Corina

 I can feel the strength coming back to my brain as I get into blogging again. The literary muscles are a tad sore but it feels good to be back and writing again. As I've explained in an earlier post, I got back in to the blog after making my brain "flabby" by using Facebook as shortcut to getting validation through the "like" button. On a related note, I've mothballed my other blogs, because it just seems to be a lot more work having more than one blog and even more disorienting trying to decide what posts should go with which blogs. So from this point forward until I have a very good reason to do otherwise, this blog is going to catch everything - whether it be my travels, about the development of my mad luthier skills (should that be with a "z" as in skillz?), some electronics project I'm working on, or just a random post that may or may not involve something to do with robots.

You're all old enough to do a search so I'll leave it to you to sort things out.

Who is Corina?

A guitar. Corina is my first "real" guitar. Now, I have built a functional guitar out of a 2 x 4 block of wood that I mounted a telecaster bridge and pickup to the top. If there's been one thing I've learned from all the other things I've built over the years its that if you're trying to build something for the first time, make a prototype. Besides being useful for design considerations and a proof of concept, prototypes provide a very unique and invaluable function. They allow mistakes to be made. I made a lot of mistakes with the 2 x 4and each one was an unforgettable lesson. I made routing mistakes, I made wiring mistakes, I made alignment mistakes, I made mistakes with the decals, the finish, the knob. And each time I made a mistake, I made sure it was one I wouldn't repeat when I made Corina.


Corina started out as a few scraps of pine that were glued together and routed in to the shape of a Telecaster body. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this process, but I do have some photos of my next build that uses a single plank of yellow knotty pine. The template I used for this build and Corina came from Ron Kirn. A quick google search of that name will get you to the site where his son-in-law sells these templates. Actually, the templates ore not of a Telecaster but of a 1950 Broadcaster. Technically the same body and dimensions, but Ron makes the distinction.

 

In the photo above, I've taken the router template off and will use the edge already cut as the template to route the rest of the body from the blank.

Here's the body cut away from the the blank. This is the same procedure that I followed to make Corina. Routing out a body from a blank is technically simple on paper, but in actual practice there are a lot more considerations. I made a lot of mistakes and very expensive sawdust and firewood. When I received the Ron Kirn template, it was advised that I use it as a master to make "working templates." You could use the templates to make your body and route out the cavities, but one slip and you've ruined your template and will have to buy another. I made a working template from some inexpensive MDF I got at the local Home Depot. 9 bucks is cheap insurance.

The neck was a purchase from eBay and I spent less than $100 dollars on it and that includes shipping. Considering that it is a Japanese made Fernandes neck made from a single piece of quartersawn maple, I seriously underpaid. The neck is easily worth two and a half times that. It pays to use eBay alerts to get what you're looking for if it isn't listed.

Here's what Corina looked like before I installed the clear red pickguard:

Her she is after I installed the pickguard:

Corina is modeled after Fender's Telebration branded La Cabronita. Instead of a TV Jones pickup in the bridge position, I decided on installing a humbucker-sized P-90. People who have played her and have had a lot more experience playing love playing her, and I've had a few offers to buy my first guitar and requests to do custom builds.

 

Why did I name her Corina?  Well she's named after a girlfriend I had when I was going to junior college. Very cute, very sweet, but what I remember best was that she fit very nicely in my arms. Makes sense to me.

Next time: Travels.