Building your own guitar

nialldabass

RamblingRebel wrote: »

Nice thread. Those guitars look good.

Do they play as good as a proper tele?

It's always put me off building my own, I'd be worried it played naff. But I suppose that'd come down to how accurate you are in your execution.

How hard is it for someone with next to none woodworking skills?

Hey why not start out with a cigar box guitar, all the info is out there and it will cost you next to nothing, great fun to play, and you will learn alot about guitar building just by having to research. And you'll soon know if ya want to spend money on tools and wood. Getting even half decent handtools will cost a few quid plus a few power tools, so that would be your biggest outlay.
Maybe try a kit build first, and if you get the bug move on from there. Its certainly not rocket science but takes a certain amount of dedication, but apart from playing guitar its the best hobby I've ever had and many would agree with me. And with dedication you could be building guitars that would cost you thousands to buy, I'm not there yet, long way to go, but I'm close to somthing you would have to pay a few hundred for, not a million miles away from the Gibson SG faded I have, at least in playability but without the expensive harware and pickups. Expect to make mistakes, your first builds will not be great compared to what you will end up building.

Banjo

I've got no woodworking skills or knowledge at all, and I've tried the cigar box guitar route (never finished it though, life keeps getting in the way) but I have to agree with the above. If you don't know what you're doing, you will make mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Big splintery ones and there's no Undo button on a hunk of mahogany. Better to screw up on something that cost nothing and can be easily replaced than when you're half way through shaping your one-piece custom TeleMaster hybrid body...

There's something incredibly compelling about the work though, and if you're in any way interested you should have a go. For the price of a pint you can get the wood you need for the neck. The cigar box will come free from most cigar shops as long as you don't ask them for more than one. To make a very basic one you'll need a drill - which you can probably borrow if you don't have one - a ruler or tape measure, a saw and lots of sand paper. A hammer and chisel will save you a lot of time but get some practice in on how they work first or your neck is going to look like a werewolf's scratching post. A surform planar is pretty cheap and helps when shaping the neck. (But neck shaping isn't a first-build task! Forget the frets, forget tuners, just nail some strings to the damned thing and make it play.)

But that's it. The rest is elbow grease. And it's brilliant fun. You'll never leave Aldi or Lidl again without an armful of cheap powertools and some half-formed ideas!

That said the most important tools are patience, a steady hand and the ability to stick to your plan. Don't for example come up with a great idea for how to place the nut on the neck while you were supposed to be cutting down the head stock, then realise halfway through that it's actually a terrible idea and you can't find the bit you cut off to glue back on. (Or hey - always buy extra wood )

JCJCJC

The old reliable route to woodworking skills shouldn't be forgotten - ask at you local school if there are night classes. Lots of people get basic skills and lots of confidence by doing evening classes.
Everything is an adventure. I had a good tele body fully cut out and shaped lately. It was plenty good enough to finish it. I was very tempted to make a strat-style arm relief cut and a belly cut, but the risk of ruining a perfectly good body was there. Eventually I decided that if I didn't make the cuts sometime, I'd never learn how to do them, so I hacked into it with my Aldi angle grinder. It turned out fine, and I'm still working on finishing it.

JCJCJC

nialldabass wrote: »

You should be able to get precat laquer from them which is as close to nitro cellulose as you can get,

Nialldabass - just googling to learn about pre-cat, this site says it IS nitro?

http://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/wood-finishes/lacquers/pre-cat-lacquer.htm

dubtom

I've used the cans of car lacquer from Halfords on a banjo project, worked fine.Still some left after 6 or 7 coats on a neck and resonator, I think it's about a tenner.

On the subject of paint,has anyone come across clear grain filler, it's necessary to fill the pores on mahogany and mapel etc, haven't managed to find it in Dublin.

JCJCJC

dubtom wrote: »

I've used the cans of car lacquer from Halfords on a banjo project, worked fine.Still some left after 6 or 7 coats on a neck and resonator, I think it's about a tenner.

On the subject of paint,has anyone come across clear grain filler, it's necessary to fill the pores on mahogany and mapel etc, haven't managed to find it in Dublin.

Dubtom - isn't that the same in effect as sanding sealer? Would something like this do your job?
http://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/wood-finishes/sealers-and-primers/shellac-sanding-sealer.htm

Edit - have a look in the likes of B & Q, Homebase, Woodies, Atlantic Homecare too, they have similar products in the painting & decorating section.

nialldabass

JCJCJC wrote: »

Dubtom - isn't that the same in effect as sanding sealer? Would something like this do your job?
http://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/products/wood-finishes/sealers-and-primers/shellac-sanding-sealer.htm

Edit - have a look in the likes of B & Q, Homebase, Woodies, Atlantic Homecare too, they have similar products in the painting & decorating section.

I'm sure Morrells will sell the clear filler they used to anyway

The pre cat laquer is not quite the same as the old fashioned stuff the anal lunatics at mylespaul go on about,but as I say it is as close as your gonna get
The only problem is the lunatics in Europe changed the law last year and I'm not sure if you can buy precat anymore. They want it all water based, oil paint is being fased out aswell. I have used the stuff from Halfords before aswell and its good but again I think its just old stock. So if you do find some hang on to it.

dubtom

JCJCJC, I don't think it's the same stuff. I've used sanding sealer when wood turning, always thought of it as a finish. Grain filler,well the only one I've used, was a thickish paste type stuff, actually got it free from Morrells last year (didn't realise it was Morrells until I clicked your link nialldabass,) they had excess mahogany coloured stuff from a coffin makers order, at the time they had no clear.Will give them a try.

JCJCJC

I happened to be in UCD Belfield last night, far from my usual haunts. I noticed a large oval dining room table, damaged and in poor shape, in a skip down at the side of the library, past where the bicycle racks are. I had a look at it and if it is mahogany or rosewood, there would be loads of material in it for fingerboards and maybe even necks. It was hard to tell in the dark if the top was solid or veneered, but if it was solid there was huge potential for back and sides of an acoustic, and maybe a top veneer or cap for an electric. If you enjoy re-using salvaged materials and you have the opportunity, go for it. You'd really need a car trailer or a van to bring the whole table, if you haven't that bring a few tools. I'll want a fingerboard-sized piece out of it as a finder's fee

I called to Morrells yesterday too on a fact-finding mission. They have wood dyes for around a tenner a litre, and nitrocellulose and pre-cat lacquers for 30 to 40 for a five-litre drum. They don't do aerosol cans, so you'll need a paint spraying gun. They seem very knowledgeable and obliging but there's no showroom etc, you just talk to a helpful chap in a small office through a hatch.
For the country boys like me - to find it, visualise it as being just past Harris's Hino place on the Naas Road inbound. It's down the city side of Harris's, near Tougher Oil and JCB.
They say they can match any colour in lacquer, which sparks off possibilities - I wonder if you could take in a sunburst finished strat for example to get a match, or a transparent purple flame maple PRS - one of the most spectacular-looking guitars I've seen.

nialldabass

Thats a shame about the rattle cans, but you can always pick up a hplv system for cheap, I bought one in Argos a few years ago and it works great with cellulose

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/7113024/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CGarden+and+DIY%7C14418702/c_2/3%7Ccat_19536159%7CWallpaper+and+decorating%7C14418953.htm

I used to bring it out on jobs with me and I could quite happily spray dinning tables and doors with it. I'm not a sprayer , but sometimes it was the only way. never tried it with water based, thats stuffs real thick and don't seem to like being thinned out, but I'm sure Morrells could advise about its propper use

JCJCJC

nialldabass wrote: »

Thats a shame about the rattle cans, but you can always pick up a hplv system for cheap, I bought one in Argos a few years ago and it works great with cellulose

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/7113024/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CGarden+and+DIY%7C14418702/c_2/3%7Ccat_19536159%7CWallpaper+and+decorating%7C14418953.htm

I used to bring it out on jobs with me and I could quite happily spray dinning tables and doors with it. I'm not a sprayer , but sometimes it was the only way. never tried it with water based, thats stuffs real thick and don't seem to like being thinned out, but I'm sure Morrells could advise about its propper use

You would probably get an Aldi compressor and spray gun for not a lot more, if any. I have them and I don't recall paying anything significant for them. The compressor is in use all the time but I haven't yet mastered the spray gun.

nialldabass

Yeah its nice to have a compressor for lots of things but for the layman the HPLV's are much much easier to use very simple guns not much harder than rattle cans in all honesty, and alot quieter. Mind you, you can't sand blast, jet wash, power tools or pump up your tyres with one:D.

JCJCJC

There are useful clamps in Lidl today, I just picked up a set. You can never have too many clamps...

JCJCJC

Aldi in fact have their compressor on Sunday next, it's a good buy, I've had one for about two years. Ideal if you want to get into spraying instruments in a small way.

nialldabass

Thanks, they have some airtools aswell I see, how are those clamps? you can never have enough:D

JCJCJC

nialldabass wrote: »

Thanks, they have some airtools aswell I see, how are those clamps? you can never have enough:D

The clamps are nice, good enough for the price. They are handy for single-handed clamping where you have one hand occupied aligning the job as you try to get a clamp on. Ideal for clamping a fence to a router table or saw etc because they aren't as bulky as big cast-iron G-gramps.

Re the airtools - you'd have to have a very badly bowed neck to need an air ratchet to wind up the truss rod ;-)

nialldabass

Haha! yeah maybe not great for guitar building, but airtools are so cheap, just really simple, look out for the orbital sanders, now they would be usefull.

JCJCJC

Picked up a nice as-new 100w guitar amp at the weekend, a Fender FRontman 212-DSP. A small builder had it, he took it in lieu of cash from a debtor. It was so new the leads hadn't been taken out of their plastic seals. I spotted it on donedeal.ie and bought it for €150 cash - a bargain. It has chorus, echo, delay, flanger, reverb, tremolo etc all built-in - maybe not brilliant effects, but handy and cheaper than a whole load of pedals. I got €180 locally for my previous amp, a FM212R, so no bad deal...
My band buddies and I also bought a 10-channel PA between us last weekend, another donedeal job, so I'm skint this week.

Doc_Savage

seems like the appropriate place for this..

http://izismile.com/2011/03/15/awesome_homemade_guitar_51_pics.html

not so sure about calling it "home-made" or "awesome" but i am liking the finish he managed to achieve on it! (- the signatures of course!)

JCJCJC

Doc_Savage wrote: »

seems like the appropriate place for this..

http://izismile.com/2011/03/15/awesome_homemade_guitar_51_pics.html

not so sure about calling it "home-made" or "awesome" but i am liking the finish he managed to achieve on it! (- the signatures of course!)

A kit-build, but he did a nice job ok on the staining. In case you haven't already found it, this site is the last word for info on telecaster-building:
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/

nialldabass

Yeah check out this years build comp

Nice score on that amp, I hope your not carrying it up too many flights of stairs:D

Heads up, Lidls from monday have, cheap Dremmel style multitool, angle grinder, sharpstones, sand paper, tap and dye sets drill bits including rasps and digital callipers, all usefull for guitar building

Oh I was looking at your build JCJCJC very nice and I'm glad your getting going on a neck, from what I ve seen you do , you'll have no problem

JCJCJC

nialldabass wrote: »

Yeah check out this years build comp

Nice score on that amp, I hope your not carrying it up too many flights of stairs:D

Heads up, Lidls from monday have, cheap Dremmel style multitool, angle grinder, sharpstones, sand paper, tap and dye sets drill bits including rasps and digital callipers, all usefull for guitar building

Oh I was looking at your build JCJCJC very nice and I'm glad your getting going on a neck, from what I ve seen you do , you'll have no problem

That effin' neck is giving me grief, best thing I can say is I'm still on a steep learning curve. I attempted an Irish oak fingerboard, and it has turned out to be difficult - but at least I can claim to be the inventor of the two-piece fingerboard I suppose! Roll on a big bucket of dark dye to camouflage my blunders, I ordered some todayfrom Woodfinishes Direct. What started out a a cheap sample ended up quite pricey by the time they added on UK postage and a credit card charge.

Why doe this board no re-size pics automatically like most boards do? I have loads of pics of work in progress but they don't look right here.

nialldabass

JCJCJC wrote: »

That effin' neck is giving me grief, best thing I can say is I'm still on a steep learning curve. I attempted an Irish oak fingerboard, and it has turned out to be difficult - but at least I can claim to be the inventor of the two-piece fingerboard I suppose! Roll on a big bucket of dark dye to camouflage my blunders, I ordered some todayfrom Woodfinishes Direct. What started out a a cheap sample ended up quite pricey by the time they added on UK postage and a credit card charge.

Why doe this board no re-size pics automatically like most boards do? I have loads of pics of work in progress but they don't look right here.

Oak fingerboard, sounds like a Brian May red special, I admire your use of homegrown timbers.

Another site you may like to take a look at, I've ordered from them before, dont let the name fool ya

http://www.mehr-als-werkzeug.de/page/homepage/detail.jsf

JCJCJC

nialldabass wrote: »

Oak fingerboard, sounds like a Brian May red special, I admire your use of homegrown timbers.

Another site you may like to take a look at, I've ordered from them before, dont let the name fool ya

http://www.mehr-als-werkzeug.de/page/homepage/detail.jsf

Well my aspiration was to keep it all in native Irish woods, but that is becoming a pita. I got a quantlty of left-over teak flooring yesterday from a friend of mine, it is looking very tempting to mill some of it down to fingerboard size. For now, I'll persevere with the oak. I need to make up a radiussing jig, might do that later tonight.
I'm also thinking of trying to source position dot raw material from Irish shellfish. I know abalones were tried in Galway Bay a few years ago, I must make enquiries and see if a few shells can be sourced. If not them, maybe scallops or some similar shiny shell. It would be a nicer touch than plastic rods. Maybe stuff like deer antler would work - I don't know, but anything beats plastic.

nialldabass

I like your thinking, the last dots I made were plastic chopsticks from china, not sure what they were made of, some sort of non toxic plastic you would hope for eating with, but it was the worst smell in the world

JCJCJC

nialldabass wrote: »

I like your thinking, the last dots I made were plastic chopsticks from china, not sure what they were made of, some sort of non toxic plastic you would hope for eating with, but it was the worst smell in the world

Thanks, Jeez, I wouldn't have thought of the chopsticks! My missus works in a plant where they use a lot of brass round stock, so that's probably always available to me too, I've seen brass position dots. I began building a truss rod routing jig just now, remember it's for a double-acting rod so it doesn't need the hump, much simpler jig does the job (hopefully). I've posted it on tdpri here.

JC

nialldabass

JCJCJC wrote: »

Thanks, Jeez, I wouldn't have thought of the chopsticks! My missus works in a plant where they use a lot of brass round stock, so that's probably always available to me too, I've seen brass position dots. I began building a truss rod routing jig just now, remember it's for a double-acting rod so it doesn't need the hump, much simpler jig does the job (hopefully). I've posted it on tdpri here.

JC

Ah thanks, looking good, glad your repair worked out, and brass rod for side dots is a nice idea, how about some nice old style tele bridge parts or a nice sustain block on a string through. I doubt you'll need a truss rod with that oak you'll probably need 13's to get any relief lol. You got a nice work space and a nice tool collection on the go. I'm trying to get the kids to like the tase of sawdust, but wife say's its not good for them or her.I just need the weather to improve a little and I'll get back on this short scale bass I'm building.
Looking forward to the updates:D

JCJCJC

nialldabass wrote: »

Ah thanks, looking good, glad your repair worked out, and brass rod for side dots is a nice idea, how about some nice old style tele bridge parts or a nice sustain block on a string through. I doubt you'll need a truss rod with that oak you'll probably need 13's to get any relief lol. You got a nice work space and a nice tool collection on the go. I'm trying to get the kids to like the tase of sawdust, but wife say's its not good for them or her.I just need the weather to improve a little and I'll get back on this short scale bass I'm building.
Looking forward to the updates:D

I'm inclined to try the Babicz bridge on this one, I have so much of my own daft ideas in it already that a few more won't matter. If I ever again see a sustain block it'll be too soon. I used a Kort guitar in a musical last year, the bastard went out of tune every ten minutes. I got a PRS Paul Allender instead - just as bad but better looking. And changing strings - a total nightmare, it took three weeks to settle down again, insofar as it ever settled down. I'll be a Johnny-no-mates if I ever look at a guitar with a whammy.

I have a lot of tools - father and uncle were woodwork teachers and metalwork teachers, and I have all their stuff and have spent a lifetime buying more, people give me tools etc so I have a shed full. My idea of a treat in Dublin is a ramble around McQuillans, I'll always find something.

nialldabass

JCJCJC wrote: »

I'm inclined to try the Babicz bridge on this one, I have so much of my own daft ideas in it already that a few more won't matter. If I ever again see a sustain block it'll be too soon. I used a Kort guitar in a musical last year, the bastard went out of tune every ten minutes. I got a PRS Paul Allender instead - just as bad but better looking. And changing strings - a total nightmare, it took three weeks to settle down again, insofar as it ever settled down. I'll be a Johnny-no-mates if I ever look at a guitar with a whammy.

I have a lot of tools - father and uncle were woodwork teachers and metalwork teachers, and I have all their stuff and have spent a lifetime buying more, people give me tools etc so I have a shed full. My idea of a treat in Dublin is a ramble around McQuillans, I'll always find something.

Ooops sorry looks like I touched a raw nerve , I only meant as one solid block at the back instead of individual ferrules, and great to see you using all your Dad's tools, still have a few of my Dad's but he was a pannel beater, and if he could see what I use some of his hammers for, he'd use them on me, at least there getting used, and no-one beats pannels these days so no point even giving them away.

JCJCJC

Good source here:

http://sites.google.com/site/djhautecouture/guitar-plans