My god i'm bored and i need something to do

bonzai bob

I just keep thinking of doing it, ya know what i'm saying. It would be SOOO cool!

Build you own guitar :eek:

Jaysus, should i? huh? Should i? Obviously not the neck cos that would be impossible for a mere mortal such as myself. But the body!!

Should i?

Where can i get the wood? Should i route it myself?(could prove difficult, especially the neck pocket) You can get a piece of wood from warmoth with the routing done already, they leave the body shape up to you. but this seems like cheating tbh.

I wouldn't need to worry about paint or any of that malarky, au natural for me thanks

What to do?

Pardon my hyperactiveness i just had two cups of coffee.

Doctor J

Write a good riff, a good riff.

bonzai bob

meh, that's too easy:D I need a challenge damn it!

Doctor J

Doctor J wrote:

a good riff.

bonzai bob

bonzai bob wrote:

meh

:cool:

Doctor J

Ok then, howsabout customising one of your guitars with a sliding pickup, so you can move it from bridge to neck and anywhere inbetween?

bonzai bob

man, how sweet would that be. Although impractical, you'd need some kind of locking system in place so the pickup wouldn't slide all over the place when playing. In which case it's impractial as then you'd be stuck mid song if you wanted to move the pickup, how would you do it in an instant? I know!!!!! Instead of one sliding pickup, you could have TWO!!!:eek:, i know i know, but bear with me, you could use something to select which one to use, mmmmm.... i got it!!!! a toggle switch, man i. am. a. genius!! GENIUS i tells ya:D

Doctor J

Off ye go, so

bonzai bob

but. but. Shut up, that's why!!

mayordenis

take up kayaking or something. Get out wind in your hair, rocks in your face.

BossArky

I know a fellow who build a guitar for some transition year project years ago, it was nothing spectacular but still playable. Of course if you get stuck you can always revert back to building one from Lego and attaching a few elastic bands to it. Did the job for me.

John

BossArky wrote:

you can always revert back to building one from Lego and attaching a few elastic bands to it. Did the job for me.

These pictures could equally go into the "If you like SG's" thread

bonzai bob

I just picked this up

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0953104907/qid=1116413089/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/026-4097102-8537228

Apparently it goes into great detail from choosing woods and tools etc, it also goes through building 2 guitars and a bass from scratch in detail.

Sounds good

Johnny Storm

If your really interested in building your own guitar - then check out this guy for inspiration
Teleplayer
He starts out by putting the electronic guts of a Variax into a standard body blank and on the way builds several really beautiful guitars. He definitely has a way with the staining and the flames - oh yeah!


More at http://www.instituteofnoise.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7855 this 50+ page thread - great photos - you want to start around page 10

feylya

www.projectguitar.com
http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?act=idx
www.lmii.com
www.stewmac.com

Go and read everything on those pages and I do mean everything. Then reread. Then rereread. Then think about building.

bonzai bob

Johnny Storm wrote:

If your really interested in building your own guitar - then check out this guy for inspiration
Teleplayer
He starts out by putting the electronic guts of a Variax into a standard body blank and on the way builds several really beautiful guitars. He definitely has a way with the staining and the flames - oh yeah!


More at http://www.instituteofnoise.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7855 this 50+ page thread - great photos - you want to start around page 10

cool!!!

bonzai bob

feylya wrote:

www.projectguitar.com
http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?act=idx
www.lmii.com
www.stewmac.com

Go and read everything on those pages and I do mean everything. Then reread. Then rereread. Then think about building.

waaaay ahead of ya man:D

bonzai bob

oh man, i've been going through these sites for about the last 5 hours straight. I'm pretty hooked on the idea of putting one of these things together.

I originally was going to go for a carved top but that's expecting too much me thinks!!!

Time to start looking into tools and shít:D

bonzai bob

I've decided on a tele for now, i don't want to get too ahead of myself for the first time.

The hard bit about this is finding a decent space to do it, it will be getting pretty messy, i suppose i could do it in my backgarden for the summer.

Looking at tools, they're not *that* expensive, all are on eBay for a reasonable price.

Anyone have any suggestions on specs?

I was thinking of quilted maple body with dyed finish, colour undecided as yet, maple neck and fretboard. HH pickup configuration. Pearloid scratchplate. Bolt on neck obviously, however i will be going for a set neck in future when i go for my PRS'esque carved top:D

Anyone any opinions?

feylya

You could try a heel like this. Set then shaped

bonzai bob

Aye, i've seen that on a tele before, although a little more subtle, looks nay too bad indeed. But set neck on my first project is a little to ambitious:D

feylya

Not as much as you'd think. If your careful with your tolerences and your neck pocket, it's the same as a bolt on. It's all about being careful though!

What about buying a Carvin neck through 6 string neck and gluing some alder wings on, a nice book matched quilt maple over the top of that, put a nice 3d red or blue dye on it, nitro finish, 72 tele custom control layout. Oh yeah!

bonzai bob

Yeah i do plan on doing a set neck in the future, because after reading those links i realised that it's easier than i thought it would be. However it twud be kinda hard when you don't have decent equipment. I've never used a router before, so i don't know what my accuracy'll be like. Plus i'd need a load of clamps just to let the glue set, i'm so stuck for space i don't even know where i could keep it to let it dry.

But you need not worry, there will be a set neck.

After i build this guitar i'll sell it for €10,000 which will pay for new equipment:p

feylya

Yeah, ten grand... Your first guitar more than likely won't be anywhere near even Squire standards. It'll hopefully be a nice player but your fretwork and finish especially won't be quite as good.

I have to get off my arse and order some wood tbh. Summer holidays start on Wednesday

bonzai bob

feylya wrote:

Yeah, ten grand... Your first guitar more than likely won't be anywhere near even Squire standards. It'll hopefully be a nice player but your fretwork and finish especially won't be quite as good.

I have to get off my arse and order some wood tbh. Summer holidays start on Wednesday

well i'm not making the neck on this project, now *that* is way too ambitious, i just don't have the tools or money for it.

Infact i won't even be able to start this for at least another month or 2 cos of bastard car insurance needing to be renewed, and of course the brand new permanent rehearsal space we have to soundproof:D ZING!

But i'll be planning everything in the mean time.

Do you know anywhere not overseas that can provide the wood?

feylya

Building providers, at least for mahogany. There's a few English places too but I can't think of any off the top of my tired head.

As for building the neck, the hardest part is the fretboard and I'd probably get that prefretted and possible preradiused. Fretting is something I've wanted to learn for a long time.

I figure I can build a body, neck and fretboard and finish them for about €100. That's without any hardware except fretwire. If all that works out well, then I can go and start buying hardware for it (or steal it from other guitars ). If it doesn't work out too well, I can make it into a nice lamp or something

bonzai bob

€100? What wood are you wanting to use? Do you already have the tools or access to them?

feylya

Maple for the neck, alder for the body wings, ebony fretboard (preradiused and slotted I think). And there'd be a LMII dual acting truss rod in there too. The father has a cheapo router, a table saw, bench drill and a few hand tools. You don't really need more but they're nice to have.

bonzai bob

feylya wrote:

Maple for the neck, alder for the body wings, ebony fretboard (preradiused and slotted I think). And there'd be a LMII dual acting truss rod in there too. The father has a cheapo router, a table saw, bench drill and a few hand tools. You don't really need more but they're nice to have.

Ah, i don't have any tools So they'll cost me over 100 alone. Bench drill would be handy to have.

feylya

You won't get anywhere without a decent pillar drill. I just priced up some wood from LMII.com

3&4 piece alder body, maple neck through, slotted and radiused ebony board (1st grade), dual action truss rod, fretwire and 2-3 day shipping comes to the grand total of €140. That's without shopping around and I honestly think you could alder for cheaper than $44!

Edit: Like here.

bonzai bob

Ya know what i don't get, why are they only in two pieces? Apart from people wanting a neck through neck, but why don't they provide full pieces?

Plus they're only top woods, if i'm not mistaken a tele is only 1 piece?

feylya

Think about how big of a tree you'd have to have to get one piece from. That'd be a fairly big tree, which would take a long time to grow and would take a lot of looking after. That's expensive wood. Using smaller pieces and gluing them together is much cheaper.

A tele is made from 2 or 3 pieces of wood. Very few guitars are made from one piece of wood. Les Pauls are made from 3 or 4 pieces (the top is one piece, cut in half, opened like a book and glued together. That's where "book matching" comes from )

bonzai bob

ah yeah, never thought about the trees. One must always think of the trees,

Sorry i only mean a tele body, the body is usually one piece(ash) i think. I'm going for quilted maple cos it looks perty though:D as well as expensive:(

Mmmm, im thinking it may be better to do the first guitar on the cheap, mmmm.

feylya

Are tele's definately only one piece? Can't say I've done much tele research.

That's why I'm thinking of dropping €100 or so on wood and hardware. Get the maple for the neck and the alder for the body, leave the fretboard and truss rod for later. Even cheaper so less money wasted if anything goes wrong.

Of course, I'd have to have leds as side dots

bonzai bob

feylya wrote:

Are tele's definately only one piece? Can't say I've done much tele research.

That's why I'm thinking of dropping €100 or so on wood and hardware. Get the maple for the neck and the alder for the body, leave the fretboard and truss rod for later. Even cheaper so less money wasted if anything goes wrong.

Of course, I'd have to have leds as side dots

Heh, can you smell that? smells like cheese

Yeah i think they are only one piece, not always ash, some are alder etc. But the 72 thinline is Ash.

feylya

You have no idea of the cheese I am capable of

Hmm, some nice swamp ash, fill it with black epoxy, sand it back, die the wood a nice blue, black burst it. I think yes...

http://www.fbass.com/images/bn5grnbk.jpg

bonzai bob

feylya wrote:

You have no idea of the cheese I am capable of

Hmm, some nice swamp ash, fill it with black epoxy, sand it back, die the wood a nice blue, black burst it. I think yes...

http://www.fbass.com/images/bn5grnbk.jpg

nice touch with the back plate being wood too! nice!

Did you have a look at the links on the 1st page that Jonny Storm posted.

This guitar made me want to do a tele!! two words, GOD DAMN!!

http://www.guitaristjeffmiller.com/mods4.htm

feylya

Aye, that's some nice work.

Looking for a tele?

bonzai bob

yeah i was looking at that this morning alright. I think i'd rather do that myself though, otherwise it's cheating!:D

yes i do realise i'm buying the neck instead of making it and that could be considered cheating but so what, you shut up a your face

feylya

Well, I didn't mean buy one. He does some seriously nice work. Might look into making some templates when I'm at home next time.

bonzai bob

he sells em on eBay as well apparently. How will you make templates? I was gonna pick one up on guitarbuildingtemplates.com but they don't have a template for a tele with HH.

feylya

Well, the guitar I want to build is an ESP M-II. I have a LTD M-100 downstairs. Same body shape and headstock, so it's a case of trace the design onto some paper or straight to plywood or other cheap wood/plastic and carefully cut it out

Lemme see if I have a tele blueprint...

bonzai bob

where would you get a blue print?

Yeah you can trace it out no problem but you can't trace out the pickup/control cavities though.

feylya

I've a couple of blueprints but none for a tele it seems and I can't remember the web site address

You just measure the cavity as best you can. Pickup cavities are standard.

Hmm, today might be your lucky day. Just found a (seemingly) to scale drawing of a tele caster

bonzai bob

oooh, do tell

feylya

There go. Google for a dxf viewer. The diagram isn't detailed but if you scale it to the right size and get it printed out, it should be good enough to make a template from

bonzai bob

cool and the gang. Cheers man.

bonzai bob

Yeah i may keep this simple for my first time, doing a search here;

Body blank: Ash or Alder, 1 Piece.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_necks,_wood/Electric_guitar:_Bodies/Alder_Body_Blank.html

€43.61.

Neck Blank: Maple.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_necks,_wood/Electric_guitar:_Necks/Electric_Guitar_Neck_Blanks.html

€14.26

Fingerboard:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_necks,_wood/Electric_guitar:_Fingerboards/25-1_2_Fender_Scale_Fingerboard.html

€10.64.

Price for complete guitar wood = €68.51 + shipping and customs.

That's pretty damn cheap. And that's getting the wood in the U.S, i'd most likely find it here and i wouldn't have to pay postage so that's even cheaper!!

Jesus, can you imagine that!! €70 for a guitar, even if you were to get the best hardware and best pickups, it would still be less than €500!! all it takes is a little bit of work.

feylya

Don't forget your truss rod. And the slotting of the fretboard is probably the trickiest and most viatle part of building a neck. If you cut one of the slots off by just a tiny about, that fret will always be off tune

bonzai bob

yeah but fretboards are cheap, so you can just start on another one if you make a mistake. Yeah i didn't include the truss cos i didn't really know which one to go for. But €70 for all the wood you'd need is damn good!

feylya

I suppose €10 isn't too bad but when you consider StewMac have a €30 minimum charge plus delivery, the price goes up. For €10, I'd probably order another board too. Unless of course, you're using that preslotted, preradiused board

It's half seven in the morning. Gimme a break