The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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A buddy I met this summer gave me a book called ‘Clapton’s Guitar’ about a luthier in a small town in the Appalachians who was building Eric Clapton a custom guitar. The book was great, a chronicle of constructing a six string from scratch, an instrument worthy of a guitar legend that also waxed philosophic about country living, old time music, tonewood selections, luthiery skills and the life of a consummate and modest craftsman. I was knocked out. I was so knocked out I decided I would build a guitar too, inspired straight into insanity.

It’s as if I’d seen a Picasso and the week after decided I’d just go ahead and paint a masterpiece of modern art. Why not? Isn’t that what we want art to do, launch us off the ground we thought we were gravitationally bound to?

So okay, let’s understand right off the Get-Go that no, I knew I wasn’t going to get a commission from Clapton or Jimmy Page to make them a custom Skeeter axe, I just wanted to see if I could make one at all, something playable, something pretty, something that might even sound good, something that wouldn’t fall apart. At least not right away. Not that I need another guitar — after all I have 3 electrics, 4 acoustics and one steel guitar. Plus a couple of ukes, a mandolin and half a dozen banjos mostly homemade. But NOT a guitar I’d made myself.

The mizzus shook her head, once again, but as always knew I was going to go right ahead and make a fool of myself or drive myself crazy trying. I’m a couple weeks into this and managing both of the above nicely. Guitar luthiery, for any of you uninitiated, entails specialized tools and skills I do not have nor will I acquire in the course of a one-off instrument. And even though the book that kickstarted me on this quixotic journey pretty much described in detail each step of the process, I had no clear idea how HARD this would be. No doubt I could bore you with horrorshow details of my sad attempts at everything from bending sides to cutting kerfings, but I want to keep moving forward, not looking back, otherwise I would need grief counseling now and never get to the end. Whatever the End is.

So I’m reading about bracing strategies and radical soundhole placements on the side, not the top as usual. I know, it would make sense to keep it simple, stick with the Tried and True, follow instructions, yada-yada, but … I’m only building ONE, why not make it unique, why not shoot for Art, maybe go for the Picasso too as long as I’m lost in the fantasy? When I’m done — if I ever am — I may not know how to play the blues on that fancy new axe laying in pieces down at my shop, but I should be well versed in what the blues are. I’m living them every day now.

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