OK, little back ground here.
When I was 18 and just out of high school. (circa 1984) I had dreams of being in a band and getting famous. Hell, everyone had those dreams at that age in the '80's. Only problem was that I didn't have a guitar or know how to play one. But I did know how to build stuff and paint cars. Sooooooo, I decided that I would take a wood shop class at the local community college so that I could use their tools to build myself a guitar. Course if I had a guitar then I would automatically be halfway to stardom right? Well......
So I go to the wood store, and buy myself a nice piece of maple about 2.5 inches thick. I make a template and cutout the body on a bandsaw. Then I used a router to cut the pickup holes out, and a lot of rasping and sanding to get the shape just right, and took it to work with me at the body shop I was workin at and gave it a real nice paint job. Bought a fender style neck and cut the headstock to a shape that looked good to me, paint that too and then bolted it on. But then I got interested in other stuff and never got around to actually finishing it off with the required electronics.
Jump in time to today in the shower.
I've been trying for almost a year now to come up with something that I really wanted to spend some of my poker money on that wouldn't be a total waste. Then today I'm thinking, in the shower where I always seem to do my best thinking, and it finally dawns on me what it is that I want to buy for myself. I want an electric guitar and amp so that I can just mess around and maybe learn some of them '80's metal songs I grew up on. I ain't got no thoughts of stardom anymore obviously, or even of being in a band, I just want something I can play with that isn't a total waste of time for those times that I get tired of losing money at poker.
Then I remembered Vanna! Yeah, I had a thing for Vanna White back in the day just like a zillion other guys did. So I named the guitar Vanna (sounded cool to me back then) and painted it white. You can even kinda see it on the headstock. So, instead of buying a completely new guitar, might it not be cheaper just to get the one I built 23 years ago finally finished? What's that going to cost me? Would it still be better to buy new? Or would I save enough by finishing what i already have, to buy a couple of lessons to get me started playing?
Here's a pic if you're interested in what can be made by hand when you're a determined 18 year old.
