On Tue, 1 Oct 2024 10:43:36 +0100, Ottavio Caruso
Post by Ottavio Carusohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenor_guitar
Tenor guitars cost a lot (compare to a standard tenor guitar) because of
lack of mass production and the quality is mediocre. I spent just under
£200 for a mediocre tenor guitar. With the same money I could have
bought a more than decent 6 string acoustic guitar.
Building a guitar from scratch is not a option, but converting a
smallish acoustic guitar into a tenor guitar could be an option.
All it takes is to change and file the nut, change or modify the bridge,
change and file the saddle.
I have been told that the tools to do that are very expensive
(especially the file).
Has anybody had a go at amateur luthiery? What would be the investment?
I am not talking of expensive CNS machines and all that jazz, just
enough to do change nut, bridge and saddle?
I don't mind investing a couple of £100s if this is coming back after a
couple of conversions.
I think you might be, as we English like to say, "putting the cart
before the horse." Good tools won't turn you into a talented craftsman
any more than a good pair of football boots will make you a soccer
superstar but if you have basic competency with woodworking tools and
the confidence to use them then the specialist equipment can come
later.
You never really answered some of my questions when you brought up
this subject before and to be honest those answers are more than
somewhat germain to moving forward on this. Care to revisit them?
As nomail suggested in <***@mid.individual.net> you are
unlikely to be satisfied by trying to convert something that began
life as something different but if you really don't want to start from
scratch a robust rebuild of a poor quality or badly built original
could give you an instrument to enjoy. If you have built up other
craft skills you can do it, even if you've never specifically worked
on instruments before. With imagination you can use those tools you
already have access to in order to achieve most of the work and can
make or adapt most of the others. (eg Nut files are great - I have
loads of them - but a ground-down junior hacksaw blade will get you
out of trouble with nut slots most of the time. Etc. Etc.)
YouTube videos are excellent if that's your preferred way of learning
but visiting makers in their workshops taught me a lot. The London
College of Furniture Musical Instrument Making course is long gone but
its students and teachers are still working all over London and
beyond. Go and see some of them.
Finally, being in the company of people who are doing craft for
enjoyment can be a great experience as you all teach and learn
together. Although FE Evening classes in woodwork etc are mostly
something from the past (I used to teach instrument making at an
evening class in the Tec in Southend-on-Sea) U3A has all sorts of
opportunities all over the place and it doesn't matter if you are not
a pensioner yet but absolutely fine if you are.
Nick