Help/Info about possible first ever build

[FruitCakeRonin]

Hello fellow SS'ers.

So I've been gassing hard for quite some time and have been looking around for a new guitar. But then I started looking at all these home build guitar threads and I began to wonder. So I looked up some wood prices and it seems like I could actually build a pretty great guitar for a decent amount of money.

But here is the thing: I have never undertaken any DIY project even close to the scale of building a guitar, so I don't really know what tools I need. I see a lot of people using big machines you would find in a workshop, but I don't have any of that obviously.

So my first question is, what tools would I need to make a decent guitar? I have access to Jigsaws, hand saws, files, sandpaper ofc, lots of drills and drillbits. I don't know if I know anyone who owns a router, but I'm guessing some parts are pretty close to impossible without one ? Is there anything else I would need. I should mention, I don't spending a few extra hours using small hands tools if the result is as good or better.

ps. I know there is a sticky thread in this forum, but it's old and a lot of the links are dead.

 

[Carver]

i use the following

jig saw
band saw
large belt sander
hand sander
cheese grader like file for shaping.
calipers
hand held router
drill
files
a rubber hammer.
and a hand planer.
that is all i use, that and clamps of course for anything i have to glue.
oh yeah and a butt load of that other stuff,.. i used to have a bunch of it back in the day. it starts with a p...

















patience.. thats what its called


get your minds outta the gutter.

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

I think I can get my hand on everything you mentioned except a band saw, but I'm guessing thats not a must but rather just something to make cutting large pieces of wood easier? And thank you for that swift reply.

Another question is, can you guys recommend an online shop in Europe that ships to Denmark where I can buy the wood from? I't doesnt need to be top grade wood or very exotic woods as this would be a first ever build, but not crap wood either.

I think these two things would be all I needed to know before the actual building started, no?

 

[Carver]

im sure you will get by ok with a jig saw, its just if you are cutting something thicker than 2 inches you may find the jig saw to be a pain in the ass.

stewmac should ship to denmark, they are american based. but im pretty sure they will ship international. they have wood blanks they can ship to you, but in all honestly i would just search in eu for a hard wood supplier,. and give them a shout. let them know the dimensions you are after, and they will direct you.

 

[Carver]

Hardwood Supplier Sydenhams, providing a huge range of Hardwood Species

what about these guys? i dunno... but this is how i found my supplier. i searched

Hard wood Suppliers - ottawa

and came up with a few options, checked out what places were for hard wood floors only, and found a shop that holds stock and thats all they do, they are my supplier now for all my builds, guitar or counters, what ever.. they are my go to.

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

That second one looks more promising than stewmac. The thing about american based companies is that I have to pay import taxes on anything worth more than 10 bucks.

BTW how do I know what kind of quality the wood is?

 

[Carver]

you dont really know unless you are at the shop hand selecting, talk to the place you wish to order from and see what their practices are for returns and product garauntees, let them know what you are using it for, and what you dont want (things like knotts or dry pockets)

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

So I found a German site that has a good selection and I'm looking at some wood now and got a question. I want to do a bolt-on 27" neck. The neck blanks I can get on the site are either 700mm or 870mm. So I need to know if 700mm will be enough for the neck and headstock. Anyone know the length of fx. an Ibanez RG neck+headstock ?

 

[AwDeOh]

Your list of tools and machines can be as complicated or as simple as you like, but there are really only a few 'must have' guitar specific tools. The beauty of guitar building is that there are many ways to skin a cat.

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/search.php?searchid=6379474

(If that doesn't work, go Advanced Search, Search Titles Only, Luthiery Forum, 'tools')

--

The best advice I could give for a beginner is to go slowly, and read as much as you can before you even start drawing a plan. Get a copy of the guitar building books from Melvyn Hiscock and Martin Koch, both are great. Read EVERYTHING at ProjectGuitar.com. To this day I still come back to that site to remind myself how to do obscure little things, like the mod-podge headstock decal technique.

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

I've already started reading stuff but I don't plan on even touching a piece of wood for almost an entire month so. I always do my research. I have friends who don't bother researching anything themselves because they know I can do it better and faster than them. They call me the Research King, but not really though.

 

[mwcarl]

So I found a German site that has a good selection and I'm looking at some wood now and got a question. I want to do a bolt-on 27" neck. The neck blanks I can get on the site are either 700mm or 870mm. So I need to know if 700mm will be enough for the neck and headstock. Anyone know the length of fx. an Ibanez RG neck+headstock ?

You need to draw up plans so you can figure this stuff out for yourself. It's going to depend on your design (scarfed headstock or one piece). Please do some research with a book (Melvyn Hiscocks book is one I like) before you go about buying wood/parts.

[EDIT] Sorry, you already indicated you were going to do your research. Just make sure you do enough before you buy your materials. No one can tell you how much wood you need until you know what and how you're building.

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

@mwcarl: thats a good point. Gonna be doing some drawing and math tomorrow then.

 

[AwDeOh]

Heh that's the difference between a.. "guitar".. and a "GUITAR!!!!1!ONE"

I'm becoming a fan of recommending that beginners take their wood to a cabinet maker or experienced woodworking for cuts like neck laminate pieces, and 2 piece body joints - they're set up to cut perfectly square and flat. It can be a little expensive and time consuming setting yourself up with the machinery or tools to do it yourself.

Most important tools IMO would be a quality straight edge (not a spirit level), a set of steel rulers, a protractor and a vernier gauge. A high degree of accuracy is an important part of a quality guitar. I'm looking at getting some of this Incra stuff soon to add to my collection, it's reasonably priced and a quality brand (worldwide brand too, if I'm not mistaken).

 

[psikoT]

Another question is, can you guys recommend an online shop in Europe that ships to Denmark where I can buy the wood from? I't doesnt need to be top grade wood or very exotic woods as this would be a first ever build, but not crap wood either.

Try this: MADINTER

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

Thanks for the recommendation.

I did some designing today, and it did help me alot figuring out how to calculate some of the measurements I wasn't sure of before. Haven't done them yet, but I will begin tomorrow. Tell me what you think of the design.

I hope it isn't frowned upon, "borrowing" designs from other people. You can probably tell who I'm getting my inspiration from.

 

[AwDeOh]

Nah, nothing wrong with that man. If you're building for yourself, build what you want to play, not what you think others will be okay with.

The construction details all look good, it's a good thing to stick with a familiar design for your first build so you can see how others have done things. However the most important planning part of a guitar is the side view showing the scale length, with the height of the nut/fretboard/frets/bridge, and the strings. Once you draw all of that in, you can find out whether you'll need a neck angle. With the Hipshot, you may not, and you always have the option of slightly recessing it with the router as well (my preferred option).

You're off to a good start!

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

As I figure out the correct measurements I will be adding them to the "blueprint". The important things you mentioned are what I'm gonna be doing a lot of reading up about, as those are, funnily enough, the things about the build I'm most confused (for lack of a better word) about.

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

Hi there, currently in the process of measuring things and a new question arose:
I drew the design in photoshop, but now I can't really figure out how to get a real life template of the body and headstock shape from what I have on my computer.
I can just draw a neck template, since its all squares and straight lines, but the headstock and body have too many curves, so I would have to print them out somehow, but the photoshop image isn't 1:1 scale.

tl;dr How do you guys make physical templates for Headstock and Body shape ?

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

No kidding, this is what I do. I draw up a 1:1 grid of lines on the computer in microsoft paint, also draw up the body outline in MSP to be accurate to the size of the grid lines, then I draw up a 1:1 grid full size on a sheet of cardboard and trace it by hand onto the cardboard while looking at the image on my laptop as reference.

Check it out, heres an example of what I start with:

These designs take a while to make up in MSP, but the awesome thing is you can draw it and erase it as many times as you ever need to. You see where the black line crosses each line of the grid, just make your design up like this using a .bmp file so your pixels always stay the exact same each time you save it, and then transfer it to cardboard and cut it out with an x-acto knife, and then trace that to a sheet of acrylic or MDF to make your final router template.

I've probably made about 30 designs on the computer, 10 made it to the cardboard stage, 6 to the acrylic stage and 4 of those have been used in a build. Just to show that designing takes a good bit of trial and error sometimes...

This is one I didn't like too much and it never made it to the cardboard, anyone feel free to use it in a build if you like

 

[FruitCakeRonin]

Thats a pretty good idea actually, thanks for that.