Early Lutes

Before I even knew what a circuit was, I wanted to build a guitar. These are the lutes I built between 8th grade and my junior year of high school. From the start I wanted an eastern style strummer with a buzzing bridge and neutral tones, however, fretting and intonation were always my biggest struggle. To the left you'll see a fretless 3 string bass, with a speaker for a pickup. To the right is a piezoelectronic, 15EDO, plastic-fretted 4-stringer. Below is the direct predecessor of the 15EDO one, it was fretless and had some kind of problem to it that I can't recall.

Now here are some lutes made later into highschool. To the left is an unfinished lute, I put so much effort into the aesthetics that I didn't consider the fingerboard was simply too high. To the right is a 14EDO acoustic, my first acoustic, and also the first lute I sold (to an acquaintence). It was fretted to 7EDO but then I added some extra 14EDO frets inbetween, kind of like those king gizzard guitars.

Below are three fails. The first I did my freshman year, I just never made a neck for it and gave up. The second was my first lute, made in 8th grade. I made it from a green chest and a piece of oak. I didn't know how guitars worked so I made the fretboard lower than the body. Eventually I figured out that if I stacked enough folded index cards on the bridge it would create a tanpura-esque buzzing with its 3 inch action. Last is a 5-string guitar I tried fretting with copper wire.

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