guitar building

[gimp]

Anyone ever build a guitar? I'm building a solidbody electric guitar. I got the bridge and machine heads today. I've looking for a cheap humbucker right now. I'm gonna pick up the wood tomorrow. Gonna cost a buttload of cash. Mahogany and maple.

So, if you've built a guitar. Any tips?

[Dave]

I've built my own guitar... tips:

1. use only SHARP router blades
2. check every measurement 2..no, 3 times
3. test fit everything after every step
4. take your time...rushing it never builds a quality guitar
5. put the project down and come back to it later every so often, so you avoid the whole I-justed-smashed-my-model-kit-cause-I-got-paint-everywhere-and-the-parts-glued-together-wrong syndrome

I'll add more as I think about it.

-Dave

[who_311]

Ok, i am probably going to go into som long, drawn out speaches, but here goes. When building a guitar you must ask yourself, "what music do you play?". Then you choose what kind/brand/model of pickups, since you already chose humbuckers, well skip that. Now to the neck, this is where the real money is. If you are building your own neck from scratch, go with the neck blanks on www.stewmac.com they will anythihg you ever need to make a gutiar. For a finger board, go with ebony, thrust me on this one, i know a thing or two about strined instuments, and ebony is a VERY good choise for a fretboard. Anyways, do you want a "strat", les paul, dinky, soloist, tele, sg, whatever, too many choices. If you are going to make your own body as well, i would go and find a REALLY REALLY nice looking blank that is the right size, and the right tone/coler/grain that you want. I would go with KOA because it is the most beautiful wood i have ever seen. Tis all your preference though. Ok, here is where the hard part is, intonation/sound. Wood does in fact play into this. Mahogany gets a really FAT nice tone, while maple gets more of a snappier, resonant tone. Go with good quality pickups and electronics, it can be the difference between a so-so guitar and a really nice sounding gutiar. Dave is right on all ofthe things he says, use sharp blades, no dul or broken. Make sure that it fits, abdnd that you dojnt rush your self, you will get mad, and somehting might get hurt, i.e. the guitar. My suggestion to yu is, go to a guitar center or music store, and play different styles of guitars, dirrefernt woods, and stuff like that, and see which sound best for whatever you want to play. And i think DAVE will agree, that once you make a guitar, you appreciate that guitar and your gutiar playing ability a lot more. So good luck on the building, please, please, dont do something to it, like ungodly stickers on the body, carve things into, unless it is a piecer. Ohh yeah, once you are done, please show some pics .

Ps-I am sorry if i made any spelling errors, i have two broken fingers right now, which is the reason i am not playing right now.

[Python14]

You cannot go wrong with EMG humbuckers. I have a 7-string model in my ESP and it is supperb. I too am rebuilding my guitar, er....actually just repainting it and making it so it looks like it is supposed to only have one humbucker. I'll post pics when I am done.

[who_311]

Python, your good people. I love my eMGS! I put them in a $50 epiphone les paul i bought from some random dong, and it sounds really nice. Crunchy, kind of like Zakk Wylde, because i got his model.

[who_311]

Hey i notice i am in your sig, cool. Now you are truelly good people.

[gimp]

Thanks for the advice. I havn't got a chance to get started yet. I went to my local lumber yard, and they didn't have the wood I needed. My grandfather builds cabinets, and he's got some he's gonna bring over this weekend. That site, stewmac.com is great though, it's got tons of stuff. I was having trouble finding a decent supplies site.

[who_311]

No problem man! Now, your local lumber probably wouldnt have the best wood for the job, i ould find an exotic wood shop, or like you said, your gandpa. I am sure he uses nice wood for cabinets. What kind of body are you makin?!?! I am really interested now .

[gimp]

Well, I've been fooling around on cad with some different designs. Thats what I do at work when they run out of stuff for me to draw.





Thats what I drew up today instead of doing real work. My grandfather. I got 2 big ole pieces of mahogany. There's enough lumber to make about 10 necks. My grandfather had it sitting in the back of his shop for years. He was lookin to get rid of it. I'm going to make the body out of poplar because he had some of that lying around too.

I want to get one of those EMG humbuckers, but I'm not sure which one to get. I'm planning on putting it by the neck, and I like to play more low pitched sounds usually.

[BajaBoy]

i dont know Alot about guitars (diffrent brand parts) i can just play them and build them.

i build a Really nice ash/mohogany (sp) guitar last semister in wood shop. It took about 3 month working on it 1 1/2hours, 5 days a week. I only maybe the body (duh) and i bought the neck/pickup/bridge and whatnot.

just take your time.

[who_311]

OMG! That looks awesome! WOW! I cant wait to see it! Wow, that really does look nice! You know, if you could make 10 necks, how bout make a "back up" and just you know...give it to me. The body, would sooo nice with a nice transparent ruby red to black burst! OOHH!!! that would be sweet! Orr maybe a nice blue burst! OOOOOHHH!!!!! A TEQUILA SUNRISE BURST! Turn the emag fade to a guitar burst! That would be SWEET! That would rock so much, man, trust me, once you make this thing, you will have a new sense of appreciation of your guitar skills! Good luck man, i cant wait!

PS-Get the Zakk Wylde signiture EMGs those thing rock the casbah!

[RRfireblade]

Well,
all that other is well and good,however if youv'e never built a guitar before, you've got a lot more to be concerned with than pickups and tuners.
You have to know how to lay out the scale, oh yeah, you have to choose a scale,deceide on the assembly style of the neck and body,establish the neck set in as well as angle off the body(based partly on bridge selection and body shape/carve)if your building the neck(hardest part)you need to know how to pickout,layout, cut,install and dress your frets adn finger board(if you use one).Decide on a headstock shape(sounds simple till you realise you have to mount 6 tuners w/ string relief and direct as possible route through the nut)as well the neck angle.
You have to law out all your electronics,controls and jacks( probaly just 1) as well as how you will run wires around the body.
That's just the very basics.You might want to buy a build kit.Comes with everything more or less cut and shaped and all the parts you need just so you have an idea of what's involved. They can be had for as little as $200 from various places as well as StewMac and ebay.

Well, that should hold you for now,
Good Luck,
Jay.

P.S.
Save the Mohagany for the body, not the best neck material.Try Maple(natural or w/ roswood or ebony finger board)for the neck or solid Rosewood(best but most expensive)

[gimp]

I want to build the guitar because I think it will be fun and challenging. I have all my plans written down outside in the shop. It's gonna be a 25" scale neck, I know how to lay it out. I've got most of the neck stuff down pretty well. I'm getting a preslotted rosewood fingerboard. I was considering making my own truss rod, but I think I'm just gonna order one. I forget the size of the fretwire I'm getting, but it's written down. I know how to put the fretwire in. I even have one of those big presses(I think it's called an arbor) with a jig I'm working on to put them all in easily. I've got all the tools to trim the tang and stuff. I'm not using binding on the neck. I know enough about the headstock and tuner stuff to make it half decent. I've got the controls down no problem, it's simple electronics. A build kit is the last thing I want to get. I mostly want to do this so I can do it myself to keep me busy cause my friends always decide to work nights. Jerks.

I have a really good book on making a guitar. I've read almost the entire thing. The only thing that I dont know much about is the finishing. How I'm gonna paint it and stuff. I'm not sure what to use. It's all in the book, I just havn't looked at that yet.


I was thinking this would be cool, but I'm not gonna do it. I wanted to put some LEDs under the pickup, so there would be red light coming out from around it. That would be wicked pissah.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm gonna mess up, but I've got the basics down pretty well I think.