Hey all, first post, woot!
Well, the topic title says it all, I'm a noob at guitar building and want to learn about it, and hopefully attempt building an electric guitar with my brother in the next few months. At least, I assume electric is much easier than acoustic, yes? I gather the biggest constraint with building a guitar is the cost of all the materials, mainly the wood to start with. Which brings me to my first question. What kind of wood should I use? I've looked into different types an rosewood seems like a good bet, is that so? I'm hoping to get a great big bassy tone out of the guitar with a lot of sustain.
Next question: should I go with neck-through, set-in, or bolt-on? I honestly have no idea which would be best or most economical.
I do have power tools at my disposal, just the basic stuff, nothing expensive, certainly no CnC or anything like that. So, if I want to design my own guitar, how would I go about actually getting that design cut out and everything? I had planned on doing the design in 3DS Max (a 3D modeling application).
One other question, what should I do about frets? How are those made and put onto the fingerboard? And also, inlays. I got some pretty crazy inlay ideas. But, hey, since its my design, why not be crazy? So, how do you go about doing inlays? What should I use for the inlays and the cutting of the neck and headstock to put the inlays in?
Oh, one more question! Measurements and angles! How do I know what angle the neck should be at? How do I know what all the measurements and stuff should be? The designs I'm thinking about doing for the guitar are fairly simple...that is, nothing that would require crazy measurements and crap for aligning everything, just a flat-top with a cool design.
Thanks everyone!
- Tommy
