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Building your own guitar

Forum is providing me with some inspiration.

Ive not been playing long but would love to build my own. Ive found 2 kits on ebay;

http://cgi.ebay.ie/Unfinished-Tele-Electric-Guitar-Kit-Project-Basswood-/310234657631?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item483b6d335f

http://cgi.ebay.ie/Unfinished-ST-Style-Electric-Guitar-Kit-Project-/310250945654?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item483c65bc76

Right now Ive an Epiphone LP and Ive been browsing others and Im unsure if I want a Strat, Tele or ES 335. I dont NEED another guitar which is why Im slow to buy another but the idea of building one is cool.

Anyone recommend the kits you can buy or better ways to go about this??? If I do start one Ill post stuff in this thread about it, Id like to fit it with some cool stuff.

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JCJCJC

radiusing the fretboard?

I made a radiused sanding block. Stewmac sell the for about $20, but because I have access to a small CNC router, I drew one on Solidworks and got the maching to carve it for me. took 20 mins of may time and a lump of scrap Oroko wood.

as to the fans, the biggest hassle is getting bridges for electrics. for my 5 string bass I used individual string bridges so it was no problem at all. for acoustics, its just the same as regular only at an angle.

it really is cool when people who think that know about guitars come up and tell you theres something "wrong" with your guitar!!

nialldabass wrote: »

Yew is somthing else I've thought about, your like some mad guitar scientist, love it:D, Have you thought about a sycamore fretboard? nice close grain, maybe not as tough as maple but i bet it would hold frets nicely. You seem to have plenty of sycamore. My only complaint about your build is I can't see that lovely grain you had at the start, keep the next one natural lol

You (yew)

don't know the half of it. All you see is what's going on in my shed - you should hear what's going on in my head!
12-string tele with on-board chorus circuitry...
Low-relief carved themed tele...
Telezouki...
Monkey-puzzle tele...
baritone tele...
LED position markers...
something with a midi signal generator...

I have too much bloody sycamore. I bought a big plank of it from Lisnavagh in Carlow, it was the first chunk I found that was thick enough. I now have slabs of ash, marcocarpa, mahogany, teak, spanish chestnut, beech and a few other odds and ends accumulated. I also have lots of cherry for fingerboards - a box of unused flooring in 1-metre lengths is the source of that, I get three fingerboards from each length and I might get even more yet if I resaw it more carefully and reduce waste.

I've pm-d the mod to ask for picture auto-sizing and got an instant NO to that idea ;-( Tdpri can do it, but not boards.ie it seems.

JC

Yew is somthing else I've thought about, your like some mad guitar scientist, love it:D, Have you thought about a sycamore fretboard? nice close grain, maybe not as tough as maple but i bet it would hold frets nicely. You seem to have plenty of sycamore. My only complaint about your build is I can't see that lovely grain you had at the start, keep the next one natural lol.
THe guys on TDPRI are great and some of them are amazing builders and all very generous with information. I have a friend ask me to build him a strat and wanted me to start a thread so he could keep track of itso I hope you'll chime in, I'm gonna need all the help I can get

@martinedwards - they are two very nice guitars, incredible for a lad so young, he must have great aptitude. How heavy is the mahogany LP? I have a few chunks of mahogany and teak lying around that were salvaged from a skip on its way into a pallet grinder. I've roughed out one tele blank from mahogany but the weight is fearsome, so I've hollowed it out, I'm loosely planning to put a cap of some other wood on it. I also have a stripey project in the very early stages, with mahogany and spanish chestnut involved.
Fanned frets? I'm in awe. I haven't intentionally done any fanned frets. I'll persevere trying to make decent playable ordinary guitars for another while anyway.
Which method of radiussing the fingerboards are you using? I've made a Bill Scheltema jig, with a few mnor mods. I have made the sleds for a 12" radius and a 9", and for now I prefer the 9". I find it's best to start with an over-long blank, and allow about 2" of waste at each end where the router chews the wood a bit - in between is acceptable good.
@nialldabass - thanks for the vote of confidence! I build too slowly for the tdpri challenge. The yanks on there are a helpful bunch, some of them make fantastic guitars. One of my favs was a builder called Ironwolf who made a matched tele and strat from mahogany a few years ago, they were fabulous. If he did a p-bass and a mandocaster as well he'd qualify for sainthood.
The wood is out there once you start making a few contacts. The lengths we want are too short for most other woodworkers. I travel about a bit for work, and I call to every sawmill I pass. You'd be surprised what guys can pull out if you're after a short plank of something interesting. I'm expecting to pick up some holly in Cork at the weekend. I got some yew lately, I made a fabulous neck from it, look at the grain on this:

drilling%20tuner%20holes.jpg

drilling%20tuner%20holes.jpg

Is there any Moderator on this thread who could set the pictures to autosize themselves?

JC

Hey! Nice job JC, why didn't you enter the comp on TDPRI? I could of done with some company, far too many yanks lol.I love the fact you've used all Irish timber, thats not easy and somthing I really want to try and do, Its the fingerboard that I would worry most about, I've used oak on a little uke build and its great, never tried a guitar yet, but thats given me the confidence to try.

And Axesrus are great, its all the same as the gfs stuff without all the shipping and taxes.

Well done great build, and I gotta look out for that saw in woodies, I dont even use a mitre box, but i spend a long time marking out and scoring with a blade before any cutting gets done.

light day in work so I was able to get some sorting out done on Glen's explorer.

still a load of setup to do and the backplate still needs made, but here it is so far

not bad for a 14 year old!!

one piece mahogany body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard and all the hardware from Guitarfetish.

this is his second build. when he was 12 he made a Les Paul......

same block of mahogany for body & neck, ebony fretboard and again, hardware from Guitar fetish

the explorer?

I'll try and get some pics this week.

the kid has been pestering me for about 6weeks.... Will it be done THIS week?....

well, the neck is on the body and the pilot holes for the tailpiece are drilled.

I've told him that I'll wire it up for him, so realistically I could have it done for him by the end of the week.......

as to cutting fret slots I don't use a mitre box because I do a fair few fanned fret instruments. I tried making a mitre box that'd do a full fretboard, but that limited me to a single fan set up.

I clamp a square block of wood over the mark on the fretboard and then hold the saw tight against the block to saw the slot.

I radius it afterwards

slavetothegrind wrote: »

lovely job on that tele!

Particularly like the dot inlays on the fretboard

if only i had the hands!!!!!!!

Thanks. the dots are actually dead-easy to do, you should have a go - it's just an adaption of a standard process used in conventional woodwork and cabinetmaking to hide screws. You use a tool called a plug cutter to make round plugs. In this case they are 10mm but in future I'll make them smaller, because 10mm is too big for the very uppermost frets. You drill a 10mm hole, bang in the plug with some glue, cut and sand it flush and you're done. In normal woodwork you'd use the same wood and align the grain so that the location of the screw in the hole is hidden, or at least well camouflaged. Here, you'd go for contrasting woods.
I have another fingerboard recently made with spalted sycamore dots set into cherry that looks good so far. Here is a pic:

One of the dots at the 12th hasn't enough contrast to be seen properly, I might try a spot of bleach or something on it to try to resolve that. That neck is larch, from a tree I cut myself, with a cherry fingerboard made from flooring left-overs. I have put water-based Danish oil on the fingerboard and Lidl's finest lacquer on the neck. I'm getting a great finish with the Lidl lacquer but it takes nearly a whole can to do a neck.
On the plugs, again to date I've been setting them in a blind hole. In future, I think I'll try drilling right through the fingerboard and smoothing the plugs off top and bottom for a more solid result ultimately. I must find a smaller plug cutter, maybe around 7mm.
You might also be interested to know that fret slots can be cut with complete success with a hand saw you can get in Woodies DIY for about 8 Euros, and a home-made mitre box, even though - for the purists - strictly speaking these aren't mitres. It's called a sabre-tooth saw, they do two sizes in Woodies, you want the small one. The alternative is an American saw by mail order for nearly 100 dollars plus customs if you're unlucky. I'm working on developing a process to cut them on a bandsaw, per several clips you can find on youtube like this:

http://youtu.be/wz7mfvTbpKg

It's actually not a simple straightforward matter - the thin-kerf blade is made in one popular American size only. I'm in touch with a British saw supplier who is interested in this, and he's sourcing thin-kerf band. When he has it, he'll make up a trial blade for my saw (Metabo 317BAS) and we'll see how it goes then.

slavetothegrind

lovely job on that tele!

Particularly like the dot inlays on the fretboard

if only i had the hands!!!!!!!

Great to get a response here. Why not post a few pics of that Explorer project?

JC

Nice looking guitar!!

I've used Guitar fetish pups a lot, infact I have a pair of P90s sitting waitng for a pupil to finish tru-oiling the neck of his explorer.....

ridiculously good value for money and EXCELLENT customer service.

Finished this tele today -

Sycamore body, ash neck, oak fingerboard - all Irish woods. LP-style pickup switch, strat-style arm relief and belly cuts. Danish oil on the body and fingerboard, Lidl lacquer on the neck. GFS/Axesrus hardware, hand-made brass nut.

Has this thread become moribund?

Banjo wrote: »

(while you wait for an informed opinion to come along...)
Sycamore should work for a neck - "european sycamore" is similar to american Maple as far as I know, though I should stress that I have no practical experience, I just googled it when Nialldabass or JCJCJCJCJCJCJCJCJC mentioned it earlier in this thread as I was starting to catch the "Make Your Own Tele" fever. (which, if you don't treat it will never quite go away but it does die down enough that you can live a perfectly fulfilling life!)

Depending on what you read it's the same family if not the same tree as Maple, but when looking up luthier sites there was a lot of confusion as to which Sycamore they were talking about. The one you'd want is Acer Pseudo-something... the Acer bit denoting that it's Maple family. Some of the other trees that also get called Sycamore in different parts of the world are softer woods.

Given that it's a bass neck though, would you need to make a laminate neck with a harder wood? Oak or Chestnut, Cherry maybe? I seem to recall reading that iron compounds turn oak and chestnut blue though, might make for some interesting seams Irishwoods.com list all of the above so local sources are available.

Good to see some life coming back into this list. I've worked a fair bit with sycamore in the past twelve months, simply because it was the first 1.75" plank I came across when the bug bit me. I have five bodies made from it, in various stages of completion. Having done that, I would be a bit iffy about using it for a neck, but you could try - the learning experience would be good if nothing else. I currently have a tele fingerboard made of Irish oak that I'm planning to put on an ash neck. The oak was very inclined to split, if you are routing it you need 110% concentration, no matter how easily it seems to be going - one little bit of excess speed or anything and a lump comes flying out of it. Still, Brian May made his guitar with an English oak fingerboard so anything is possible.
The European Sycamore is definitely not the same as the American/Canadian one, so information from US-side discussion groups and boards could put you astray. For a neck from Irish woods, I wouldthink yew, hornbeam or holly would be good. I have a good supply of beech drying out for almost a year now, time will tell what it is like to work with and how strong it is. Ash is fabulous stuff to work with, it takes a really smooth cut from the tooling. How it will work out in a neck remains to be seen - I'm thinking of hurleys, strong but springy.

In general, our temperate climate leads to low-density wood because trees grow practically the whole year round, and the growth rings are relatively wide compared to cold-climate timber. The structural strength of Irish timber is inferior to Scandanavian, that's why the building industry greatly prefers inmported timber. Whether it's a rafter in a roof or a telecaster neck, the mechanical properties issue is the same.

Incidentally I'm stalled with that oak fingerboard because I haven't found an easy/cheap way to cut fret slots - what are you guys using to cut them?

JC

Edit: It has just ocurred to me that I have some 3" x 2" red larch that has been stored for well over twenty-five years, I cut the tree up myself. That stuff is like tool steel it is so hard and tough. If anyone is willing to attempt a neck in it I'll give you a piece.

(while you wait for an informed opinion to come along...)
Sycamore should work for a neck - "european sycamore" is similar to american Maple as far as I know, though I should stress that I have no practical experience, I just googled it when Nialldabass or JCJCJCJCJCJCJCJCJC mentioned it earlier in this thread as I was starting to catch the "Make Your Own Tele" fever. (which, if you don't treat it will never quite go away but it does die down enough that you can live a perfectly fulfilling life!)

Depending on what you read it's the same family if not the same tree as Maple, but when looking up luthier sites there was a lot of confusion as to which Sycamore they were talking about. The one you'd want is Acer Pseudo-something... the Acer bit denoting that it's Maple family. Some of the other trees that also get called Sycamore in different parts of the world are softer woods.

Given that it's a bass neck though, would you need to make a laminate neck with a harder wood? Oak or Chestnut, Cherry maybe? I seem to recall reading that iron compounds turn oak and chestnut blue though, might make for some interesting seams

Irishwoods.com list all of the above so local sources are available.

Fingers crossed I'm right in thinking that I'm okay to bring up this thread instead of starting my own, it seems ongoing, if not, I'm really sorry mods!

I've started sketching up designs for a fretless CB bass and I'm wondering what wood to go for with the neck, any suggestions or ideas I've had so far are foreign materials, and I'd like to use something native, which you guys seem into so I said I'd ask... Any advice or references would be much obliged too as this is my first build.

Thanks!

Hi all - in the past week I've discovered another very good source for native timbers. Between Cahir and Clonmel there is a signposted cul-de-sac leading to a Co Council recycling depot called Legaun. Right at the entrance to the depot is a sawmill. The guy there is more than obliging, and he has beech, oak, yew, sycamore, chestnut etc - well worth a visit if you're after something. He has the biggest bandsaw I've ever seen, so if you want a plank resawn to get a bookmatched grain etc he can do that easily.

JC

fuzztone wrote: »

Possibly. I have a neck off a MIM Deluxe Nashville Tele lying around (this model http://www.fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0135300332). I bought it for a project I was going to do ages ago that just never happened. How much are you looking to spend?

Fuzztone - I've pm'd you a few times about this - what's the story? JC

Good source here:

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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/

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!)

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.