I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands, and I’ve had an itch for a while to build my own guitar. A friend of mine built a fretless bass using exotic wood. It was beautiful! He built it from scratch and did an excellent job for his first try.
I don’t have the tools I would need to build a guitar from scratch, so I’d probably need to build one from a kit or from parts if I ever decided to build my own guitar. Several places offer kits and/or parts that you can build from. For example, Stewart-McDonald and Warmoth both offer guitar parts for the do-it-yourselfer. Even Martin offers guitar kits. It seems like building an electric guitar would be easier than building an acoustic guitar, although maybe it wouldn’t matter if you were using a kit.
Have you ever built a guitar, either from scratch or from a kit? If you have, please share your experience in the comments!
I never built a guitar, but I think that this can be a good experience in the life of a guitarist, that is why I would like to have comments about it too. 🙂
I find that when people assemble their own guitars, the results are usually something very beautiful and a guitar that plays well. I have never built a guitar before, but my uncle who is an avid guitar player has his own business where he assembles guitars at his home and then sells them to people. I find that very fascinating and it seems like something that I would love to do in the future if I have any free time.
I built a guitar as a woodwork project in school. Ran out of time to do the neck so was really just the body etc. I recall lots and lots of sanding to shape the body. Was a Les Paul-ish shape made from a teak like wood and a sycamore central strip.
I bought an old Palm Bay guitar neck of a mate for £20 and combining all the electrics and components the grand total came to around £40 ;).
It’s not a great by any means by was fun to do and at the time I only had one other electric guitar.
It’s still kicking around somewhere in the cupboard :).
I have built two guitars. The first an archtop, the second a solidbody telecaster style. If you really want to do, do it right and attend a class like Dale Unger’s up to Nazarth, PA. Home of Martin Guitars
http://www.americanarchtop.com
I don’t have the patience to build something that requires so much precision, but I build a Marshall 18-watt combo amp a couple years ago, and it was a blast:
http://www.heartwoodguitar.com/WordPressBlog/?p=52
I haven’t built one from scratch but I redid an old beater from someone’s closet and got it working again. It was quite a rush.
Once I had figured out how to wire it properly I took it apart, sanded the wood and repainted it.. several times. Changed the shape dramatically and put it back together again.
I haven’t done it since but I do have a copy of a Les Paul Jr. that will eventually be a Frankenstein guitar.
@Rob – Building an amp sounds fun, too! That’s also something on my “Would like to do some day” list.
@Guitar Today – Taking an old beater and working on that seems like a good starting point, and it may be the approach I take. I don’t have the room or tools to build one from scratch yet, but I could take a beater and build it up.
@Dennis – The guitar-building classes I’ve seen sound very interesting. Do you have personal experience with Dale Unger’s classes? They look like fun!
@Mark – Sounds like a lot of work! I don’t know if I’ll ever build a guitar from a plank of wood, but I think I could handle building one from a kit and work my way up.