Im starting my first guitar build, tips and tricks would be appreciated

[PuffyPufferfish0]

Well I'm a bit past starting, I have a template designed as well as the boards I'm going to use glued together. I believe the design I'm using is fairly unique, with what looks like a jaguar or jazz master body mixed with the little hook that telecasters have. The wood I'm using is walnut and maple, and I opted to go with a nice stripe down the middle (maple). I purchased a cheap used guitar that I am going to steal parts from, including the neck. From the research I've gathered building a guitar neck is a more complex and precise art than the body. I haven't decided if I'm going to put a pick guard on it or not, but I'm starting to lean toward not because I like the look of the wood.

https://ibb.co/12dkzNP
https://ibb.co/99xyFmC
https://ibb.co/H4dR9xN
https://ibb.co/HzDGQ8B

(I hope these links work)

note that the pictures included are before I planed the boards down and glued them

[nakedzen]

My tip is, don't put off making the neck yourself. It's pretty easy to make a fender-style neck, and the fretboard you can buy premade with slots and radius if you're worried about your accuracy.

[Bizman62]

For convenience I copied and resized the images here for future viewers in case your Imgur account stops working. In the future you can post your images right here. Too many pictures of the masterworks from the early years have been lost.

 

 

 

 

[JGTay]

7 hours ago, nakedzen said:

My tip is, don't put off making the neck yourself. It's pretty easy to make a fender-style neck, and the fretboard you can buy premade with slots and radius if you're worried about your accuracy.

Totally agree with you, my first couple of builds I purchased necks as I didn't think I could make them, but soon got over it after making my first one. 

[PuffyPufferfish0]

8 hours ago, nakedzen said:

My tip is, don't put off making the neck yourself. It's pretty easy to make a fender-style neck, and the fretboard you can buy premade with slots and radius if you're worried about your accuracy.

So when I got the burner guitar I figured I could just use the neck off of it for ease, and if I ever decide to make a better neck I could just replace it easy enough

[PuffyPufferfish0]

7 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

For convenience I copied and resized the images here for future viewers in case your Imgur account stops working. In the future you can post your images right here. Too many pictures of the masterworks from the early years have been lost.

 

 

 

Thank you!

[PuffyPufferfish0]

So last night I glued my 10 boards together to create one big, beautiful cutting board, that will eventually be my guitar. I noticed that one of my boards had a very small gap, but that's not really something I'm worried about (maybe I can fill it in with resin or colored wood glue?). Today I ran it through a sander until it was completely flat, but I don't really know how to go about routing out the holes for the pickups and knobs. And then when I'm done should I take a strat pick guard and sand it down until it fits my custom shape or should I just cut out smaller pieces of wood to screw in around the pickups???? Also idk if I should use a bandsaw or a scrollsaw, tips on that would be nice

Edited July 27, 2022 by PuffyPufferfish0
add some pictures

[PuffyPufferfish0]

Something else I wanted to ask about was the support for the neck. Do I need to bring the body up over the neck more, based on my drawing?

[Bizman62]

20 minutes ago, PuffyPufferfish0 said:

I don't really know how to go about routing out the holes for the pickups and knobs. And then when I'm done should I take a strat pick guard and sand it down until it fits my custom shape or should I just cut out smaller pieces of wood to screw in around the pickups???? Also idk if I should use a bandsaw or a scrollsaw, tips on that would be nice

Now that's a big bunch of questions!

Let's start with the cavities and holes. There's many ways to do cavities. starting from simply drilling the corners to the desired depth and chiseling the area in between to making a template and using a router with a bit with a bearing in the stem. For knobs do some mock-ups about where you'd like them to be and how much space you'd need for them and their wiring. And decide whether you want the control cavity be under a pickguard or reached from the rear.

Pick guard or pickup rings? Or just cavities for body mounted pickups? That's purely a question of design and looks. That said, since you haven't cut the cavities between the layers before glueing a pick guard is the easiest way of hiding the wiring. And then again, a long drill bit can be used all the way from the neck cavity to the bridge pickup cavity and from there in an angle to the control cavity. Each option is still doable!

If you use a scroll saw for the shape, do a test run on a scrap piece! Scroll saw blades tend to tilt on one direction (and only that one) especially on thick materials. You don't want the bottom side to be significantly smaller than the cutting side! A too wide bottom can be filed narrower, adding material to the sides is basically impossible. A bandsaw should keep the edges straighter.

28 minutes ago, PuffyPufferfish0 said:

the support for the neck. Do I need to bring the body up over the neck more, based on my drawing?

That looks good to me. All my bolt on necks have the lower corner covered only by a finger's width or so and even the 70's Aria bass is still fully intact. One hint, though: Rout the cavity first, even before cutting the shape! That way you'll have some support for the router. You can also leave the cutout uncut until the neck is secured. A BoDiddley square guitar is easy to reshape after all cavities have found their place!

[PuffyPufferfish0]

38 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Now that's a big bunch of questions!

Let's start with the cavities and holes. There's many ways to do cavities. starting from simply drilling the corners to the desired depth and chiseling the area in between to making a template and using a router with a bit with a bearing in the stem. For knobs do some mock-ups about where you'd like them to be and how much space you'd need for them and their wiring. And decide whether you want the control cavity be under a pickguard or reached from the rear.

Pick guard or pickup rings? Or just cavities for body mounted pickups? That's purely a question of design and looks. That said, since you haven't cut the cavities between the layers before glueing a pick guard is the easiest way of hiding the wiring. And then again, a long drill bit can be used all the way from the neck cavity to the bridge pickup cavity and from there in an angle to the control cavity. Each option is still doable!

If you use a scroll saw for the shape, do a test run on a scrap piece! Scroll saw blades tend to tilt on one direction (and only that one) especially on thick materials. You don't want the bottom side to be significantly smaller than the cutting side! A too wide bottom can be filed narrower, adding material to the sides is basically impossible. A bandsaw should keep the edges straighter.

That looks good to me. All my bolt on necks have the lower corner covered only by a finger's width or so and even the 70's Aria bass is still fully intact. One hint, though: Rout the cavity first, even before cutting the shape! That way you'll have some support for the router. You can also leave the cutout uncut until the neck is secured. A BoDiddley square guitar is easy to reshape after all cavities have found their place!

Wow, thanks!!

I like the idea of a pickguard more and more, considering how much more work it would be to make it look nice without one. However I might be able to make some wooden pickup rings like in the image attached. I would have to go through the back if I were to do that, and frankly a pickguard would just be easier. Since my guitar is going to be a somewhat odd shape, should I just buy a strat pickguard and sand it down to the shape I want? I can't really think of another way.

[Bizman62]

11 hours ago, PuffyPufferfish0 said:

I might be able to make some wooden pickup rings like in the image attached. I would have to go through the back if I were to do that, and frankly a pickguard would just be easier. Since my guitar is going to be a somewhat odd shape, should I just buy a strat pickguard and sand it down to the shape I want? I can't really think of another way.

Umm,,, "go through the back"? For the control cavity, yes. For the pickups, no. The pickup rings are just sort of fragments of a pickguard to hide the hole below.

No matter which side you carve your cavities you'll have to be careful not to carve through the material. Thus it doesn't make much difference whether you put the control knobs through the top or use a pickguard. The latter can hide more mistakes, though! It can also add an interesting detail to a less fancy top.

You can buy pickguard material as square blanks as well, it's just plastic. The traditional 3 layer one is similar to that used for engraved name plates on doors, mail boxes or control boards. Outside online vendors your local sign maker shop might have suitable scrap pieces.