Anybody ever build their own guitar?

Guernica

Guernica

Active member
Whatsup folks,
.....Ive been doing quite a bit of reading on the subject. I was just wondering if anyone out there has had any experience building their own guitars. I dont mean just assembling kit parts, but actually building something original. ....i'ld love to hear about it. thanks in advance g:)
 
There are a few around here that have.
I've thought about it, but my wood working skills leaves so very much to be desired. My mom never displayed my three tear shelf I made for her in highschool woodshop.

The only guy I can think of right off hand is Jmarcomb. Nice looking and if it's the one on his MP3s, it sound nice too.

Do you make your own, Guernica?
 
Guernica,

There is a BBS just for that purpose...........the Musical Instrument Makers Forum............www.mimf.com.


There is some awesome work to be seen there, especially an 8 string bass some guy built. Just read their rules carefully if you intend posting there, as it is one BBS where the "admin" actually get off their butts to keep their house in order.................unlike some places.

:cool:
 
...Ive heard some of J's stuff, and the guits sound great. No i havent built one yet, but im seriously considering it. Ive done alot of wood finish work, and ive got some pretty decent tools......so im thinkin about it...... ......I'll let you know how it turns out..... .....i might be offering some firewood really cheap:D
thanks for the link aus..... im gonna go check that out..... G
 
Guernica,
I've built quite a few, and I have been very pleased with all of them except one that was a little too ambitious for my skill level at the time.

Are you looking to build acoustic or electric? If acoustic, I'd strongly recommend going with a kit for your first one. Don't worry --- you'll be sufficiently addicted to building them that you'll build another, at which time you can do it to your own specs. But there are a lot of tricks that you simply won't figure out on your own the first time and there is just not enough room for error. If electric, then going through a kit project first is unnecessary in my view.

Have fun, and let us know how it goes.
Kelby.
 
thanks for the help kelby,
....im gonna redo a bass i have first. I have a pretty nice 76 p-bass neck that i wanna build a nice body for......... ......after that ive got some more ambitious things in mind. I'll bet youre right though, I can see how there is alot of unforseens that might creep up...... thanks:D
 
badgas said:
My mom never displayed my three tear shelf I made for her in highschool woodshop.
Click to expand...
:D :D :D

Badgas, LOL, My Mom felt sorry enough for my project to hang it in the entry - a wire-wheeled Douglas Fir oval mirror piece, complete with a small 'bric-a-brac' shelf... Hideous!:D

Mike... I built an offset 'V' shape body, that later made a nice cutting board...lol... but the process in the early stages was lining up the strips of wood, and figuring out which way the rings went... and then alternating each strip before gluing, to prevent warpage. Then run that baby through a planer a few times, and a jointer for the edges... and take 'er from there! I'm sure there are nicer woods that can come in one beautiful, solid piece... like koa or bubinga, nice hard wood... Then just draw up a template, cut, and start sanding! I just couldn't muster the dough in high school!!! Best of luck with this project, should be a very cool undertaking...

Keep us posted.
 
i just built an electric, sounds better than my 56-u2. Not terribly difficult. Just be precise get your scaling perfect because you can never change it and have it be perfect. I bought a prebuilt neck to use, it got the project done and sounding decent much quicker. I'll build one soon here though.

-Angermeyer
 
I think the best part of building your own guitar is you develop a deeper love with it and the ability to design the guitar to your needs. The downside is obviously if it was stolen or lost youd be devistated. Ive built a guitar out of walnut and one out of mahagony and each one was very fun to build. The walnut guitar has the weight of 3 Les Pauls, but also has the resonation of a grand piano.


The most important part when making a guitar is having the length/intonation within scale of your project. If your scale is 25" and your an inch over or under your might not be able to correct the intonation with the screws and that equates to incorrect intonation across all strings which in very noticable when put against other instruments in a recording.

I made templates before putting the cutting tools into the wood. This allows you to shadow precise measurments... thus saving time across future guitars. A smooth wood such as birch is great for templates.

Using a sheilding paint on the inside of the electronics cavity is also nice for keeping unwanted "noise" out of your signal.

I think the most important part would be to take your time and do a little research... because you will hear it in the finished product.

Like treeline said stewardmcdonald has great products that some guitar manufacturers actually purchase from.

Its great to get creative too, as you can see in the pic of the back of the guitar... i chose not to make a cavity for the 1/4" plug insert, but to make a slit so I could drop the nut into the slot to accept the threads... works very nice and also I keep some of the wood for my piano-like resonation :)

For the paintjob I went to the local Auto store and got 2 cans of silver metallic touch-up paint for cars and gave it 5 good coats and 5 coats of clear. about $20 in paint compared to a $400 custom paint job.

I copied the monkey grip design from the JEM style guitars, but used alot of sanding to get a feel almost like Harley handlebars. :) So, I saw a flaw in the ibanez design and implemented a fix into my axe. You're your own R&D man.. which is priceless.



http://home.mindspring.com/~marcomb/guitar.jpg
 
Thanks for the insight J,
Ive heard yours stuff in the clinic, are all of the elec. guit. parts done w/ this guitar? ...did you make the neck too? That's a great lookin instrument you have there, is this one done in mahogany or walnut? Im looking forward to giving it a shot. thanks a bunch g
 
Sorry to hear about your dog g :( Pets are soo great to have around... Im sure he had a great life! are they always so happy because they dont have a day job? :)

I mostly use my electric guitars for live shows. The only song I did with the mahagony guitar which is pictured is the Satriani song .. Surfing with the Alien. I use my electric acoustic for everything else unit I get out of my easy playing mode :)

I did make a neck out of maple and purpleheart wood for my walnut guitar... but chose to use a RG470 neck I had around because more comfortable and smooth. Necks take alot of work to get right ... Id recommend practicing with the scale saw before cutting a neck.

The guitar in the pic is made of one piece mahagony.
 
Hey J,
........thanks for the kind words regarding my pooch. Yea, he had a great life. And nobody enjoyed it as much as i did.
I hear what youre saying with regards to making the neck. If i decide to tackle a whole git., im thinking about making a neck, and buying one of the pre-cut fretboards for it. I have a little woodworking experience, so the tools dont scare me too much.... The one thing that did scare me was the precision necessary to cut my own frets, and i dont think i wanna go there just yet. Im gonna start out w/ just a body project (the body for the P-bass neck that i mentioned). ....we'll see how that goes, and then i'll go from there....... my compliments on your silver axe....... very cool, and you should be proud of it:)

g
 
Guernica,

I tried (unsucessfully) to get a thread going on this a couple weeks ago.

If you do a search under guitar and bass forum with "DIY" as your search term you can see a pic of my neck-through bass.

Forgive my ignorance but I don't know how to copy the direct link for you.
 
I'm currently building my own classical guitar. It will probably take another year to finish. It's quite difficult to get any side projects done with a 5 week old child and an 19 month child :)

I think the mimf.com forum is great and extremely helpful.
 
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