A New Idia? Maby....

[Joobsauce]

Ok, wazzup guys! I've been lurkin for a bit and have some questions that I hope you guys can awnser. I have a metal fab project in school due the end of the year, and wanted your oppinions on building an electric guitar out of metal alone.

I know you might think I'm crazy, but I love guitars. I have a mid 60's silvertone accoustic (great) and a cheap wal-mart guitar by firstact to fool around on. Now my idia is to build the neck out of boxed tube, with 3 layers of sheet metal on top for the fretboard. 2nd, I can make a custom bent frame for the body out of flat steel, 1/2in thick and 2in wide, with curvs and such. With sheetmetal overtop of that, I could easaly mount the pickups, cable jack, and knobs/switches. I might have to do some soildering, but I think I can manage.

Now some of my questions. I know I can transfer over the stuff, but-

1- Would the hollow body/neck mess with the tone of the pickups and maby create some bad frequences?

2- Would the metal create some bad harmonics or just a poor sound?

3- It would be cheaper to buy a cheap firastact on ebay, build the metal one with putting the comp[lete firstact innards into it and then modify it if need be or should i just start custom? I will be working in a 6-7week enviroment with abouit 40min a day to work on it, so time is a factor there.

4- it will be HEAVY. Any good straps to support this weight?

thanks guys, I'll try to be good here, Joobsauce.

PS- if it's in the wrong section, plz move it, not sure where to put this.

[dash]

g'day and welcome.

you could build a guitar from just about anything, but whether it would be playable, sound good and be practical is another story.

check out this thread, alloy tele, the guy built a tele from an alumininum billet. the neck was not made from metal, it came from another guitar.

no sound clips, so don't know how it sounds.

cheers

darren

[postal]

I have seen and heard an aluminum body strat with a regular wood strat neck. It sounded okay, and the weight was perfectly acceptable.

To do this in the time frame you gave in highly unlikely though.......

This guy made a full size body template out of heavy birch ply and pounded front/back halves out of 1/8"aluminum, with forearm and belly cutouts even..... tig welded the halves together, file/sand/buff until the seam is invisible and sent it off for chrome plating. On the inside of the guitar body was a metal subframe skeleton assembly to mount to the body sheetmetal and mount the bridge and neck to a solid surface.

I had seen another tele that was done with I think- 1/8" aluminum as well, and the front back plates were flat, the side was a separate piece that was again tig welded in place, and the weld went far enough into the top/bottom plates to get a slight radius on the edge as well. I dont recall, but I think that one had a wood structure in it for the neck/bridge points.

There are many opinions out there about the sound from a guitar and what influences that sound. *MY* opinion, is that the neck and headstock have FAR more influence than most people think. Using a regular guitar neck will certainly help in the tone dept with a metal body. That strat *almost* sounded normal.....

Unless you've made a number of guitars already, and really know what you're doing, then I find it unrealistic to complete a project like this in the time given. Best of luck though- I hope you do it, even if you have to finish it after the class.

[coolio49085]

I have seen and heard an aluminum body strat with a regular wood strat neck. It sounded okay, and the weight was perfectly acceptable.

To do this in the time frame you gave in highly unlikely though.......

This guy made a full size body template out of heavy birch ply and pounded front/back halves out of 1/8"aluminum, with forearm and belly cutouts even..... tig welded the halves together, file/sand/buff until the seam is invisible and sent it off for chrome plating. On the inside of the guitar body was a metal subframe skeleton assembly to mount to the body sheetmetal and mount the bridge and neck to a solid surface.

I had seen another tele that was done with I think- 1/8" aluminum as well, and the front back plates were flat, the side was a separate piece that was again tig welded in place, and the weld went far enough into the top/bottom plates to get a slight radius on the edge as well. I dont recall, but I think that one had a wood structure in it for the neck/bridge points.

There are many opinions out there about the sound from a guitar and what influences that sound. *MY* opinion, is that the neck and headstock have FAR more influence than most people think. Using a regular guitar neck will certainly help in the tone dept with a metal body. That strat *almost* sounded normal.....

Unless you've made a number of guitars already, and really know what you're doing, then I find it unrealistic to complete a project like this in the time given. Best of luck though- I hope you do it, even if you have to finish it after the class.

I agree. As far as fabricating the body, you have to weld everything, which is a bit more tedious that glueing, you have to mill every cavity, which is time consuming because it's metal, andyou have to tap every hole for screws.

As far as 6-7 weeks, and with no guitar building experience, the time period is way too short.

[tirapop]

You should probably skip the neck, given the time you have to complete this project. The idea sounds interesting, but, how did you plan to put frets into sheetmetal fingerboard? Welding, soldering, brazing, or pressing frets into metal would be pretty time consuming and tedious. You could try something like Gittler. (video) Looks like a lot of work, too.

Focus on the body. 1/2" flatstock sounds way too thick, too heavy. I can't remember the name, but, there's a production metal bodied guitar that has sheet metal sides, nicely rolled edges and perforated metal fronts and backs. Specimen makes aluminum guitars fabricated from sheet metal.

Edited December 5, 2006 by tirapop

[Mickguard]

The neck's easy --get an already made fretboard (you can pull one off of another guitar) and epoxy that to your metal neck.

I think it's a cool idea--but if I were you, I wouldn't go into this with the dream that it's going to be a truly playable guitar (especially if you haven't built a guitar before). It will be a cool project--and if nothing else, it'll look cool on the wall.

People's opinions about the effect of various wood types on tone are merely conjecture, opinions, faith, whatever has worked for them. The only way to know what will work for you is to do it.

[biliousfrog]

you mean something like these... http://www.jamestrussart.com/Newsite/Steel...r_HB_Skulls.htm

The only problem with an all steel guitar will be the weight, I'm putting a 1.2mm sheet onto a mahogany body & the weight has already increased so much that I've chambered the whole body. I considered 3mm but the 350mmx500mm sheet alone weighed more than the whole guitar.

[ihocky2]

The idea sounds good to try, but there are a few problems in your design. First, the time frame is way too short. 6-7 weeks is doable for a first build if you had a few hours a day, but not 40 min. Second, 1/2" is going to be ungoodly heavy. A piece of 1/2" x 2" x 16" will weigh 5 pounds. And that will only make the back end. So you are looking at about 25 pounds just to make the side. Plus hardwear and sheet metal you are going to be around 30-35 pounds for a guitar. And people think Les Pauls are heavy. You will need to weld the top and bottoms on, and I am not sure if you have welding experice. Plus you'll probably still need internal bracing to support the top and back. As a first project, this is going to be VERY difficult to produce something usuable. And especially in your time frame.

[Joobsauce]

ya, I have welding experiance. My plan of attack is as follows-

Make the frame, open, with braces for the pickups and cable jack and such. Probably brazed togeather, because the braze I have is gold and I want some gold accent on the darker iron. second I'll just weld on a metal pipe cut in half (semi-spherical) and put the neck from the guitar I'll be using for parts on it, custom painted of course. After some thought it seems like too much trouble to try and weld/press on the frets, as mentioned. I'll run a small piece of square tubing in the pipe (welded on the guitar body/frame) so I can mount the headstock. Then I will focus on mounting the headstock, tuners, strings and such. If I have time I'll cover the body in sheet aluminum for a nice look that I can polish up. But an open guitar with all the electronics exposed would look pretty sweet.

If I dont get the electronics worked out by the time class is over, I'll just sort them out at home, no biggie.

I've been reading up.