Building a guitar ?

if you aren't very proficient with hand tools and don't have access to power tools, then you would be best off buying a kit guitar that you can piece together and then apply finish to yourself. building a guitar takes a lot more effort and attention to detail than most would imagine. if you're off on your measurements by even a few thousands of an inch, your guitar will not be able to be tuned properly. with that in mind, check out www.stewmac.com for some kits and also there is http://grizzlyindustrial.com that sells primarily power tools but the owner of the company builds guitars so he sells some decent kits that you can put together for a few hundred dollars. if you need any more info, let me know

I built a beautiful fretless with a knockdown kit from Carvin. Carvin.com sells all sorts of kit guitars and you can do all your own finishing. They can send you a shape, or just an uncarved block. They build the fretboard for you to your spec so there's no blunder. And carvin components are top notch. Can get in and out for under $400 for a solid no-frills axe.

yeah, carvin does make nice stuff. sounds like you got a good deal there.

I do realise that you have to be extremely precise, but Im up for the challenge

I would really like it better to shape my own guitar out of those blocs they sell than buying the ones that everything is already done though, thats the whole point of building your own guitar, to make it exactly how you like it

there were 2 kids in my wood shop class who made electric guitars...it was all hand made except for the components that go inside it.....dont know much about guitars but they made them in less than 2 months working only 1hr a day and it cost them less than $150

I guess if you had all the tools it would not cost much at all, but would I need alot of tools to just shape the body out of a block ?

no not really, you're just talking basic wood shaping tools for the body shape and a miller in order to create recesses for pickups, pots, wires etc

lots of sand paper, decent range of files, a decent saw and lots of hours would do it if your block is about the right shape to start.

it all depends on your design, be very very careful and plan in detail. if you do it all yourself from scratch don't expect it to be cheap, components will stack up in price and unless you're very confident buy a pre made neck!

if you have a bandsaw, and a plunge router with an adjustable base, that would allow you to do most of the work. you take a piece of wood and cut it down the middle, to make it half as thick as it was, then you square up and flatten each edge of that, align the grain with the opposite piece and glue them together, that is called bookmatching, if you look at my pics in my profile at the electric guitar you can see it's two pieces by the grain. cutting the body is simple enough. for a beginner pulling this off, it might be best to do a bolt on neck, unless you are absolutely set on a set neck, then you'd want to do some research and you'd need to make some routing templates to ensure it all goes together perfectly. you'd need some files, sanding blocks (formed pieces of wood with sandpaper attached to work angles into your wood), having a handsaw helps, but japanese saws are the best, the cut opposite as traditional saws. and shaping your own neck is honestly so much fun, you get to decide everything about the shape and playability, if you are going to build a guitar, shape your own neck, you will not regret it. drawing a full scale plan of your guitar is the best approach, get some drawing tools, flexible curve and shit and draw it all out, including scale length, bridge location, everything you possibly can. my electric cost me probably $300 something for wood (big slab of mahogany for body and neck, two 3/8 inch koa caps, pickups, potentiometers, control knobs, pickup mounting hardware, bridge, tailpiece, output jack, nut, fret wire.) it's the little stuff that adds up to cost a whole shit load. let me know if you need more info, i'd be happy to let you know what i can, if you do decide to build one, good luck man!

my friend made a bass for his construction class last year. painted it green though, ew. i dont really know how he put it together or anything though... so im not that helpful my bad.

So with a big block of wood like they sell on www.stewmac.com would I be able to make the body AND the neck ? And would I be able to make the neck with the bandsaw and the router?

Oh and would you happen to know of a website that would explain more in detail how to do this ? like that would have plans and stuff? Or would I have to buy a book that would explain?

if stew mac's prices are a little steep, go to a local lumber yard that sells some exotic woods, i personally love mahogany, (honduran mahogany) if they have it, it's easy to cut, sounds amazing, it will add so much sustain and warm tones to an electric, then you can cap it with maple, or whatever you want. buying a piece from lumber yard would be best for neck woods, but you want to check the grain orientation on the end of the board to determine the strength of the board and how much it could move. the closer the grain lines are to straight up and down the better, this is known as quartersawn. as for websites, i am not to sure if there are many out there. check out www.frets.com as a source for good info on repair and some on building. 'Make your own Electric Guitar' by Melvyn Hiscock is an informative start on the process. that's available from stew mac. another thing i forgot to mention in my last post was creating a template from your original drawing. preferably made of 1/4 plexiglass, cut it into the exact shape as your drawing, then when you have your body wood ready to shape, you double stick tape the template down to your wood and using a router, you can get the body down to your exact shape within a few minutes, then you just have to sand it to eliminate any inconsistencies and bumps.

as for making the neck, you can rough cut it out on a bandsaw, then use a patternmakers rasp, basically a rougher version of a file, and that is used to start the actual shaping of the neck. if you want to get a shape that's close to something you play already, try and get the neck measurements, a digital caliper works great for that, then you can carve and shape and smooth it all out into the perfect neck for you and the way you play, i would NEVER buy a premade neck. i have some monstrous fingers and i like to play in my own style so it's custom or nothing for me.

Alright, sounds good. thanks alot, very helpful.

One more thing, do you have pictures of the guitars you built ? like when they were in the process of being built and when they were finished?

the pictures on my profile, the two without necks are actually still in the process of being built. i moved from MN to WA and haven't had the tools or space to finish them. if i had a router i could finish the electric. i have a ton of pictures of building my acoustic and parts of the electric and hollowbody, which has a carved top and back, completely carved mind you. but they are not digital pics so i'd have to scan them. but if you want to check them out i can scan them in a bit and post them.

alright, i got some pictures now.

this is a side shot, double bound body, excess glue yet to be removed


some of the little parts that add up to mucho $$



rough cut, unshaped neck with truss rod, you can see the neck tenon that is to be connected to the guitar body



neck with bound fingerboard laid on top



guitar laid out, if only i had a router and a place to use it

i'm post whoring a bit here but oh well, i forgot to mention, i did cap the back and top together, so they are exactly the same. it was all one piece of wood that came to me in 4 slices, so the back is an exact copy of the top, minus the hole i had to rout for the electronics to go into. and i am going to countersink the control knobs into the guitar top a bit, so it's not so cluttered, this guitar is going to weigh so much though, the body alone weighs almost as much as a standard les paul, 9.5lbs or so.

Thanks alot man, I think Im gonna buy a book thats gonna explain everything to me in details, probably "Make your own electric guitar"

Again, thanks alot

How much did everything cost you ?

i honestly wish i knew, mahogany was like $70, but i made the electric body, neck, 2 or 3 ukelele bodies and necks, some molds and shit, the koa top and back was like $100, pickups were $150, so maybe it was more than i thought. probably closer to $500 or so, but i chose expensive wood as a cap wood and more uncommon parts so it would be unique.

Varnish that beaut

not varnish, i am going to use an orange shellac and then spray lacquer over the top

here's a couple more things to think about, if you haven't looked at a lot of guitars to get an idea of what exactly you want, do so. find as many kinds as you can and just go from there. what sounds are you looking for in your guitar? what kinds of aesthetics are you looking for? i snapped a few pictures of the acoustic i built to show you a few things that are possible.
that's a 3 piece neck, i have a 1/2 inch slab of maple running down the center to compliment the maple binding around the guitar. and then i added a maple end graft at the bottom of the guitar where the end pin for your strap would go, i had to hand miter the maple binding and black/white/black purfling at a 45 degree angle for it to fit together as seamlessly as possible.