I have to admit that after staring at those beautiful blanks, and then coming to the realization that they still needed to be cut to size and sanded for ferrule fitting, I became a little intimidated.
The process itself was a little nerve-racking. Matching the taper on the butt and tip section, cutting to size, and then sanding to fit the ferrules seemed like it left plenty of room for me to royally screw the entire thing up to the point where the blank would no longer be good for building, my dreams of rod building would go up in smoke, my credit would become so terrible I’d never be able to get a bank loan and my entire life would be over.
Alas, that never happened. I channeled my past wood working experience (measure twice, cut once) and set out to doing what I had to. It really wasn’t that bad. I will say that it does require a lot of attention to detail, and you better believe I used the finest sanding material over the course of several hours to make sure it was right.
You’d be surprised how long it takes to get bamboo blanks prepared to install ferrules, along with dressing the ferrules to make sure they fit each other correctly.
Still, it’s done. I always knew my experience building guitar bodies for Gibson would pay off one day.
Tales from East Yahtam 