Ever make your own guitar?

[John_H]

These guitars are all beautiful that everyone has posted. You guys do remarkable work.

John, that is a cool looking guitar. What exactly is your guitar made of?

Care to share any construction details?

ken

thanks ken; It's a hard maple two piece body. The neck is laminated mahogany. It was an easy one to build, but that's the merit of keeping things simple. I'm a woodworker by trade, so the construction aspect comes pretty easily to me. If you give me your email, I'll send you the plans in a .pdf that you can have printed full size.

It's beautiflul indeed. Looks like Maple....a luxury we don't get to have very much of down in the southern hemisphere so I might be wrong.

Thanks. You're right it's maple. There aren't many trees of that species here in the middle of the Mojave Desert, but luckily they aren't a hemisphere away.

[David Schwab]

That's a beauty John! I enjoy seeing standard designs made with different materials.

Here's a very similar guitar made with some different woods. My friend built this one. The body is white limba (korina) with a quilted maple center strip. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the back. The top is curly oak! Between the top and back is a 1/4th layer of purpleheart. The neck is poplar. That was inspired by the old Danelectro guitars. This guitar has a great vocal quality about it.

[Mark Hammer]

In the early 80's, I was writing a music technology column for the university radio guide where I was in grad school. Through an absolute fluke, in the summer of '82 I ended up getting a tour through the entire Parsons St facility in Kalamazoo, including the large facility (since abandoned) where Gibson had expanded during the "folk craze of the 60's". At that point, they had shrunk to the original brown brick Gibson building on the corner and were only making fancy archtops, and doing restoration/repair of heritage instruments (probably why the staff there called themselves "Heritage" guitars when they bought the facility from Gibson). There was a stunning array of older and newer instruments there, with the grainvisible on most. The older building had wooden floorboards, and the scent of sawdust that had worked its way into the cracks over the years permeated the place. Now THAT's what I call perfume.

When I returned from that trip and got back to writing my column, I ignored all the synth/MIDI stuff that was going on and dedicated the first one to wood. When you see enough instruments, like the one pictured above and in previous posts, in one place, especially if it's not simply a stack of the identical bodies, waiting to be sanded and sprayed, you develop a real respect for wood. You realize that the wood itself tends to dictate the instrument, and not just the maker telling the wood what to do. What the instrument maker does is pay hommage to the wood. The tone achieved is simply gratitude for the hommage paid.

[ken]

You realize that the wood itself tends to dictate the instrument, and not just the maker telling the wood what to do. What the instrument maker does is pay hommage to the wood. The tone achieved is simply gratitude for the hommage paid.

I believe that this is one of the first things someone learns when they try to make their first instrument. I could not believe how much I learned about pickups when I started making my own guitars! In my opinion, a certain guitar's tone is 99% there before you add the pickups, and a pickup can only work with what is already tonally 'there' in a certain instrument. You cannot turn a Tele into a Lester with a simple pickup change.

You can only try to make an instrument sound as good as possible, given the materials and construction the actual instrument uses.
It is impossible to make a particleboard Strat copy sound like a real '57, but you can try to make the guitar sound as good as it can.
If you can't make the guitar sound good, drop in the most overwound, 'quadruple waxpotted' pickup you can and hope for the best,
as heavy distortion covers a lot of sins...

ken

[kleuck]

Not sure if i can, i do not have the enough skill and tools to build a guitar from scratch, but i managed to turn a cheap bolt-on neck kit in a set-neck guitar i now love :



Lollar P90 (modified with an alnico² magnet) Faber bridge and Tonepros studs.

[Jim Darr]

Here are two more of mine. It is great to see everyone's fantastic work.

================================

Keep Winding...Keep Playing!!!

Jim

[MistaT]

I have only built 6 guitars so far - I feel like I am a noob!

I also built the pickups as well.

But here goes. Here are my first two one for me and one for my son:



Third one:


Fourth one:


Fifth one - for my daughter:



Sixth one:

[ken]

MistaT, I like the fourth one, and the stand you're using for the fifth one.

ken

[John_H]

I was just wondering how many of us have made our own guitars or basses.

Show photos if you got 'em

ken

Did you ever get going on your guitar? Here's one I started a couple weeks ago. I'm going to string it through the body behind a T-O-M. The pickups will be A4 humbuckers of the forbidden zebra variety. 24 3/4 " scale. This ones going to get a Tru-Oil finish. The entire guitar came from the same beautiful piece of mahogany. No frills, binding, or inlays. I like them simple.

[jbforrer]

My pickup-testing guitar --- the "Plywood Special"

Greetings,

This one wins no prizes for beauty--- its a workhorse. Kind of resembles my first electric guitar purchased at age 17.

The Plywood Special is my pickup-testing guitar --- Change a loaded pickguard in less than a half a minute and not require retuning afterwards.

The body is made of layers of Doug-fir plywood with Formica on the top and bottom to handle all that heavy-duty pickup exchanges. The pickup cavity is huge and deep to handle almost anything one can imagine. The cavity is shielded and outfitted with a mini jack where the pickguard's output plugs into. No soldering involved. The neck is an aftermarket Fender-ish bolt-on style and made to sit just slightly higher off the deck that usual. That helps a bit with extra clearance yet not affect playability.

A few pictures shows how it comes together and includes a sample of loaded pickguards ... all hand-made pickups of various kinds and flavors. The procedure is simple: slip a piece of stiff cardboard under the strings thus preventing poles tangling up with strings. The pickguard then slides in/out of position.

Its a fairly heavy guitar, has great sustain, and often are gigged. One way to find out whether the new pickup design really holds up during a gig.

Regards.
-JBF

[vxexec350]

I was going to show pics of my builds, but I just chose a bunch of parts and put them together, you guys have some magnificent gear here, the talent is melting my computer. Beautiful

Pete
ps. My avatar is my home made strat

[marku52]

what are you using for the bridge? I have an old Melody Maker that needs a modern bridge...

[marku52]

You started out as a luthier before you got into pickups, right? Is there a sound reason for the different lengths of the tailpiece halves? I'm not able to think of what it might be. thanks, very pretty guitars!

[ken]

I think I read somewhere that the different tailpiece lengths has to do with how the strings resonate.

ken

[Marko Ursin]

I've made around 20 or so basses. The latest one has 14 deg twist on the neck, carbon fiber skin on maple core. Headless of course as I really like the balance on headless basses. Pickup is Wal-inspired 10-coil with state variable filter preamp. So far the best bass I've made both in sound and playability.
Marko