Solid Body guitar build project - Looking for advice before starting

[Robert-Shetland]

Hi All,

I will start by giving a bit of a background to this, I inherited a small amount of money from my grandparents when they passed away, I have sat on it for 2 years wondering what to do with it and finally came up with an idea, so i bought a whole lot of Ash and made a Superking Sleigh Bed, i have attached a picture of it for reference of what the wood i have looks like, it is finished with Rubio Monocoat Oil Plus 2c in Walnut, the same finish i think would look great on an Ash Guitar 

I sold my Les Paul Standard last year and have no electric guitar and I also have quite a bit of wood left, So I have decided to use the rest of the wood for making a solid body electric guitar,

The wood I have left is 200mm x 36mm thick, a 3m length of it, and another length which would do for making the neck, the two designs of guitars i really like are the Les Paul and PRS Custom 24, 

The 36mm thick wood alone would be a bit thin to make anything apart from maybe an SG, so the only real option I have is to glue up 2 sets of blanks and make the guitar in two halves, would this be ok? I know most of these type guitars are made with a thick back and a thin shaped top, but would it hurt anything to have both halves equal thickness?

I look forward to your replies

Thanks

Robert

[curtisa]

24 minutes ago, Robert-Shetland said:

would it hurt anything to have both halves equal thickness?

No hard and fast rules to guitar making (other than perhaps tradition). It shouldn't 'hurt' anything to make a guitar out of two sandwiches of the same thickness of timber.

You could even look at it the other way around if you wanted and make an unusually thin guitar using a single layer of 36mm Ash. Provided you plan for the required depth of all the components (pickups, pots, switches, neck pocket etc) there's nothing saying you can't go thinner than the 'typical' thicknesses used by the big name manufacturers. I think one of our long time members @RestorationAD used to routinely make his guitars 32mm thick and claimed they could hold their own against anything made by Fender, Gibson etc. Some of his threads are pinned in the 'In Progress' section of the forum if you're looking for inspiration.

[Bizman62]

Hi and welcome!

That bed looks gorgeous!

As @curtisa said there's no reason not to go thin as long as you can make the electronics fit. One big bonus is the reduced weight.

My current project is a radiused top poplar body T-type which is about 38mm at the thickest spot. It's now close to being finished, with all the hardware it weighs a whopping 2.27 kg or 5 lbs and an open string rings forever.

If you want to go thicker you can use the 36 mm for a bottom layer and splice a length for a bookmatched top. That would be 36+18=54 mm which would be plenty thick. Well, you'll lose a couple of mm's in resawing but still. Tops for carving are typically some 16 mm so that would be very typical. You could also use a dark veneer to separate the top and bottom pieces. Lots of interesting options there!

[Robert-Shetland]

50 minutes ago, curtisa said:

No hard and fast rules to guitar making (other than perhaps tradition). It shouldn't 'hurt' anything to make a guitar out of two sandwiches of the same thickness of timber.

You could even look at it the other way around if you wanted and make an unusually thin guitar using a single layer of 36mm Ash. Provided you plan for the required depth of all the components (pickups, pots, switches, neck pocket etc) there's nothing saying you can't go thinner than the 'typical' thicknesses used by the big name manufacturers. I think one of our long time members @RestorationAD used to routinely make his guitars 32mm thick and claimed they could hold their own against anything made by Fender, Gibson etc. Some of his threads are pinned in the 'In Progress' section of the forum if you're looking for inspiration.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated, 

I think that may be the way to go for a first time, not sure what shape to go for, i really prefer the Gibson neck feel as opposed to a strat or telecaster, but that may be the way to go, make a tele or strat shape body, and put a thicker gibson style neck on it. 

I play (or used to play) a lot of different genre's of music, Rock and Country mainly though, so used to have a Strat and a Les Paul, but i'm wondering with the new ish coil splitting ability with Humbuckers if i could merge 2 sounds into one, get a couple of 4 wire Alnico II humbuckers and split them for the country twang with push pull pots?

I have never played a guitar with this fitted, dont suppose you have any experience with coil tapped humbuckers, and if I would get the result i'm looking for?

 

[Robert-Shetland]

1 minute ago, Bizman62 said:

Hi and welcome!

That bed looks gorgeous!

As @curtisa said there's no reason not to go thin as long as you can make the electronics fit. One big bonus is the reduced weight.

My current project is a radiused top poplar body T-type which is about 38mm at the thickest spot. It's now close to being finished, with all the hardware it weighs a whopping 2.27 kg or 5 lbs and an open string rings forever.

If you want to go thicker you can use the 36 mm for a bottom layer and splice a length for a bookmatched top. That would be 36+18=54 mm which would be plenty thick. Well, you'll lose a couple of mm's in resawing but still. Tops for carving are typically some 16 mm so that would be very typical. You could also use a dark veneer to separate the top and bottom pieces. Lots of interesting options there!

Thanks for the comment, I'm not a woodworker, actually a Marine Engineer and build Aluminium boats, so this was a particulary hard challenge to say the least, took around 130 hours. 

Not sure if i am about to bite off more than i can chew with this guitar plan though, hopefully not, 

Do you have any pictures of your guitar, really not sure what to go for now, think a thinner guitar may be the way forward, as i said in my reply to @curtisa i am now wondering if a thinner guitar with coil tapped humbuckers would suit me, i think it would if the coil splitting acts as a single coil, but never played one so not 100%

 

[curtisa]

10 minutes ago, Robert-Shetland said:

dont suppose you have any experience with coil tapped humbuckers, and if I would get the result i'm looking for?

Tapped humbuckers tend to have a sound that approximates that of a genuine single coil; they have singlecoil-ness for want of a better term. I have tapped humbucker options on most of my guitars and find them an excellent tonal expander to a plain humbucker-equipped instrument Treat them more as an additional colour to play with than a genuine substitute for a Strat or Tele and you can't go wrong.

[Bizman62]

The current build can be seen here: https://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/50745-started-a-t-type/?do=findComment&comment=584956

The previous ones can be found in my profile under the About Me tab.

 

[Crusader]

When I first read it I thought you bought an old bed to use the timber for guitars LOL, that bed is a nice piece of furniture!

You think you might be biting off more than you can chew? run away now, don't do it  (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)

Talking about coil tapping, do you mean tapping or splitting? I'm sure you mean splitting. Something I would say if you intend to use Push-Pull pots or Push-Push pots, don't buy cheap ones and treat them with care. I have ruined so many pots due to changing my mind about wiring choices and over-heated them to death. I've decided now to just use toggle switches

Making guitars presents quite a few challenges but I'm sure you'll be fine!