While teaching guitar might have its frustrations, making them would be very rewarding, I think. Even the relatively plain ones are like beautiful scu

While teaching guitar might have its frustrations, making them would be very rewarding, I think. Even the relatively plain ones are like beautiful sculptures of curved wood and metal strings, all polished and sleek and full of tonal subtleties that a beginner like me doesn't understand. And that's just the acoustics. The electrics are a whole other art form unto themselves.

Actually, there is a modest history of guitar-making in my family. Five years ago my son had to make a musical instrument for a third-grade project and I helped him come up with this fine example of the luthier's arts that you see on the right. He named it Goldtar and as you can see it's based loosely on Bo Diddley's trademark rectangular guitar. The strings are fishing line and it's made of 2x4's and 3/4-inch plywood. It weighs about 87 pounds so we never really made much of a run at the Fender people.

When we had finished the project, I recalled that way back when I was in about the third grade or so, I had made a stringed instrument with my father, too -- a balalaika, the Russian instrument with the triangular body. Maybe some day my son will keep the tradition going with his own child and recall Goldtar.

Here's a New York Times story about how guitars are made on a slightly more grand scale, complete with a series of illustrations and an audio/video show. The Martin factory in this story is in Nazareth, Pa., as in the "I pulled into Nazareth ..." line in the Band song "The Weight."