Last week, I was reminded of the old wood-workers’ idiom that says, “Measure twice, cut once.” I remembered the advice immediately after I demonstrated why it was said. Sometimes, you can measure once and cut twice, but only if you’ve cut your piece too long. You can always cut off more, but if you’ve cut off too much, it is hard, if not impossible, to put it back together.
My latest woodworking hobby has been building stringed instruments. I have made fretted and unfretted instruments out of almost everything imaginable. I have built them out of wooden cigar boxes, cookie tins, Moon Pie tins, pie pans, tin cans and most anything that will resonate.
The tricky part is not the box or body but the neck. Making the neck for an unfretted instrument is not so difficult. You simply fasten a long stick of wood to a body and stick a few guitar strings on it. Then you just move your fingers up and down the neck until you find the next note, but stopping your fingers in the correct spot to find each note is not always easy. You can add markers to show where each note is. Those markers can even be permanent frets that are installed on the fretboard. Those frets work really well…unless they have been placed in the wrong locations. First, you have to mathematically figure the distances between each fret on a certain length or scale. Then, I use a digital caliper to mark where each fret should be located. Next, I cut fret slots in the neck and then cut and hammer in metal frets. Once that is finished, I add tuners and strings and I am ready to make some beautiful music. If, however, all the frets are not located exactly in the right location, the music made may not sound so beautiful.
Last week, I finished a beautiful little cigar-box guitar. It looked great and I was so proud of it. Then, when I tuned it up and played the scale up the neck, the fifth note sounded like my ole buddy Wilbur Jones did back in seminary music class for pastors. Our professor made us sing music scales by number. It was supposed to sound like 1-3-5-3-1, but Wilbur’s sounded like 1-4-5-4-2. Wilbur wasn’t tone deaf, just a little tone hard of hearing! Like Sheriff Andy Taylor said in the town band’s rehearsal session, “It was off, it was way off.”
I knew right off I had failed to abide by the wood-workers’ idiom. I had not measured twice and my sound was off, because my cuts were off. If one fret is in the wrong place and you measure the other placements from that one, from that point on they are all in the wrong place. Once a fret slot had been cut, it can’t be uncut.
What could I do? I could hang my cute little instrument on a wall for a decoration, but I’m a musician. Instruments are meant to be played, not hung on a wall. So, I salvaged what I could. I made a new neck and fretboard. I measured each slot 4,397 times before I put the saw to the wood. I may have exaggerated that number, but I checked the measurements carefully.
All of us make mistakes…we mess up. That does not make us worthless or useless. It may mean that we have to stop and start again. We may have to learn to do things differently, but if so, just do it. Don’t settle for hanging on the wall, or being put on a shelf. Measure twice and move on!
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com or 334-728-5514 (office).
