Liang Liang used the tiny amount of fuel in his car—not much more than a child's urine—to ride his motorcycle to the Zhenbei gas station and fill up the tank.
Then he happily rode his scooter home.
It's not advisable to ride a new motorcycle too fast; it needs to be broken in. Liang Liang took forty minutes to ride the motorcycle home.
When the village children saw Liangliang riding back on an electric scooter, they all ran to Liang's house to see what was going on.
Liang Liang put down the motorcycle and handed it to Ban Ya, letting him ride it to break it in.
I told him not to go too far, just to walk around the neighborhood a few times so he wouldn't get lost.
With a cheerful grin, Ban Ya hopped on his motorcycle and rode off into the distance with a dashing air.
"Alright, alright! The motorcycles are all gone, what are you still looking at? Go home and have some fun."
After scattering the children, Liang Liang asked his mother for the key and went into the eastern hut that was nestled against the hill.
This room is filled with all the tools he bought when he made the last electric guitar.
Although these tools are not comprehensive, they are sufficient to handle almost all the processes involved in making an electric guitar.
He also brought back a whole set of parts from the south, enough for him to make several electric guitars.
When he wasn't home, only his mother would come in to open the windows for ventilation and do some cleaning.
Therefore, the house was very clean.
Liang Liang reached out and wiped the workbench, not seeing a speck of dust, indicating that the hygiene conditions in this sand room were quite good.
Liang Liang checked the time; it was 3:30 PM, three and a half hours until dark, and three hours until dinner.
He felt he could get a lot done in three hours.
Liang Liang then found a piece of linden wood to make a zither body.
Bass is a type of softwood, which produces a relatively warm tone in guitars, though the low frequencies are slightly lacking. It can faithfully reproduce the tonal characteristics of pickups and effects pedals, making it a very versatile wood for guitar body construction.
Another major reason is that linden wood is not a rare wood species in Northeast China; it is abundant and easy to obtain.
Just as Liang Liang was about to start making the zither, his younger brother Liang Feng came in.
"Big brother! You want to make a guitar?"
What are you doing running in here?
"Teach me!"
Liang Liang looked at her younger brother in surprise: "You want to do this? You have absolutely no interest in music, why are you doing this?"
"I'm not very interested in music, but I am very interested in carpentry."
Liang Liang started scratching his head.
This useless thing! You think learning to play the piano is too complicated, but making a piano isn't?
“I saw you making a guitar last time, and it looked really interesting. I want to learn how to make guitars too.”
"Go away! Go play somewhere else. At your age, you only have a three-minute attention span for everything. I'll teach you today, but you'll probably be gone by tomorrow. Go play your game console instead!"
"I promise I won't this time! I promise I can learn to make guitars," Liang Feng declared confidently.
Isn't this ridiculous? You have absolutely no woodworking skills, what are you going to use to make a guitar?
Look at what your older brother does, I used to make guitars in my past life.
Liang Liang ignored him and started cutting the board herself with a small band saw.
After planing out the two pieces of wood that are large enough to make the body of an electric guitar, use an electric planer to flatten them, then glue the two pieces of wood, which are about an inch thick, together and clamp them with metal clips.
Liang Feng remained silent, watching intently without blinking.
"Why aren't you leaving yet? There's sawdust flying everywhere, don't squint your eyes."
“Let me see! He can’t squint. I often watched when Donglai’s father was doing carpentry work, and he never squinted once.”
Donglai's father was a carpenter in Liangshuiwan Village. Besides cutting roof beams and making doors and windows, he also made furniture for others.
In the past two years, more people have been buying furniture, and fewer people have been making their own, so there isn't much work available.
This guy often goes to Donglai's house to watch his father make furniture? When did this happen? How come I had no idea?
"You're a monster! Why did you go look at that if you had nothing to do?"
"That's interesting! I feel really comfortable watching people work with wood."
Oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no! The Liang family is going to produce a carpenter!
This... seems so pathetic!
It's not that Liang Liang looks down on carpenters, but he feels that there's not much career development for carpenters. In the future, carpenters will hardly have any skills to speak of. All the boards will be machine-processed and ready-made. You just need to measure the dimensions accurately, buy the boards, and then use a nail gun to hammer and bang and you're done.
"So what did you learn from it?"
Liang Feng turned and ran out, returning shortly afterward with a pile of things in his arms.
A small wooden box about 20 centimeters long, a wheelbarrow with one wheel, two small round stools about the size of a water cup, and a wooden Mauser pistol.
Liang Liang almost fell to the ground.
"This...this...you did all of this?"
Liang Liang picked up the small box. From the outside, if you magnified the box five times, it would look like a real box, and you could even open the lid.
What left him speechless was that the box wasn't nailed together, but rather made entirely of mortise and tenon joints.
Liang Liang put down the box and picked up the wheelbarrow again.
Even the wheels of the unicycle were assembled using mortise and tenon joints.
These wooden toys are well-made and have an exceptionally smooth finish.
No one would believe that this was done by a snotty-nosed, blind fifteen-year-old boy.
"I made it at Donglai's house using leftover materials and his tools. Donglai's dad even praised me for making it well!"
Liang Liang took a deep breath, as if he could see a master carpenter emerging from the Liang family.
He had imagined countless careers for his younger brother, but he never expected that his brother would like to be a carpenter.
“I was planning to send you to our family’s music school to learn an instrument this summer, but now it seems unnecessary.”
He brought the buck teeth with him so that he could take his younger siblings to Haiyun School tomorrow.
I don't know what the younger sister is like, but the younger brother feels there's no need for him to go.
A fifteen-year-old boy can actually make a box and a unicycle that look like works of art using mortise and tenon joints. Why would he need to study music?
"Brother! I don't want to learn any music. I want to make guitars. Last time I saw you cut and piece together a piece of wood and make a sound. It was so amazing! At that moment, I felt that this was what I should do for the rest of my life. If you teach me, I will definitely make a good electric guitar."
What else could Liang Liang say?
His younger brother has now set his life goal as to become a guitar maker.
"Maybe I can even sell the guitars I make to foreigners in the future!"
Liang Feng's words gave Liang Liang a boost of spirits.
I don't have much time to play guitar myself, but if my younger brother puts his heart into it, he might achieve great things.
Perhaps one day we can create a world-renowned brand.
"Alright then! I'll teach you how to make an electric guitar."
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