Ever make your own guitar?

[the great waldo]

We have five in stock in the shop where I work, I potted the lead pickups on all of them as they were prone to whistling I might do the front pups as well if needed. Are you making them Belwar ? I thought they were Jean Larivvees sons´s baby.

Cheers

Andrew

Where and when did you try one? I dont get that comment often - i've been thinking about potting them

[the great waldo]

PS: Say hello to Kostas from me.

Ah you got your answer in before mine. Pm with who you are.

Cheers
Andrew ps will do

[belwar]

Pm with who you are.

I'm a nobody and dont let anyone tell you differently.

Also, i'm the worst kept secret on the forum.

[the great waldo]

David Let the cat out of the bag and you know Kostas so I reckon I know your dad hence I know you!! howzat.

Cheers

Andrew

I'm a nobody and dont let anyone tell you differently.

Also, i'm the worst kept secret on the forum.

[belwar]

He wasnt far from you two days ago. He just finished driving from Munich to paris. He says the beer is un-drinkable in paris.

[David Schwab]

I thought they were Jean Larivvees sons´s baby.

Are you calling Belwar a baby?

[copperheadroads]

Mmm.Beer ...... Canadian....Beer

[belwar]

Dave, I love your bass's body shape. Is it easy to play for a short guy like me - 5'9"?

Copperheadroads, where did you get your Strat's body blueprints? Do you draw them yourself?

Here's mine - I just happen to love the Tele body shape. There's something to it primal? to me that Strats just don't have.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16006[/ATTACH]

The black one is the first one I ever made. The blue one has a Strat's arm and belly contours and my very first prototype P-90 pickups in it.

Here's my latest one. The top is spalted flamed maple. The body is chambered, almost hollow with a center block, like a ES-335.
The back has a belly cut like a Strat has, and the neck/body joint is cut down so my hands are more comfortable.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16007[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]16008[/ATTACH]

For some weird reason, my photos came out in my post smaller than they should be. Please click on them to see them full size.


Ken

I love the spalt maple one. I have about 40 really nice spalt tops that I want to make into t style guitars. Great without a pickguard

[the great waldo]

Being a Brit brought up on Guiness I was pleasantly surprised to find that in general Austrian beer is some of the best in the world and the wine´s pretty good too. I was in the Provence a month ago beer was average.

Cheers

Andrew

He wasnt far from you two days ago. He just finished driving from Munich to paris. He says the beer is un-drinkable in paris.

[copperheadroads]

Copperheadroads, where did you get your Strat's body blueprints? Do you draw them yourself?

Ken

Some of them ,I made from scratch ,as well i did buy a few from HERE
Luthier Templates for building your own guitar! Many styles Strat, Tele, Les Paul, SG, Baretta, PRS, and more!
There only 1/4" or 5/16" thick & too easy to ruin so i copied all of them using 3/4" mdf
I'm not sure if there's any thing in the shop that I dislike more than routering MDF ......What a f@%kin mess

[David Schwab]

Here's mine - I just happen to love the Tele body shape. There's something to it primal? to me that Strats just don't have.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16006[/ATTACH]

I really like that black one with the three switches!

I have a thing for Teles also.

My one Stratiod guitar has a Tele neck:

[ken]

Geez, there's almost enough people in here to start a brand new forum...

I love the spalt maple one. I have about 40 really nice spalt tops that I want to make into t style guitars. Great without a pickguard

Spalted maple is one of the biggest unstable POS's to cut I have ever seen, and the flame made that top even worse. I made that one special to remind me of someone, and if I didn't absolutely have to use that specific top I wouldn't have done it. I never wanted to set a guitar on fire before I finished it before I did that one, but I'm glad I did it. It's really resonant and acoustically loud, you can feel the whole guitar vibrate when you play it. It's also the most 'acoustic' sounding electric guitar I ever heard, just roll back the tone and volume a bit and fingerpick and get 'instant flattop'. I gotta admit tho that people either love that guitar or they absolutely hate it.

Some of them ,I made from scratch ,as well i did buy a few from HERE
Luthier Templates for building your own guitar! Many styles Strat, Tele, Les Paul, SG, Baretta, PRS, and more!
There only 1/4" or 5/16" thick & too easy to ruin so i copied all of them using 3/4" mdf
I'm not sure if there's any thing in the shop that I dislike more than routering MDF ......What a f@%kin mess

I'm going to check out that site, I need a good Strat template. I hate MDF too, even if you harden the edges with krazy glue the stencils wear out. My next stencils will be Lexan.

Anyone try making their own necks from scratch? I want a new rosewood board neck for the spalted one, but Warmoth wants $300 for the one I like.

ken

[belwar]

Spalted maple is one of the biggest unstable POS's to cut I have ever seen, and the flame made that top even worse.

I hate working with the stuff but I have some ideas of how to make it work well.. I'm thinking of welding a vacuum chamber just big enough to hold a back. Then vacuume impregnate the spalt maple with a very thin 24 hour epoxy (then hang to dry), or with a 2 part urethane casting resin. Thought I might try that in the raw state then once thickness sanded it should machine well.

[David Schwab]

Spalted maple can also be a health hazard. So use breathing protection.

[ken]

I hate working with the stuff but I have some ideas of how to make it work well.. I'm thinking of welding a vacuum chamber just big enough to hold a back. Then vacuume impregnate the spalt maple with a very thin 24 hour epoxy (then hang to dry), or with a 2 part urethane casting resin. Thought I might try that in the raw state then once thickness sanded it should machine well.

Belwar, I hope your idea works... it would make working with the stuff lots easier. The wood I used was so unstable I had to glue the entire glued up top plate to the preshaped body, because I was worried the top would warp if I even tried to trim it before gluing it.

This may sound strange, but I couldn't simply glue the top to a rectangular body blank in the normal way. Why? I planned for a belly contour as well as hollowing out the entire body, so I had to measure the hollowed out area of the body with a calipers to match the belly contour so I wouldn't rout right through the back. This meant I had to cut out the entire body shape first, do the 'outside' belly and neck pocket contouring, hollow out the inside of the body, glue on the top, and last trim the top to size and rout the corner radius and neck/pickup pockets. Yes, I was crazy...

Anyway, the light colored areas are the rotted areas, and they were so soft and porous I could pinch the wood between my fingertips and dent the wood just like balsa. I ended up using almost an entire can of Minwax wood hardener (super thin cyanoacrylate) on mine, because the top just would not quit drinking the stuff up.

Dave is right about spalted maple being a breathing hazard - if breathing the fungus don't kill you the chemicals used to kill the fungus will.

ken