Falling in love with my build....again

[rauchman]

Hola,

The guitar in my signature is one of 3 Warmoths that I've made, with it being the most involved by far due to the binding and inlay. When I had finished it, I can't say why, but I didn't really gel with it. It has Suhr Doug Aldrich pups too, which I wasn't bonding with.

I've always been an LP player, and the '92 LP Custom that I bought new in '92 is still my # 1. My 1st Warmoth build was a Tele, but has become a frequent choice in the rotation of my guitars (it ties a mid 90's MIM Strat with Lace Sensors as my # 2). The 2nd W build was a Tele Hybrid with Suhr Thornbuckers (also has a Wilky VS100, LSR nut and Hipshot locking tuners, and gotta say, it stays in tune really well), which sees frequent playing time as well.

But......for some reason, I didn't really bond with the Velocity. I realized it had a high spot on the frets in the upper register, which caused the action to be higher than preferred and some other things that bothered me, including the body shape when sitting.

Then....the weekend before last, I went to town on the neck and really dialed in the frets and got the action low. Also, I did some EQ adjustment on the amp, and all of the sudden I find myself playing this guitar more than any other. The neck is a 24.75" scale with the narrow spaced Gotoh 510. This basically mimics an LP scale and string spacing. And now, I've fallen in love with the pups. The Suhr DA's are really hot, but clean up extremely well with the volume down, and they sound fantastic split as well.

So, a long winded way of saying....I finally fell in love with my build!!!!

 

[Spud]

You know, now that I think about it, how bout a tiny skull on the headstock?

 

[Strat Avenger]

Looks like a coffee table (that's a compliment).

 

[ragamuffin]

Heck yeah!

 

[Rick]

It's a nice feeling when you get it right.

 

[NedRyerson]

Yup, I get it.

Sometimes when I finish one, it's still not quite right but I've been working on it for so long with a plan in my head that had gone awry so many times already that once I'm done with it, I'm just mentally and emotionally cashed out. Don't even want to look at it anymore. Just want it off my workbench and off my checklist at this point.

Then I feel guilty for not accepting it given the time & money sunk into it. Which turns into that self-perpetuating cycle of loathing.
Until I decide to stop feeling sorry for myself and put in an hour of tweaking and tuning up. Then all of a sudden, it's almost like a completely new instrument.

My GGBO22 submission was exactly that (with the one-piece roasted maple Warmoth neck). I ran into so many roadblocks building it and with that looming deadline, I started taking shortcuts. And I felt guilty for doing so, and of course, things fell apart and didn't go according to plan, other parts of it turned out substandard, and in general, I just don't like that guitar anymore for multiple reasons. It was a downward spiral of disasters, and I ended up fixating on everything that went wrong in that build. I even stopped posting about it on the GGBO forum and pretty much wrote off the entry fee as a loss, for how disappointed I was in the project and myself.

But I know that if I just calm down, slow down, and give it and myself a weekend to just carefully rework it without pressure, it could become the marvelous instrument that I'd imagined in my head before the project began. I know what needs to be done. I just need to get over the self-pity to do it.

The blue Tele I built, the one inspired by my mother-in-law's old muscle car, was another one where I spent a lot of time and mistakes in building, wasn't initially in love with it, but after taking a breath and giving it an hour or two of tweaks after separating myself from it for several months, it's become one of my favorite guitars now.

So I totally understand not being in love with a piece of work. I start to question myself and wondering what exactly I'm even doing anymore (the imposter syndrome kicks in high gear at this point). Pretty much like feeling uninspired when writing music and thinking everything you're playing is just boring retreads of the same riffs or same movements or same chords over and over again, and why bother?

But then one little chance occurrence comes in out of nowhere and is the lynch pin to inspiration.

 

[rauchman]

Yup, I get it.

Sometimes when I finish one, it's still not quite right but I've been working on it for so long with a plan in my head that had gone awry so many times already that once I'm done with it, I'm just mentally and emotionally cashed out. Don't even want to look at it anymore. Just want it off my workbench and off my checklist at this point.

Then I feel guilty for not accepting it given the time & money sunk into it. Which turns into that self-perpetuating cycle of loathing.
Until I decide to stop feeling sorry for myself and put in an hour of tweaking and tuning up. Then all of a sudden, it's almost like a completely new instrument.

My GGBO22 submission was exactly that (with the one-piece roasted maple Warmoth neck). I ran into so many roadblocks building it and with that looming deadline, I started taking shortcuts. And I felt guilty for doing so, and of course, things fell apart and didn't go according to plan, other parts of it turned out substandard, and in general, I just don't like that guitar anymore for multiple reasons. It was a downward spiral of disasters, and I ended up fixating on everything that went wrong in that build. I even stopped posting about it on the GGBO forum and pretty much wrote off the entry fee as a loss, for how disappointed I was in the project and myself.

But I know that if I just calm down, slow down, and give it and myself a weekend to just carefully rework it without pressure, it could become the marvelous instrument that I'd imagined in my head before the project began. I know what needs to be done. I just need to get over the self-pity to do it.

The blue Tele I built, the one inspired by my mother-in-law's old muscle car, was another one where I spent a lot of time and mistakes in building, wasn't initially in love with it, but after taking a breath and giving it an hour or two of tweaks after separating myself from it for several months, it's become one of my favorite guitars now.

So I totally understand not being in love with a piece of work. I start to question myself and wondering what exactly I'm even doing anymore (the imposter syndrome kicks in high gear at this point). Pretty much like feeling uninspired when writing music and thinking everything you're playing is just boring retreads of the same riffs or same movements or same chords over and over again, and why bother?

But then one little chance occurrence comes in out of nowhere and is the lynch pin to inspiration.

You nailed it and described exactly what I went through.