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Alright guys, ive looked at your site in envy for the past 2 years, and ive seen it all. I have never built a guitar before and it really intrests me. I love the guitar. It is art with a sound. I would like to start building my own guitars. I have plenty of patients and plenty of time. Now all i need is the know how. I would really appreciate it if you guys could get me started with the best books, supply websites, tools, and most of all, what you would reccomend as a first build for a begginer. If yall have ne tips or insight on how i should do this, please post, thanks.

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Melvin Hiscock's "Make your own electric guitar" is a great book, and probably the best starting point for you. I'm sure others here will agree.

That and the search function here and the MIMF library should help you.

Edited by Ben
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Alright guys, ive looked at your site in envy for the past 2 years, and ive seen it all. I have never built a guitar before and it really intrests me. I love the guitar. It is art with a sound. I would like to start building my own guitars. I have plenty of patients and plenty of time. Now all i need is the know how. I would really appreciate it if you guys could get me started with the best books, supply websites, tools, and most of all, what you would reccomend as a first build for a begginer. If yall have ne tips or insight on how i should do this, please post, thanks.

My son and I started out with a book, "Build your own electric guitar" by Martin Okham. It was a cool book that included a blue print template and so on.

Best of all it had a list of Tools needed and provided the basics of building a solid body guitar.

I suggest you start by building an electric guitar body, so you can understand the process of tool use and templates. Something like a strat is

pretty simple because all the pick-ups are attached right to the pickgaurd, so the pocket routes are not that critical. The neck pocket was really

the only critical route that was required. After completing this first project, We were able to see the mistakes that were made with routing, cutting and

sanding techniques. One thing that really needs attention, is the finishing of the guitar. While the project ended up looking okay. It needed a different approach to finishing. Different coating, stain, sanding sealer all that stuff. I did not make the neck. It was a little too abmitous at this time

In the end, the guitar came together and is a real player. I've used it on a couple of gigs, and it's just the sound I was looking for. And the fact that it was a father and son project makes it even more rewarding to play and own and gaze at. We're now working on a telecaster body out of Mahogany.

Make sure you ask as many questions as possible. We purchased the swampash for the first project at a local exotic woods retailer on a Saturday morning. There were about 10 guitar makers and they all offered some sort of advice. They love talking about this stuff. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Good Luck!

Edited by strat91
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Melvyns book is the bible of electric guitar building.

Buy or make templates. If you buy them just check to make sure they are correct as there have been issues with some. If you make them is a lot cheaper to remake one if you mess it up.

Happy building

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Alright guys, ive looked at your site in envy for the past 2 years, and ive seen it all. I have never built a guitar before and it really intrests me. I love the guitar. It is art with a sound. I would like to start building my own guitars. I have plenty of patients and plenty of time. Now all i need is the know how. I would really appreciate it if you guys could get me started with the best books, supply websites, tools, and most of all, what you would reccomend as a first build for a begginer. If yall have ne tips or insight on how i should do this, please post, thanks.

Here's a list of guitar making resources I used for my first guitar. It includes books, forums, tutorials and some key vendors.

Regards,

Robert

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  • 1 year later...
this is quite a dumb question... how do you remove and attach a neck? is it as simple as screwing in the screws or is there any glue or whatever else involved??

Depends what type of neck you want. Some necks are glued in and some are bolted on (with screws). A glued in neck it a little harder to do and it is very difficult to take the neck off without damaging the guitar but gives better sustain (the strings vibrate longer) this is used on the les paul. And bolt on necks are an easier faster way to make a neck joint but the sustain isn't as good, This is used on the strat.

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