This is 5 Helpful Ideas for New Guitar Makers. In this post you’ll learn five ideas that can help you make great guitars right from the start. Enjoy.

(Updated 2023)

Helpful Guitar Making Ideas

When you’re interested in making acoustic guitars, any ideas you can find that help you further that interest and make it easier are always helpful. It’s through these ideas and new thoughts that you make your breakthroughs.

One of the ways to find new ideas about guitar making is to incorporate some of the five ideas that I’m going to show you in this post. These are meant to help you form more ideas, even though they are guitar making ideas in and of themselves.

If you make a couple of these a habit it, you’ll notice that you think more about acoustic guitar making in general, which means you’ll have more ideas in general, and that means a higher likelihood of making breakthroughs and discoveries.

See Also: 25 Simple Ways to Customize Your Guitar Without Changing the Tone

Make Guitar Making a Lifelong Study

The very first big idea about guitar making is to change the way that you think about the craft itself. Instead of thinking of it as a simple hobby, think of it more as a lifelong study, or field of expertise.

This changes guitar making from some small portion of your life that has a beginning and an end, and transforms it into something that lasts forever. This does a couple things for you, but the biggest is that it relaxes the sense of urgency.

You now have your entire life to learn about guitar making. You don’t have to cram it all into six months, and you don’t have to feel left behind if you continually learn new things every single year. Now it’s not a sprint anymore, it’s a marathon.

Changing your point of view on guitar making will change the way that you learn, and will encourage a tortoise style learning method where you slowly and continually progress every single day, week, month, and year.

See Also: You Can Make an Acoustic Guitar

Buy a New Guitar Making Book Every Year

Even if you are a new guitar maker, you more than likely have a few guitar making books at this point. Most new builders turn to books as their first study tools, and that’s definitely what I recommend if you haven’t done so already.

However, as part of your continuing education, and one idea about guitar making that I feel is very important, is to make sure that you buy and read at least one additional book every single year.

Again, this is not an exercise in rushing the process. Don’t feel like if one book a year is good that one book a month is great. In reality, you can’t fully absorb one book a month and understand everything that the author attempted to teach.

Instead, if you buy one book a year, and commit to studying that book slowly and carefully throughout the year, your understanding, application, and most importantly, retention rate will skyrocket.

See Also: Top 5 Acoustic Guitar Making Books

Always Have One Guitar In Process

Another big idea that’s helpful is to always have at least one acoustic guitar somewhere in process in your shop. This doesn’t have to be a full build for a customer or anything like that, it just needs to be a guitar in process.

This can even be as simple as a practice instrument that you keep around the shop for when you are between your full-time builds. Even further, it doesn’t need to be a full practice instrument. It can even just be parts of an instrument that you practice with.

For example, if you find that you need help with a certain aspect of guitar making, always keep that part in process in your shop. If you struggle with fretting, just have scrap fretboard blanks that you practice on between builds.

The secret hidden inside always having something to work on in your shop is that it alleviates the burden of wondering what to do when you go out there. This makes it easier to go out into the shop, because you technically always have something to do.

The less decisions you have to make, and the less barriers you have in between you and doing the work, the better. Even little barriers like wondering what to work on are still barriers. Remove them and optimize your environment, and will make it easier to build more often.

See Also: 25 Best Guitar Making Tips For Beginners

Study the Old Master Instrument Makers

The old classic instrument makers really knew what they were doing. This is not just limited to acoustic guitars, ans you should look back at the old violin and cello makers for inspiration as well.

Not only did these people craft incredible instruments hundreds of years ago, they also did it without any power tools, and by candlelight. If you ever wanted to study a more amazing group of instrument makers, you won’t find them anywhere else.

Just think about that for a second. There are times when you have likely struggled using the most modern of equipment and techniques. At the same time, you are likely in an enclosed space, with great lighting, and electricity.

The old masters had none of those luxurious, and they were able to crank out amazing instruments that have stood the test of time. They have also stood as examples for what the absolute pinnacle of the craft should look like.

See Also: 50 Things I Wish I Knew When I started Making Guitars

Don’t be Afraid to Try New Things

Another idea to be fully aware of is to try new things. More importantly, to not be afraid of trying new things. After all, until you try something new, you can’t make something different.

It’s not that you need to intentionally go out there and reinvent the way an acoustic guitar is made. That’s not the issue. The issue is that you allow yourself to be open minded and try some things. This is a demonstration that you understand the long game.

If you go back to the very first idea, which is making acoustic guitar making a lifelong study, then trying new things doesn’t seem like a waste of time. If you are in a short game mindset, trying something other than the normal feels like a waste of effort.

Don’t worry about trying new things. In fact, you may stumble upon something that you really enjoy doing, even if it doesn’t revolutionize the world of guitar making.

See Also: 15 Amazing Tips on How to Become a More Productive Woodworker

Write Down Your Ideas (Bonus Idea)

Finally, the way that you have good ideas start simply by just having ideas. As part of making the study of guitars a lifelong process, you can start by writing down one idea about guitar making every single day.

This doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, and it can simply be something that you’ve learned, observed, or would like to try. Write down that idea in a notebook, and keep that notebook someplace safe.

After several months, you will have tons of ideas to go through. After a year, you’ll have 365 ideas about guitar making all written in one place. You’ll be able to go back through them, pick out the gems, and execute the ideas.

It doesn’t matter how little you know about guitar making at this moment. Just with simple mathematics, the odds of you having 365 terrible ideas are nearly impossible. You might have a better chance of winning the lottery.

When you start to go back through your ideas, you’ll naturally begin to combine and condense them into more tangible thoughts that you can bring into your shop. Make this a daily habit, and that’s how you develop as a guitar maker.

See Also: You Can Make an Acoustic Guitar

Your Action Assignment

Now that you know these five ideas to help you as an acoustic guitar maker, it’s time to get out into your shop and take action. Pick at least one of these ideas and start incorporating it into your daily life.

Habits are like compound interest. You don’t really see what they’re doing on a daily basis, but over time they are extremely powerful. You don’t need to move a mountain on day one, instead, through daily habit, you’ll move several mountains over the course of your lifetime.

It’s through your daily habits that you win. Incorporate some of these guitar making ideas into your daily life, and you’ll notice that you understand more about the craft, sooner.

If you have any questions about any of these concepts, contact me and I’ll be glad to answer it. Happy birthday.

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