kpnutz52 Posted February 20, 2003 Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 hey all, since im having trouble trying to find some decent wood where i live im gonna have to i think send of for a piece of alder pre-cut... ( only routed for neck )... anyway.... i was just wondering what cost people nmormal play building their own guitars? am i right in thinking its suposed to save money or not? heres is a list of a few things i want to get to build a pretty much exact replica of kurt cobains guitar.... which at the moment is pricing up pretty hefty.. Alder Jaguar Body - £138.60 Neck 22 fretts unfinised with binding - £125.40 Jaguar Pickguard - £37.20 Control plates - £8.30 £8.30 £8.30 Jaguar Tremolo/locked - £33 Bridge - £28.90 thats already priced up to £388 and i have even added bits like knobs, jack inputs, pickups, paint, etc etc.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEdwardJones Posted February 20, 2003 Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 You CAN save money building your own guitar if you're willing to cut a lot of corners on materials. If you want to do it first rate you're going to end up spending as much (or *MORE*) that you would just buying a guitar off the shelf, *ESPECIALLY* if you're doing a replica. I think most of the benefit of building a guitar is the satisfaction of building a guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpnutz52 Posted February 20, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 You CAN save money building your own guitar if you're willing to cut a lot of corners on materials. If you want to do it first rate you're going to end up spending as much (or *MORE*) that you would just buying a guitar off the shelf, *ESPECIALLY* if you're doing a replica. I think most of the benefit of building a guitar is the satisfaction of building a guitar. what sutible woods are there that i can get cheaply? ive tried alder and ash but no look as they say that there ( the alder anyway ) is as rare as hens teeth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john Posted February 20, 2003 Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 you could use maple for the body i presume you want a light coloured wood that can be sunburst like kurts, maple would do the trick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LGM Guitars Posted February 20, 2003 Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 And, in building your own guitar, you save money if it's hobby, if you value your time at nothing. I get emails every other day from people wanting a replica of something because they have priced out the materials and hardware and it's 40% of the cost of the real thing, they forget about the time it actually takes to make the stuff LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpnutz52 Posted February 20, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 you could use maple for the body i presume you want a light coloured wood that can be sunburst like kurts, maple would do the trick. would you suggest trying to make a neck? making the body and neck my self would dramatically drop the price and be more what im looking for... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 20, 2003 Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 Hard Maple for a body will give you a lot of sustain and a very hard and "cold" sound. I would avoid that. Jermey has a pretty nice looking Alder body in the classified section. Not even routed for a big monster trem, that's a plus in my book. I'd look around for a used Alder body and maybe even one with flaws that you can live with, fix or maybe the flaws are on parts of the body that you would want to cut off or cover with a pickguard. Just make sure you know exactly what flaws it has , if any. (don't buy one with a badly routed neck-pocket, etc- although that can sometimes be fixed-just won't look so good, maybe). I think Cobain's main guitar was made of Basswood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsl602000 Posted February 21, 2003 Report Share Posted February 21, 2003 kpnutz, where are you located? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremywills Posted February 21, 2003 Report Share Posted February 21, 2003 thanks for the reference soapbar, but i think hes trying to build a jaguar wich my body would do him no good, but as for the jaguar body being made out of basswood, yes, your right, he had some old school originals outta good ol alder and then he had some of the japanese reissues with the basswood, your wanting to build one of his original ones with the bound neck and all, kurt added humbuckers if i remember right to some of his jaguars, just like gavin rossdale of bush did to some of his, so im not sure wich exact guitar your after, but if your interested in building a jaguar and it dont have to be exactly like kurts, check this auction out, and take care, jeremy http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...&category=33039 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpnutz52 Posted February 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2003 kpnutz, where are you located? hey, im in the Uk for starters.... and im located im Rotherham..... also jeremy id prefer not to send for anything from ebay from overseas...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsl602000 Posted February 21, 2003 Report Share Posted February 21, 2003 kpnutz, You should be able to get your hands on some nice pieces of wood in the UK. If you got the time and accept the fact that you ARE gonna make errors and **** up some things, I'd definately recoomend to build your own guitar. LGM Guitars is right, if you have the time, it's cheaper to build one yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpnutz52 Posted February 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2003 kpnutz, You should be able to get your hands on some nice pieces of wood in the UK. If you got the time and accept the fact that you ARE gonna make errors and **** up some things, I'd definately recoomend to build your own guitar. LGM Guitars is right, if you have the time, it's cheaper to build one yourself. im outta school ... ( 17 ) i dont go to college ( didnt work out ) wanted to go to another college to do a guitar building course ( too far away ) ...... so i have all the time on my hands... im also trying to get a job at a airspray shop ( spraying helmits, stuff like like u know all that airbrush art ) which cud help moneywise.... and when spraying the guitar etc... but yea i have all the time on my hands and i know ill mess up... ( im the one laughing at my dad cos he's messing up a speaker cab were building.... a 4x12 by the way ) ... lol...... anyway yea.... thanks for the tips... anymore? a question about making a neck.. i looked a tutorial on here and its building a neck with 3 pieces stuck together.... u know if i dont want the middle one to be a different colour can i just get the same colour as the other pieces of wood ( what a newbie question ) Chris. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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