Norbertocaster, part 15: lessons learned and cost

norbertocaster (build 1)

Started: July 15, 2025 • Ended: September 13, 2025

Lessons learned

Building my first guitar wasn’t just about wood, tools, and strings — it was also about patience, problem-solving, and a lot of trial and error. Along the way I discovered some truths that every beginner luthier probably stumbles upon. Here are the biggest takeaways from my journey so far:

• building the first guitar was a great exercise in patience and letting go of perfectionism — always remember: done is better than perfect,
• your first guitar will definitely have flaws, but that’s part of the process — you’ll also gain a ton of insight into what to improve next time,
• don’t rely on power tools for precise work — they can easily get out of control and cause frustration, mistakes, or ugly flaws,
• every guitar maker develops their own workflow, tools, and tricks. Don’t get lost trying to follow every YouTube tutorial — otherwise, you’ll just end up with three different tools for the same job. Find your own rhythm and way of building,
• making your first guitar is also a terrible logistical challenge (at least it was for me) — I started with nothing but the will to build one, and had to figure out how to buy every single tool and guitar part without overspending. That meant hunting across multiple shops and sources just to keep the overall cost reasonable and avoid overpriced stuff,
• once you start a step, finish it. Don’t even begin if you know you can’t complete it (because of missing parts or other blockers) — leaving it half-done only leads to frustration and stress,
• it’s super helpful to have a guitar at home to compare against — that way you can check measurements and make sure you’re heading in the right direction,
• I'd do myself a favor and buy guitar templates made with MDF - it must be much easier to use than just the paper,
• you can try to convince yourself that you don’t need any power tools, but the truth is, some of them speed up the work by hundreds of times. For my next build, I’m sure I’ll get a router to avoid doing everything by hand and achieve better precision. A bench drill would also help improve the overall quality of the build,
• if you screw something up or notice flaws in your guitar build, always take a moment (and maybe even jot it down) to think about what you can do better next time - this way, your workflow will improve with every new build.
• you can probably see that I was building most of this on the dining table or outside on the workbench, but the truth is, it’s a really annoying workflow. Every time I finished something, I had to clean everything up and move guitar parts around, risking damage to the wood - which actually happened a few times. I know I don’t have space for a proper workshop yet, but having a dedicated space for woodworking is essential,

Breakdown of total cost

I’d like to share the total cost of the guitar build. I’m not including tools that can be reused for future projects. You can check the tool costs on the tools subpage.

Of course, I’m also using materials like glue (Titebond D2 – the red one) and sandpaper, but in terms of the total build cost, they’re almost negligible.