Luthiery Laboratories

I originally conceived the "Cowbell" above for an online "Build-off". Then I realized how ridiculous these online "build-offs" really are, and dropped the idea entirely.

Three months is not enough time for a home builder to complete a guitar, especially over the winter. It takes at least a month just to apply a decent finish and let it cure. Most of the entries in these build-offs are never actually completed, and the few that make it before the deadline are done with oil-rubbed crappiness ** that doesn't even qualify as a finish. That's a shame because a lot of the woodwork is very impressive, but the finished product is not.

** I give myself two demerits for bad words.

Ironically, the Cowbell, with its resilient hammered spray paint finish, would have easily made the deadline and would have been one of only two entries with an actual finish on it.

My 4001 project also would have made it if I had not gone off on a tangent with neck inlays. If I had simply built a standard dotted neck for it, I would have had two completed entries, both of them with proper non-oiled finishes.

I have several other projects in the works, and there is absolutely no way I could rush even one through to completion in the three months allowed. Not to my standards.

It is also notable that the organizer of the "build-off" handily won his own competition, having openly prototyped the whole thing in advance.