Keilty Guitarworks

11/02/2026

My old fixture was 99.7% good enough.

But that’s not good enough.

10/09/2026

10/01/2026

Since we all like to curate the best versions of ourselves, I think it’s important to show failure as well as success.

I wrecked this neck at the end of a multi- day carve- after an equipment breakdown and service…because I didn’t check my G-Code restart line carefully enough. To make it even more ironic, I had just been online the day before in a luthier forum explaining how NOT to do what I then did 24 hours later.

And then I lost my temper, and smashed the neck on the shop floor (I’m not a smasher, in general). And the reason why is because whatever momentary satisfaction I derived from the destruction, it was quickly belied by a piece of neck shrapnel bouncing off the concrete and stabbing me in the shin.

There are many obvious lessons here, about unintended yet predictable consequences, hubris, and sophomoric levels of expertise that make you just confident enough to be dangerous. However, I did learn something new about G code- and butterfly sutures did the trick.

No complaints. Run it back.

09/28/2026

Stepcraft USA FTW with the 48 hr turnaround on my spindle repair. Back to it!

09/22/2026

Just another day in Cloud City.

09/21/2026

It’s Monday, there’s work to do, but it’s nice and sunny out.
This is one of the songs that I played for my jazz guitar jury in college- and I kind of forget about it, and then come back to it once every few years. That’s a great thing about “jazz” tunes- no matter how much you work on them, there’s always something new to try with the changes. You could spend your whole life working on just a couple tunes still never get to the bottom of what’s possible.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, though I’m not exactly sure what it is. Anyway, whatever you’re working on this week, keep going.

09/05/2026

Processing mesquite courtesy of Jason J. Secco. Told you I’d use this for something!

I managed to capture one piece big enough for a pretty nice neck, not thick enough for tilt without scarf, but I’m been wanting to make a “flat” bolt-style neck for a different design anyway.

Ahhh, this part is so fun. All creativity and potential, and so pretty!😍

09/03/2026

Wednesday, when the indexing hits just right.

08/30/2026

Feed, speed and dimension test fretboard for decorative elements. The last piece of the puzzle…figuring out how to do inlays this way was more challenging than I expected.

But that’s the last thing. The math is math-ed, the components are designed and fully constrained, the tool paths are validated and the the machine has been properly outfitted and upgraded with the necessary accessories to go from slab to finish parts. Three ruined neck blanks, a mountain of scrap MDF, three spoil boards and countless near-misses on hundreds of tiny dimensions- but the fourth prototype neck landed within spec, and I started heading downhill.

That was a long two years. But think I can finally close the book on operations design, and run a few instruments from beginning to end without having to stop every few days and wonder what I did wrong.

So, I guess, stick with it. Whatever “it” is for you.

08/13/2026

A year and a half in nine photos.

I learned to build guitars with a straight edge, protractor, caliper, pencil, paper, and a mountain of MDF. But every time I went to Brian Nutter to inspect my fret ends or nut slots or sanding scratches, he was messing around with this thing called “Fusion” on his laptop.

So in addition to guitar building, I decided to teach myself two complimentary skills at the same time… which is why there was a three-year gap between the last batch of guitars that I built by hand, and the ones that I am beginning to produce now.

(I mean, I also had another child, moved halfway across the country and renovated a house during that time, so…)

It took a while, but I figured out how to do it this way, and I kept at it through the mistakes, failures and occasional neglect born of circumstance. And now, I can do it again.

It’s all hand work now as we move into final fit and finish process, and it feels kind of like the last few miles of the Nashville marathon, when some saint hands you a honey covered-bagel 2 miles out, and you finally can see the top of the stadium come into view over the beyond the bridge.