paul Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 Well, i have never done any luthering or guitar work before ,apart from changing strings, and i am quit young. Does any one have any advise on a good place to start with luthering. Also i financially can't afford to buy lots of stuff like guitars and loads of blocks of expensive wood. I eventually want to build my own jem style guitar ither from scratch or from an RG but that is a long way off. What is a good thing to start with? How do i get good? Get to know the guitars parts and how they work? How to work up skills? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwhiteandthemaple Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 Interesting.. You have lot of time, right? Then you should.... Read! Melvyn Hiscock - Make Your Own Electric Guitar Martin Koch - Building Electric Guitars There are other ones, but if you're going to buy 1, get the Hiscock book. Noodles of information. Either that... or... study hard, become rich, and hire people to make custom guitars for you. Jk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guitarfrenzy Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 Interesting.. You have lot of time, right? Then you should.... Read! Melvyn Hiscock - Make Your Own Electric Guitar Martin Koch - Building Electric Guitars There are other ones, but if you're going to buy 1, get the Hiscock book. Noodles of information. Either that... or... study hard, become rich, and hire people to make custom guitars for you. Jk. Exactly! Reading is the key to learning, and the books mentioned above are pretty much the standard as far as getting into building guitars. The internet is also a huge source to learn from. When you start your build and have questions, go to the search feature here and seach for the answer. There's been a lot of things covered on this site, as it is a wealth of information, and you will more than likely, find any answer you need by doing a simple search. Also, don't forget the Project Guitar home page, tutorial sections!! They will help you also. Just become a student of the craft and soak as much information you can up, so that when you do get ready to build, you will know what to buy and when to buy it. Don't do like I did, and try to buy up every tool that Stew Mac sells right off the bat.. lol Buy them as you need them so you don't have to go around eating ramon noodle because your broke.. haha Anyway, good luck on all your projects!! Matt Vinson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Irizarry Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 Have to agree with my fellow posters - READ! There are books on the subject and tons of material on the internet. Spend time digging through all the tutorials and build diaries that people post on Project Guitar. I've learned a tremendous amount in a very short time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stickmangumby Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 If you've got an electric guitar, take it apart and put it back together, get used to how it works, practise setting it up, find out what makes it work! This will give you something practical and relevant to do amongst all the reading you'll need to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 I agree, Hiscock's book is very good. If you want to get straight into building something though, you might want to look into Saga kit guitars. Thats how I got into building my own stuff (I'm still not that into it really, just a couple of projects underway). The Saga kits are cheap, (and if you are American, VERY cheap), and will familiarise you with all the bits and pieces. They come unfinished so you can customise them too. Here's my one: THE BACK I still play this one, in fact its probably my favourite out of my 4 guitars. I also bought a tele kit, but scrapped the body and built my own. Some people have complained about the necks having high frets on saga guitars. Mine were fine, but I may have been lucky. Even if it did have a couple of high frets, I suppose you could get some practice at levelling them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwedishLuthier Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 All of the above advices are very good. Go from there and remember to keep it simple for the first build. A Tele is very straight forward and can be done without to many fancy tools. Save the ES335 or PRS-copy for your third or fourth build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 Guitar set-up tools and skills first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibanez_crazy Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 There is a full tutorial on converting a RG body to jem body, and an inlay tutorial for doing the disappearing pyramid inlay. Buy a cheap RG and practice on that rather than starting from scratch. I just picked up a complete RG220 for under a hundred bucks. Also READ READ READ. If yer short on cash, I have found Hiscoks book and Kochs book at my local library. Lot cheaper than buying them. Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted April 4, 2006 Report Share Posted April 4, 2006 You could build a simple lap steel guitar! It helps to have an interest in lap steel to begin with (Think David Gilmour or Ben Harper for more 'modern' artists who use it). Then give this a quick browse: http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lapsteel/index.htm His full-on guitar book is good, too. The nice thing about the lap steel (especially if you do it as basic as his, though of course you can make modifications!) is that a lot of factors are taken out of the equation, in a good way for a first project. For example, the high nut means that you don't need to worry about making an angled headstock, or even a Fender-style one! No trem routing... and if you do just one pickup, not much electronics (though electronics are one of the things that intimidate me the least anyhow). I think it makes a very worthy first project, and actually I'm doing mine as a "second" project because I got so bogged down by my "first" one (a full-on guitar) that it's off to the side until I can source the parts and make the jigs that I still need. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted April 4, 2006 Report Share Posted April 4, 2006 Invest in a couple of books; yes, most of the info can be found online, but without a solid grounding/understanding of the isntrument to begin with, finding and putting the information within its proper context is going to be very difficult. Books are also invaluable reference materials; I'm still just as likely to reach for one of them to check something as I am to hit the internet. This place, the MIMF.com library are two of the best resources you'll find (with the MIMF Library being perhaps more varied, more 'full lutherie experience', and better organized/easier to sift through thanks to the library catalog, but don't discount the main Project Guitar web page, not forum, for a variety of tutorials). Start by buying Melvyn Hiscock's 'Make Your Own Electric Guitar', and Dan Erlewine's 'Guitar Player Repair Guide'. The first will show you how guitars are built, the second is full of great info on repairs, setups, what can go wrong with instruments and how, and helps you understand a lot of the mechanics. Also read through Frank Ford's excellent Frets.com pages for insight into the techniques of one of the best repairmen in the business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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