Care for the guitar; care for the maker

I am waiting for the glue pot to heat up. Hide glue -- made from horse bits, don't ask, is what the maker used on this old Washburn, so it is what I am using to patch it, and in the process learning how to work with it. It takes a half hour plus to heat, and seems to go from liquid to gel state in about half a minute. Perhaps I haven't thinned it enough.

Working on the top, I appreciate its fine-grained iridescence, and consider the history of the many marks left from its travels. Someone set a cigarette down here. Another person had a belt buckle that scratched there. The neck and soundboard have hit tables and chairs and once the guitar was dropped on its end pin, cracking the tail block. Some people have loved it and cared for well, others were more casual. There is a hollow worn in the top from a pick. The most visible damage was done by whoever hacked the first bridge off and shoddily glued on the wrong replacement.

I can't imagine what tool the bridge remover used that would scratch parallel lines in the top a quarter inch out on all sides. I can see why they could have chewed up the top under the old bridge if they didn't know how release the glue joint, but not outside its attachment point.

Each time as I work on this I admire the guitar. I heft it gently, stroke it and tap around the top to hear its tone. When I have cut a slit through to splint, the tone is less, and once I have the splice in place, the resonance returns. See. I am doing something right. The guitar tells me that each time.

Running my fingers over the soundboard (top) tells me different things than my eyes. I learn where my finish touch-up is rough, where the crack is still there, where the leveling is uneven.

The bridge. I will shape it an ebony bridge. I have been cutting the ebony block over and over in my mind. Probably by the time I line it up with the guide on the band saw, I will have cut it 20 or 30 times in my mind's eye. This is how I do most things I create -- build them in my mind -- consider the process until I can see each step clearly. Call someone, research something where it's vague.

Asking others to help me is way far down on the list. I am wary of someone coming into my work space and saying, "Oh, that's wrong." "You can't do it that way" , "THAT won't work". Words like that are hard to get around. They block me. Confidence is a smoldering fire that needs constant feeding, careful coaxing, and breath. Oh, and breath. Breathe life into this venture.

If it isn't going together right, sit back and breathe. Become the materials, and the air around them, know them, know yourself and breathe. Allow it all to be what it is.