Page 4 – February 23, 2022
Students build guitars By Stephen Faleski Staff Writer
Top: SHS students Brent Loftin, Matthew Paspar, Jackson Lamm and Car ter Hendrick show their handmade guitar bases. Center: A guitar design on the computer. Above: The four students’ guitars have yet to be assembled. Opposite page: Lamm works on his guitar next to the prototype Shipman created last summer.
There isn’t much room for error when crafting a handmade guitar. “You literally have one go to get it all perfect,” said Jackson Lamm, a senior at Smithfield High School. Lamm is one of four independent study students in Adam Shipman’s engineering course. Throughout the school year, they’ve been working two to three steps ahead of the rest of their classmates to design, build and wire electric guitars. Shipman created a prototype over the summer of 2021, but each student’s guitar will be unique. Jackson’s has a number of curved angles. Carter Hendrick, another senior, made his more rounded. Brent Loftin plans to stain his guitar, allowing the wood grain to show through. Carter plains to paint his gloss black with silver trim. “The great thing with this project is you have a lot of choice, what to do as far as design … every single guitar here has a completely different head-
stock,” Jackson said. Changing the shape of a guitar’s headstock is one of the ways major guitar manufacturers brand their products, he explained. The device, located at the top of the neck, holds each guitar’s tuning pegs. Mistakes made along the way can limit design options. When Carter was drilling holes for his guitar’s wiring, the drill bit went too far and chipped part of the wood body. He fixed it with wood filler, and it won’t be noticeable once he paints it, but had he planned to stain it instead, the filler’s lighter color and lack of wood grain would be noticeable. Jackson also had a near-miss when cutting the 1/8-inch birch top that will cover the custom-designed triangular housing for his guitar’s electronics — cutting perilously close to the edge of the guitar’s body. Painting comes with its own share of challenges. If the wood hasn’t been perfectly sanded, the paint will find and draw attention to any crevice, Jackson said. The four independent study seniors designed their guitars at the start of the school year using a
