Just how hard is it?

[SG WyldeCHild]

well ive been wanting to make a body from scratch but I dont want to spend all the money and i cant do it. How hard is it? I would be making Eather an SG or An LP I have all the tools and i know a little about carving. But my dad also knows alot because he was going to be a carpenter. But he knows nothing about building a guitar. Just By reading the how tos on here can it be done?

[Brian]

There are a lot of great tutorials on building bodys and of course if you run into a problem you can always ask for help thats what the forum is all about bro. I think with a little patience and plenty of reading and planning you should be able to do it just fine.

BTW Welcome to the forum

[FrankTheButcher]

The only war your going to find out is by doing it, but SG or LP would be quite tough as the SG has some tough beveled edges and the LP is a carved top, i would do a Tele body for my first project, but hey you way aswell go for it, just do alot of research before you start anything

[deshibs]

I would do a strat first, yes there will be some carving, but if you do the routing proprly, you can have all of the electronics assembled in the pick guard and just put on the body, at the same time you can get a Fender neck for cheap and bolt it right up, obviously it's a little more involved than that, but it's the easiest one to do in my opinion! Good Luck!

deshibs

[SG WyldeCHild]

Thanks alot guys, this forum is alot better then Harmony central forum. All it was was trash talk and no guitar! I might start a guitar soon and will be looking for your guys help.

[Dr. Jabsco]

Also you could think about a kit guitar first. Universal Jems sells them im pritty sure. After you can se how its put togeather, it may be eayser to make the peices to put togeather aswell.

good luck

[skibum5545]

Would a bit like this work for an SG bevel?

[Strange Fruit]

Would a bit like this work for an SG bevel?

yeah, but it looks like a 45* bevel. i dont think that SG's are THAT pointy on the edges. might be wrong though!

matt

[madcow]

yeah, check out brians templates...

and i agree a tele probably would be easier

[Setch]

Would a bit like this work for an SG bevel?

No - the SG bevels change angle and depth as they go around the body. ie: deeper in the waist and centre of the cutaways. You need a rasp and decent photo reference (or ideally a body to copy). The shaping isn't hard, but the grain can be tricky in the centre of the wait area.

[Guitarfrenzy]

If you have your heart set on a Les Paul check out Setch's post on building one.. Then you'll see what you need to do to build one right. I also recommend you using templates if at all possible. Check out Guitar Building Templates . comif your in the market to buy some good lasercut accurate ones.

But to answer your question. Yes it can be done and the first couple of guitars aren't gonna be easy if your building the whole guitar, but then again, what comes easy thats worth doing? It's a skill that must be learned with time and patience. Especially making a neck. You'll need alot of extra special tools for building a neck, so you might want to do as some others have suggested and build the body first with a Warmoth neck bought to go on it. I'm not trying to discourage you, but I also don't want to mislead you into thinking it's a piece of cake to build any type guitar, because it's not. It takes alot of reading, studying, and alot of practicing on scrap before you can really get a grasp of it all. Good luck on your project and take pictures...