Building a custom guitar

[alpenglowRG11]

i'm goin to build a custom guitar. I was wondering what wood and size of a peice i need for the body. Also were i can get additional parts. Thanks.

[60's guy]

Here's one place you can find wood.
http://www.lmii.com/Default.asp

I recently put together a kit guitar from Carvin. Unless you have great woodworking skills and the proper tools, you may want to consider a kit first.

Good luck!

[alpenglowRG11]

was it hard to put together??

[60's guy]

Originally Posted by alpenglowRG11

was it hard to put together??

No, not at all difficult. If you go to the Carvin site and go to the forum and read up a bit and view pictures of guitars that guys and girls have built there you'll get an idea how easy it can be.

[c7sus]

www.stewmac.com

[Bass Freak]

i was thinking about making a frankenstine bass.



you might wanna try just piecing parts together and hope they fit




freak

[juststartingout]

Try some of these links

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/tutorial5.htm
http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/c...ringresources/
http://www.guitarnuts.com/index.php
http://surfcitymusic.com/fretted/strat_style_kit.htm
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/3dinlay1.htm
http://members.fortunecity.com/jtfish/lpc/cvr/cover.htm

http://www.warmoth.com/common/frames/catalog.htm
http://www.carvin.com/guitar_bass/

You will have a lot of fun building your own. You can get a kit that just needs finished and put together, to buying your own wood and cutting your own frets out. What I would suggest, is to get a cheap kit and experiment, then go for making your own body and neck after you are comfortable setting up the simple one.

[Light]

It sounds as though you are talking about an electric, but if you are thinking acoustic, you should get LMI's catalog, and that will get you where you need to go.

THIS is a good book, as is THIS, though it is more about acoustics. Many of the same principles apply, how ever, particularly when it comes to necks.

As for wood, I like ash for my bodies, but that is in combination with a mahogany neck-through-body and a maple top. The combination of these three gives a really cool, unique, and versatile sound. Mahogany is a traditional wood for bodies, and sounds damn good, but it is also damned expensive. As expensive and difficult to get as it is, I still refuse to make necks out of anything but mahogany. I mean, I like making necks, but I have no need, at all, what-so-ever, to spend two days making a neck out of maple, ever again. I hate making maple necks. I also like Alder a lot for guitar bodies, though strangely it does not seem to work very well for neck through guitars; at least not for mine. Fingerboards are best in either ebony, rosewood, or some rosewood like wood (there are hundreds of varieties of rosewood, most of which go by other names; pau ferro, bois d’rose, cocobolo, and a whole bunch of others). I like ebony, as it just wears a long time, it machines cleanly, and if you want to do inlay, there is no other good choice. I don't do much inlay, and look for ebony which is NOT jet black. I like the stuff with the brown and gold streaks. But when I do inlay, I revert to the black stuff, as the inlays look so much better.

You can, in all likelihood, get all the woods you need from a specialty supplier like LMI or Stew Mac. However, you can also likely get much of what you need at a store like Rockler woodworking (I have gotten a few maple tops there which are pretty nice, and I yesterday almost gave myself whiplash doing a double take at a particularly fine piece of Maccasar Ebony which I really want to use for a top. I think I may have to go back tomorrow and get it. You might also look at Gulab Gidwani's site, Exotic Woods. I don't think he will have much to help you, but I really like saying his name. Go ahead and say it. It's fun. And he does carry good wood; I am just not sure if he has a minimum order.

The other possibility, if you have access to tools for surfacing rough stock (a jointer, a table saw, and either a planer or a thickness sander), you can go to a good hardwood lumber yard and get rough stock, which is a great deal cheaper, usually better wood, and you will absolutely end up with better gluing surfaces then with smoothed or partially smoothed wood. Of course, I have a wholesale account at my local hardwood lumber yard, Youngblood Hardwood, so I get great prices on the wood I get there.

As for what size you need, that will depend on the design you use. For my design, I use 10/4 mahogany for my necks, and I buy it in some multiple of 10 inches wide, and 48 inches long. I glue these up with maple and rosewood laminates, and get two necks out of each 5x3x48 inch blank. My ash body wings are 8/4 stock, which are six inches wide and 21 or 22 inches long, though my bodies are about 19 inches long. I do not bother to bookmatch the Ash for my guitars, as they are finished opaque, so the figure is not important. My tops come from a whole variety of sources, including LMI, Rockler, and anywhere else I can get attractive figured maple, though one of these days soon I am going to do a Koa topped guitar. It won't sound the same, but it will sure look cool.


Light

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