good mate Kim Hancock for all the help and advice he so freely gave to meespecially when he didn't have to!For over twenty years I had always been very curious about building a guitar. I had played acoustic guitars almost since I could remember. I had a great mate who lived just down the road from and we did everything together so when he announced he was going to learn to play guitar, naturally, I didn't want to be left out! We bought a couple of new guitars and practised hard together even on cold Winter's night we went to the local Laundrette to practise when our folks threw us out!......Yes, my enthusiasm has never waned all through my great hippy youth until today where I find myself living on a yacht in Australia with eight wonderful guitars at the dodgy age of fifty eight..I even still do a few gigs!
But I digress! no matter how many guitars I owned over the years...and I have owned a few...I always had a secret desire to build one for myself. I proudly imagined how I would lovingly carve it all out, inlay it with black Coral, turquoise, silver and glowing mother of pearl. But, whenever it came to the crunch I just didn't have the balls to actually get stuck in and get to grips with it.
What was wrong? I couldn't work it out. I had achieved many other things I had set out to do along my journey through life. I'd built a 43 foot yacht, for one thing. I had learned that in order to finish a project off was to tell every living soul I knew that I was going to do it...that way, I knew that later,when my enthusiasm flagged, I just had to see it through, if I didn't I would get the reputation as a bigmouth 'gonna be, wanna be" I secretly thought of it as my 'insurance policy! It really helped, for sure.
However, as much as I loved playing, my life took a big jolt when I finally went to see a great Aussie guy called Jeff Lang play at a concert in my home town. I sat enthralled, spun out, totally blown away at the rich, vibrant, cool whiny sound that seemed to leap from this amazingly shaped lap steel guitar.
It just did not seem possible that a guitar could sound so full, so haunting, so melodic, to tell you the truth, I was so overcome with it all, I felt tears run down my face I felt such a fool...Well, what a state to get in!It was a big crossroads in my guitar playing!
This incident never left me the same again... I wanted one of those Weissenborns so bad it hurt. I felt I couldn't face my other guitars again. I sulked, we didn't speak for some weeks.....but I gave in, had to I'd wanted a Taylor all my life...now I'd got it, wasn't I ever going to play it again? Something was different though...I wanted to play that bloody thing like I'd never wanted to play before, so I did, you'd better believe it. I dont even want to think about how long and how many hours it took me to start improving but I damn well did.
I've taken all this time to get around to the whole point of this article. I had got over the indecision that had haunted me...I couldn't afford two or three grand to buy a good lap steel. No way.
I luckily have a great friend in Luthier Kim Hancock of Tamborine Mountain in Queensland. Kim, a kind soul along with his two boys ( also fearsome luthiers) Dane and Sean, build guitars that are something else already established as amongst the best in the World market...
Kim was really encouraging and gave me my first secret, unwittingly. If you start it and stuff it up...so what? It's only a piece of wood, see what you did wrong, chuck it in the garbage and order another piece..simple! Then, do it right the second time!
The second secret came right on the back of the first one.! Dont let the project intimidate you...take control of it..you are the master, it is the subject.
The best secret of all came as I started to build ....I remembered the words during our conversation a few weeks before....Treat every stage of the build as a separate project. The back, the sides, the bridge, the headstock.. a separate project. See, thats a good secret, I reckon. That way you can see the build as lots of small projects instead of one big overwhelming monster......Hey and give yourself a reward every time you complete one of those stages..a beer, a lollypop, go splash out people, dont get cheap on yourselves!
The next secret is this: During the build there is always something that will stop you dead in your tracks. With me it was" How in Hell's bells am I ever going to get the back join perfect or the front one, come to mention it?"Well, my secret was in the fact that I had a good guitar making book supplied to me by Kim. The answer was in there! Glue some sandpaper to a straight edged spirit level and then sand each section smooth as a baby's bum...see, simple when you know how!
So, find your way round every problem by thinking about it carefully...there is always a way round each problem you encounter, it may not always be the way you had imagined! Oh, yeah, the name of the book is " A guitar Maker's manual by Jim Williams" You can get that from Kim Hancock's site
www.Australian Luthiers supplies.com.au Let me say though, there are no plans for a Weissenbourn in there, you can get those from StewMac in the U.S. or other suppliers.
The final secret is a real simple one: Make a firm decision to see it through to the end. I actually live on a yacht in a Marina.. I nearly talked myself out of building the guitar time and time again. I have heard so many times" How can I build a guitar when I havn't got a shed, a bench saw and so on?" BS people, BS with a capital BULL. Make the best of what you have, get your timber supplier to cut up the timber to size, then get it planed so you dont need all that expensive gear, Man,THEY got it all!
There are a few more secrets too....I have written a book "How to build a Weissenborn Guitar"that will give you a few more lights to shine in those dark corners of that mind of yours! to help you do this thing!This guitar is really basic, just like the originals, no purfling ,no truss rods( they dont need 'em) bone simple but the sound! YEE haaa!
It tells you how to build the guitar of your dreams at your own speed right there at home, in the shed garage or flat with the very minimum of tools and experience. I have a temporary page called
" weissenborn" on my site www.dolphinboatplans.com that you can also see in the authors resource box.
There are some pictures of my new weissenborn there, made incidentally, with Australian Maple( a cousin of Koa) and an indian rosewood fretboard which actually does not have any frets on at all and maybe never will!
Finally, I do hope that any of you out there reading this article will want to know how my Weissenborn turned out.....bloody awesome! It is the loudest guitar I have ever heard in thirty years of playing... I can hardly sing over the sound of it!!! and that's saying something people cause I do have one loud voice.. not a good one folks, but a loud one!! It's been a levelling but incredible experience, thanks again to my good mate Kim Hancock for all the help and advice he so freely gave to meespecially when he didn't have to!For over twenty years I had always been very curious about building a guitar. I had played acoustic guitars almost since I could remember. I had a great mate who lived just down the road from and we did everything together so when he announced he was going to learn to play guitar, naturally, I didn't want to be left out! We bought a couple of new guitars and practised hard together even on cold Winter's night we went to the local Laundrette to practise when our folks threw us out!......Yes, my enthusiasm has never waned all through my great hippy youth until today where I find myself living on a yacht in Australia with eight wonderful guitars at the dodgy age of fifty eight..I even still do a few gigs!
But I digress! no matter how many guitars I owned over the years...and I have owned a few...I always had a secret desire to build one for myself. I proudly imagined how I would lovingly carve it all out, inlay it with black Coral, turquoise, silver and glowing mother of pearl. But, whenever it came to the crunch I just didn't have the balls to actually get stuck in and get to grips with it.
What was wrong? I couldn't work it out. I had achieved many other things I had set out to do along my journey through life. I'd built a 43 foot yacht, for one thing. I had learned that in order to finish a project off was to tell every living soul I knew that I was going to do it...that way, I knew that later,when my enthusiasm flagged, I just had to see it through, if I didn't I would get the reputation as a bigmouth 'gonna be, wanna be" I secretly thought of it as my 'insurance policy! It really helped, for sure.
However, as much as I loved playing, my life took a big jolt when I finally went to see a great Aussie guy called Jeff Lang play at a concert in my home town. I sat enthralled, spun out, totally blown away at the rich, vibrant, cool whiny sound that seemed to leap from this amazingly shaped lap steel guitar.
It just did not seem possible that a guitar could sound so full, so haunting, so melodic, to tell you the truth, I was so overcome with it all, I felt tears run down my face I felt such a fool...Well, what a state to get in!It was a big crossroads in my guitar playing!
This incident never left me the same again... I wanted one of those Weissenborns so bad it hurt. I felt I couldn't face my other guitars again. I sulked, we didn't speak for some weeks.....but I gave in, had to I'd wanted a Taylor all my life...now I'd got it, wasn't I ever going to play it again? Something was different though...I wanted to play that bloody thing like I'd never wanted to play before, so I did, you'd better believe it. I dont even want to think about how long and how many hours it took me to start improving but I damn well did.
I've taken all this time to get around to the whole point of this article. I had got over the indecision that had haunted me...I couldn't afford two or three grand to buy a good lap steel. No way.
I luckily have a great friend in Luthier Kim Hancock of Tamborine Mountain in Queensland. Kim, a kind soul along with his two boys ( also fearsome luthiers) Dane and Sean, build guitars that are something else already established as amongst the best in the World market...
Kim was really encouraging and gave me my first secret, unwittingly. If you start it and stuff it up...so what? It's only a piece of wood, see what you did wrong, chuck it in the garbage and order another piece..simple! Then, do it right the second time!
The second secret came right on the back of the first one.! Dont let the project intimidate you...take control of it..you are the master, it is the subject.
The best secret of all came as I started to build ....I remembered the words during our conversation a few weeks before....Treat every stage of the build as a separate project. The back, the sides, the bridge, the headstock.. a separate project. See, thats a good secret, I reckon. That way you can see the build as lots of small projects instead of one big overwhelming monster......Hey and give yourself a reward every time you complete one of those stages..a beer, a lollypop, go splash out people, dont get cheap on yourselves!
The next secret is this: During the build there is always something that will stop you dead in your tracks. With me it was" How in Hell's bells am I ever going to get the back join perfect or the front one, come to mention it?"Well, my secret was in the fact that I had a good guitar making book supplied to me by Kim. The answer was in there! Glue some sandpaper to a straight edged spirit level and then sand each section smooth as a baby's bum...see, simple when you know how!
So, find your way round every problem by thinking about it carefully...there is always a way round each problem you encounter, it may not always be the way you had imagined! Oh, yeah, the name of the book is " A guitar Maker's manual by Jim Williams" You can get that from Kim Hancock's site
www.Australian Luthiers supplies.com.au Let me say though, there are no plans for a Weissenbourn in there, you can get those from StewMac in the U.S. or other suppliers.
The final secret is a real simple one: Make a firm decision to see it through to the end. I actually live on a yacht in a Marina.. I nearly talked myself out of building the guitar time and time again. I have heard so many times" How can I build a guitar when I havn't got a shed, a bench saw and so on?" BS people, BS with a capital BULL. Make the best of what you have, get your timber supplier to cut up the timber to size, then get it planed so you dont need all that expensive gear, Man,THEY got it all!
There are a few more secrets too....I have written a book "How to build a Weissenborn Guitar"that will give you a few more lights to shine in those dark corners of that mind of yours! to help you do this thing!This guitar is really basic, just like the originals, no purfling ,no truss rods( they dont need 'em) bone simple but the sound! YEE haaa!
It tells you how to build the guitar of your dreams at your own speed right there at home, in the shed garage or flat with the very minimum of tools and experience. I have a temporary page called
" weissenborn" on my site www.dolphinboatplans.com that you can also see in the authors resource box.
There are some pictures of my new weissenborn there, made incidentally, with Australian Maple( a cousin of Koa) and an indian rosewood fretboard which actually does not have any frets on at all and maybe never will!
Finally, I do hope that any of you out there reading this article will want to know how my Weissenborn turned out.....bloody awesome! It is the loudest guitar I have ever heard in thirty years of playing... I can hardly sing over the sound of it!!! and that's saying something people cause I do have one loud voice.. not a good one folks, but a loud one!! It's been a levelling but incredible experience, thanks again to my good mate Kim Hancock for all the help and advice he so freely gave to meespecially when he didn't have to!For over twenty years I had always been very curious about building a guitar. I had played acoustic guitars almost since I could remember. I had a great mate who lived just down the road from and we did everything together so when he announced he was going to learn to play guitar, naturally, I didn't want to be left out! We bought a couple of new guitars and practised hard together even on cold Winter's night we went to the local Laundrette to practise when our folks threw us out!......Yes, my enthusiasm has never waned all through my great hippy youth until today where I find myself living on a yacht in Australia with eight wonderful guitars at the dodgy age of fifty eight..I even still do a few gigs!
But I digress! no matter how many guitars I owned over the years...and I have owned a few...I always had a secret desire to build one for myself. I proudly imagined how I would lovingly carve it all out, inlay it with black Coral, turquoise, silver and glowing mother of pearl. But, whenever it came to the crunch I just didn't have the balls to actually get stuck in and get to grips with it.
What was wrong? I couldn't work it out. I had achieved many other things I had set out to do along my journey through life. I'd built a 43 foot yacht, for one thing. I had learned that in order to finish a project off was to tell every living soul I knew that I was going to do it...that way, I knew that later,when my enthusiasm flagged, I just had to see it through, if I didn't I would get the reputation as a bigmouth 'gonna be, wanna be" I secretly thought of it as my 'insurance policy! It really helped, for sure.
However, as much as I loved playing, my life took a big jolt when I finally went to see a great Aussie guy called Jeff Lang play at a concert in my home town. I sat enthralled, spun out, totally blown away at the rich, vibrant, cool whiny sound that seemed to leap from this amazingly shaped lap steel guitar.
It just did not seem possible that a guitar could sound so full, so haunting, so melodic, to tell you the truth, I was so overcome with it all, I felt tears run down my face I felt such a fool...Well, what a state to get in!It was a big crossroads in my guitar playing!
This incident never left me the same again... I wanted one of those Weissenborns so bad it hurt. I felt I couldn't face my other guitars again. I sulked, we didn't speak for some weeks.....but I gave in, had to I'd wanted a Taylor all my life...now I'd got it, wasn't I ever going to play it again? Something was different though...I wanted to play that bloody thing like I'd never wanted to play before, so I did, you'd better believe it. I dont even want to think about how long and how many hours it took me to start improving but I damn well did.
I've taken all this time to get around to the whole point of this article. I had got over the indecision that had haunted me...I couldn't afford two or three grand to buy a good lap steel. No way.
I luckily have a great friend in Luthier Kim Hancock of Tamborine Mountain in Queensland. Kim, a kind soul along with his two boys ( also fearsome luthiers) Dane and Sean, build guitars that are something else already established as amongst the best in the World market...
Kim was really encouraging and gave me my first secret, unwittingly. If you start it and stuff it up...so what? It's only a piece of wood, see what you did wrong, chuck it in the garbage and order another piece..simple! Then, do it right the second time!
The second secret came right on the back of the first one.! Dont let the project intimidate you...take control of it..you are the master, it is the subject.
The best secret of all came as I started to build ....I remembered the words during our conversation a few weeks before....Treat every stage of the build as a separate project. The back, the sides, the bridge, the headstock.. a separate project. See, thats a good secret, I reckon. That way you can see the build as lots of small projects instead of one big overwhelming monster......Hey and give yourself a reward every time you complete one of those stages..a beer, a lollypop, go splash out people, dont get cheap on yourselves!
The next secret is this: During the build there is always something that will stop you dead in your tracks. With me it was" How in Hell's bells am I ever going to get the back join perfect or the front one, come to mention it?"Well, my secret was in the fact that I had a good guitar making book supplied to me by Kim. The answer was in there! Glue some sandpaper to a straight edged spirit level and then sand each section smooth as a baby's bum...see, simple when you know how!
So, find your way round every problem by thinking about it carefully...there is always a way round each problem you encounter, it may not always be the way you had imagined! Oh, yeah, the name of the book is " A guitar Maker's manual by Jim Williams" You can get that from Kim Hancock's site
www.Australian Luthiers supplies.com.au Let me say though, there are no plans for a Weissenbourn in there, you can get those from StewMac in the U.S. or other suppliers.
The final secret is a real simple one: Make a firm decision to see it through to the end. I actually live on a yacht in a Marina.. I nearly talked myself out of building the guitar time and time again. I have heard so many times" How can I build a guitar when I havn't got a shed, a bench saw and so on?" BS people, BS with a capital BULL. Make the best of what you have, get your timber supplier to cut up the timber to size, then get it planed so you dont need all that expensive gear, Man,THEY got it all!
There are a few more secrets too....I have written a book "How to build a Weissenborn Guitar"that will give you a few more lights to shine in those dark corners of that mind of yours! to help you do this thing!This guitar is really basic, just like the originals, no purfling ,no truss rods( they dont need 'em) bone simple but the sound! YEE haaa!
It tells you how to build the guitar of your dreams at your own speed right there at home, in the shed garage or flat with the very minimum of tools and experience. I have a temporary page called
" weissenborn" on my site www.dolphinboatplans.com that you can also see in the authors resource box.
There are some pictures of my new weissenborn there, made incidentally, with Australian Maple( a cousin of Koa) and an indian rosewood fretboard which actually does not have any frets on at all and maybe never will!
Finally, I do hope that any of you out there reading this article will want to know how my Weissenborn turned out.....bloody awesome! It is the loudest guitar I have ever heard in thirty years of playing... I can hardly sing over the sound of it!!! and that's saying something people cause I do have one loud voice.. not a good one folks, but a loud one!! It's been a levelling but incredible experience, thanks again to my good mate Kim Hancock for all the help and advice he so freely gave to meespecially when he didn't have to!For over twenty years I had always been very curious about building a guitar. I had played acoustic guitars almost since I could remember. I had a great mate who lived just down the road from and we did everything together so when he announced he was going to learn to play guitar, naturally, I didn't want to be left out! We bought a couple of new guitars and practised hard together even on cold Winter's night we went to the local Laundrette to practise when our folks threw us out!......Yes, my enthusiasm has never waned all through my great hippy youth until today where I find myself living on a yacht in Australia with eight wonderful guitars at the dodgy age of fifty eight..I even still do a few gigs!
But I digress! no matter how many guitars I owned over the years...and I have owned a few...I always had a secret desire to build one for myself. I proudly imagined how I would lovingly carve it all out, inlay it with black Coral, turquoise, silver and glowing mother of pearl. But, whenever it came to the crunch I just didn't have the balls to actually get stuck in and get to grips with it.
What was wrong? I couldn't work it out. I had achieved many other things I had set out to do along my journey through life. I'd built a 43 foot yacht, for one thing. I had learned that in order to finish a project off was to tell every living soul I knew that I was going to do it...that way, I knew that later,when my enthusiasm flagged, I just had to see it through, if I didn't I would get the reputation as a bigmouth 'gonna be, wanna be" I secretly thought of it as my 'insurance policy! It really helped, for sure.
However, as much as I loved playing, my life took a big jolt when I finally went to see a great Aussie guy called Jeff Lang play at a concert in my home town. I sat enthralled, spun out, totally blown away at the rich, vibrant, cool whiny sound that seemed to leap from this amazingly shaped lap steel guitar.
It just did not seem possible that a guitar could sound so full, so haunting, so melodic, to tell you the truth, I was so overcome with it all, I felt tears run down my face I felt such a fool...Well, what a state to get in!It was a big crossroads in my guitar playing!
This incident never left me the same again... I wanted one of those Weissenborns so bad it hurt. I felt I couldn't face my other guitars again. I sulked, we didn't speak for some weeks.....but I gave in, had to I'd wanted a Taylor all my life...now I'd got it, wasn't I ever going to play it again? Something was different though...I wanted to play that bloody thing like I'd never wanted to play before, so I did, you'd better believe it. I dont even want to think about how long and how many hours it took me to start improving but I damn well did.
I've taken all this time to get around to the whole point of this article. I had got over the indecision that had haunted me...I couldn't afford two or three grand to buy a good lap steel. No way.
I luckily have a great friend in Luthier Kim Hancock of Tamborine Mountain in Queensland. Kim, a kind soul along with his two boys ( also fearsome luthiers) Dane and Sean, build guitars that are something else already established as amongst the best in the World market...
Kim was really encouraging and gave me my first secret, unwittingly. If you start it and stuff it up...so what? It's only a piece of wood, see what you did wrong, chuck it in the garbage and order another piece..simple! Then, do it right the second time!
The second secret came right on the back of the first one.! Dont let the project intimidate you...take control of it..you are the master, it is the subject.
The best secret of all came as I started to build ....I remembered the words during our conversation a few weeks before....Treat every stage of the build as a separate project. The back, the sides, the bridge, the headstock.. a separate project. See, thats a good secret, I reckon. That way you can see the build as lots of small projects instead of one big overwhelming monster......Hey and give yourself a reward every time you complete one of those stages..a beer, a lollypop, go splash out people, dont get cheap on yourselves!
The next secret is this: During the build there is always something that will stop you dead in your tracks. With me it was" How in Hell's bells am I ever going to get the back join perfect or the front one, come to mention it?"Well, my secret was in the fact that I had a good guitar making book supplied to me by Kim. The answer was in there! Glue some sandpaper to a straight edged spirit level and then sand each section smooth as a baby's bum...see, simple when you know how!
So, find your way round every problem by thinking about it carefully...there is always a way round each problem you encounter, it may not always be the way you had imagined! Oh, yeah, the name of the book is " A guitar Maker's manual by Jim Williams" You can get that from Kim Hancock's site
www.Australian Luthiers supplies.com.au Let me say though, there are no plans for a Weissenbourn in there, you can get those from StewMac in the U.S. or other suppliers.
The final secret is a real simple one: Make a firm decision to see it through to the end. I actually live on a yacht in a Marina.. I nearly talked myself out of building the guitar time and time again. I have heard so many times" How can I build a guitar when I havn't got a shed, a bench saw and so on?" BS people, BS with a capital BULL. Make the best of what you have, get your timber supplier to cut up the timber to size, then get it planed so you dont need all that expensive gear, Man,THEY got it all!
There are a few more secrets too....I have written a book "How to build a Weissenborn Guitar" that will give you a few more lights to shine in those dark corners of that mind of yours! to help you do this thing!This guitar is really basic, just like the originals, no purfling ,no truss rods( they dont need 'em) bone simple but the sound! YEE haaa!
It tells you how to build the guitar of your dreams at your own speed right there at home, in the shed garage or flat with the very minimum of tools and experience. I have a temporary page called
" weissenborn" on my site www.dolphinboatplans.com that you can also see in the authors resource box.
There are some pictures of my new weissenborn there, made incidentally, with Australian Maple( a cousin of Koa) and an indian rosewood fretboard which actually does not have any frets on at all and maybe never will!
Finally, I do hope that any of you out there reading this article will want to know how my Weissenborn turned out.....bloody awesome! It is the loudest guitar I have ever heard in thirty years of playing... I can hardly sing over the sound of it!!! and that's saying something people cause I do have one loud voice.. not a good one folks, but a loud one!! It's been a levelling but incredible experience, thanks again to my good mate Kim Hancock for all the help and advice he so freely gave to me especially when he didn't have to!
Terry's new weissenborn can be seen on www.build-a-weissenborn.com
Fourplay Yes, Please Smooth Jazz Music CD Review
The extremely talented group Fourplay has released their latest CD on the Warner Bros. Records recording label, entitled Yes, Please.
It's a rare day indeed that I get a CD from an artist that I can truthfully say does not have a bad track in the bunch. I'm more than happy to announce that’s exactly what I must say about this one. There simply is NOT a bad one in the bunch. No fillers here at all, with each song standing tall on it's own.
Yes, Please is a nicely varied, mix of 11 tracks that are very well written and brilliantly performed songs by these clearly outstanding musicians. With many of the songs displaying a lot of the kind emotion that makes for a really great listen. Clearly drawing from what I can only imagine are from life experiences. At different points touching on the most real emotions of love, heartbreak, pain, failed relationships and unattainable romance. They’re all here.
One of the refreshingly nice things about this CD is the way all of the participating artists seem to be really enjoying themselves. Combine that with the overall presentation and you’ve got one of Fourplay most impressive releases ever.
If you’re a Fourplay fan this is a CD your collection flat cannot be without. In fact, this is one of those CDs that you don’t even have to be a Smooth Jazz fan to know is good. This is just good music. Period.
While this entire album is really very good some of my favorites are track 2 - Double Trouble, track 3 - Once Upon A Love, and track 8 - Go With Your Heart
My SmoothLee Bonus Pick, and the one that got Sore [...as in "Stuck On REpeat"] is track 6 - Save Some Love For Me. Wow!
Yes, Please Release Notes:
Fourplay originally released Yes, Please on Aug 22, 2000 on the Warner Bros. Records label.
CD Track List Follows:
1. Free Range 2. Double Trouble 3. Once Upon A Love 4. Robo Bop 5. Blues Force 6. Save Some Love For Me - (featuring Chante Moore/Nathan East) 7. Fortress 8. Go With Your Heart 9. Poco A Poco 10. A Little Fourplay 11. Lucky
Fourplay: Nathan East (vocals, bass); Bob James (piano); Larry Carlton (guitar); Harvey Mason (drums). Additional personnel: Sherree, Chante Moore (vocals); Ken Freeman (programming). Recorded at Sear Sound and Remidi Sound, New York, New York; Larrabee East, Capitol Studios, and Pyramid Studios, Los Angeles, California.
Clyde Lee Dennis a life long music enthusiast, writes CD reviews and is also the Legal Editor at Chicago.eNewsBriefs.com covering topics like Chicago Attorneys and more. Visit Chicago eNewsBriefs for the latest Chicago News
George Benson and Al Jurreau Givin It Up Jazz Music CD Review
The exceptionally talented Jazz artist George Benson and Al Jurreau has released their CD entitled Givin' It Up. I am very confident and happy to announce that I believe George Benson and Al Jurreau fans, and Jazz fans alike will be pleased with this one. With the release of Givin' It Up George Benson and Al Jurreau’s artistic excellence is on full display as Benson and Jurreau has once again delivered a brilliant collection of tracks that could very well be their best work to date.
It's a rare day indeed that I get a CD from an artist that I can truthfully say does not have a bad track in the bunch. I'm more than happy to announce that’s exactly what I must say about this one. There simply isn’t a bad one in the bunch. No fillers here at all, with each song standing tall on it's own.
Givin' It Up is a nicely varied, mix of 13 tracks that are very well written songs by this clearly talented artist. Most of the songs display a lot of the kind emotion that makes for a really great listen. Seemingly drawing from what I can only imagine are their own real life experiences. At different points touching on the most real emotions like love, heartbreak, pain, failed relationships and unattainable romance. They’re all here.
Overall Givin' It Up is outstanding from beginning to end. One of those CDs that after a few listens the songs are just etched into your memory. A must have for the Jazz fan. Really sensational from beginning to end.
While this entire album is really very good the truly standout tunes are track 3 - Long Come Tutu, track 4 - God Bless The Child, and track 10 - Every Time You Go Away.
My SmoothLee Bonus Pick, and the one that got Sore [...as in "Stuck On REpeat"] is track 13 - Bring It On Home To Me. Wow!
Givin' It Up Release Notes:
George Benson and Al Jurreau originally released Givin' It Up on Oct 24, 2006 on the Concord Records label.
CD Track List Follows:
1. Breezin' 2. Morning 3. Long Come Tutu - (featuring Herbie Hancock) 4. God Bless The Child - (with Jill Scott) 5. Summer Breeze 6. All I Am 7. Ordinary People 8. Let It Rain - (with Patti Austin) 9. Givin' It Up For Love 10. Every Time You Go Away 11. Four 12. Don't Start No Schtuff 13. Bring It On Home To Me - (with Paul McCartney)
Personnel include: George Benson (vocals, guitar); Al Jarreau (vocals); Jill Scott, Patti Austin, Paul McCartney (vocals); Marion Meadows (saxophone); Chris Botti (trumpet); Herbie Hancock (piano); Patrice Rushen (keyboards); Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke (bass guitar); Michael White (drums); Paulinho Da Costa (percussion). Recording information: Henson Studios, Hollywood, CA (2005).
Clyde Lee Dennis a life long music enthusiast, writes CD reviews and is also the Education Editor at Detroit.eNewsBriefs.com covering topics like Detroit Public Schools and more. Visit Detroit eNewsBriefs for the latest Detroit News
