Jim Chelsvig Guitars, Chicago Illinois, USA

About Jim Chelsvig (continued)

I buy the Irving Sloane book but I'm too scared, broke, cramped for space ... What I really want to do is apprentice to Bozo in California, but I'm in school in Illinois. "School" becomes "graduate school and jobs". "Married" becomes "a family".

Suddenly it's 1990. My job and career are going nowhere and my wife is tired of being "Mommy". I become Mr. Mom and do the cooking, etc. Looking for some fun, I decide to hunt down a used electric guitar to start playing some rock & roll. Can't find what I want so a guy in a local shop hands me a Stewart-MacDonald catalog (and suggests that I build myself one).

Less than a month later I'm back in the store with my first creation. (Thanks Eddie!) I learned how to build electric guitars, however, I still can't play rock & roll. So I build a few electrics, including a couple of killer electric 12's, then go back to the career...

Move ahead to 1997 (finally, some modern history! We must be getting close to the end of this thing!). I've now purchased most, if not all, of the best books available on guitar construction and repair. Many of the methods seem strange to me even though they obviously work well for their respective authors.