Hummingbird: Father-Daughter Guitar Build

Yesterday I started building a guitar with my soon-to-be-six-year-old daughter. It is actually a build-it-yourself kit. The wood is already cut and all the hardware and components are included. You can do whatever you want with the kit, such as reshaping the body or peghead, but for us, the process will consist of:

Lots and lots of sanding!

Filling in the grain with grain filler (and sanding that!)

Staining and finishing the neck and body

Installing all the hardware and electronics

Setting it up to make it play nicely

It's a nice first build for us, and a great opportunity for her to learn about guitars, woodworking, electronics, and so much more. The guitar is really more of an octave guitar, or, a six string ukulele depending on how you look at it. It is a Telecasteresque short scale electric guitar whose mahogany body will be stained cherry red, and the neck a light tint of "Bordeaux." My daughter has decided that she will name it hummingbird, which just seems like the perfect name for this twangy lil guy. We are both really excited to see how it turns out. So far we have only done the first round of sanding, but it feels like it has already come a long way. We got the coarse ends of the frets sanded down and managed to buff out other tricky details, like the truss rod cavern on the peghead.

I am really pleased with the quality of the kit so far. All the hardware is better than I expected it to be. I also just like that it is a short scale guitar. It is the perfect size for a child to learn on, plus I have always loved the way shorter scaled guitars sound. Their rich mid-tones really punch through the mix. I think it will also be nice to learn on not just because it's smaller in size, but because it is like an ukulele with an extended range. We are ukulele players in this house, so it's a nice fit all around.

This supplier makes lots of other kits for other kinds of instruments. This one requires only basic tools, so it's a great place to start, but it would be fun to try and build something acoustic together eventually. But for now, we have lots of sanding ahead of us!

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