Has anyone ever built a guitar before? GLP luthier thread

I’m not a pro or even semi-pro, 100% amateur musician, I have a strong background in electronics and mechanical areas due to my profession so modding guitars is no big deal for me. I’m really not even that great of a musician which is one of the reasons I’ve been thinking of getting into building guitars instead playing.

I am sorry for getting that wrong. I hope that some more people with guitar building experience contribute to this thread. I have a hunch that if you do learn how to build guitars, you will be fastidious and produce some good quality guitars. If you haven't already, go find some guitar building forums(?) and look for any info that may help you. Best of luck to you in your endeavour.

I know an airbrush artist that does work for musicians mostly. Hes not getting rich but he does have an extra income.

Thought about it once, until someone beat me to my idea.

I put together a Precision Bass a couple of years ago, working on a Telecaster now (just waiting on the bridge I ordered).

It's a lot of fun; eventually I'd like to build one from scratch. I just don't have the woodworking tools at the moment.

Yeah tools are a serious investment, especially if your building an acoustic from scratch.

Funny you should ask. I built an acoustic guitar from scratch but was in a luthier class to do it took about a year it cane out great and sounds awesome. It’s my favorite guitar to play. I’ll post you some pictures later. I am actually working on another one.

I wanted a fender knock-off so I can play slide guitar like Joe Walsh. I found a place on line that sells Chinese guitar kits ( Saga ) for a real bargain. I got spray paint from WM, screwed everything together, bought a good set of strings (the ones in the kit were SS and cheap) the electronics were all soldered and I just fitted them in the pre-drilled areas and aligned the neck with plastic shims. It played great right off and I can't tell it from my 63" Strat. I love the american makes but for a beater you can throw in the trunk and play in a dusty barn, make your own.

Nice, pics would be great, how hard is it to do the inlay work for the fretboard? Or did you just go with dots? How about the rosette?

Hi here is the picture of the finished guitar. I have tons more and some instructions I put together from the class I could share. It’s not perfect but might help. The inlay work was really hard because the class just wanted to teach the dots but I wanted pearl inlay like a Gibson les Paul. I took a huge risk and just did it on my own, but I did it just by reading about it and practicing on some spare wood. It came out fine but it isn’t perfect if you oook closely. I had to shave up some ebony saw dust and put it in the glue around the inlay to make it sit perfect.

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Good work dude, that’s a nice looking guitar! I bought a rosewood board from the local woodworking shop to practice inlays before I shell out the money for an expensive neck. Going to make some drink coasters first. Instead of doing traditional inlays I’m going to try acrylic resin with mica flakes to resemble mother of pearl, I figure that will easier.

Here is the new one I recently boxed up.

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Here is the bracewood gluing younuse these like spring things to push it down on a radius board looks crazy

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Ya I would like to practice on coasters with inlay. Inlay work looks so awesome on wood. That would be awesome to make your own. There’s a company online you can send them an icon and they will cut you a mother of pearl inlay in the shape and mail it to you. I did that for the head stock piece I made it a fox.

I might have to look into that, especially if the acrylic resin doesn’t work how I want.

I BUILT A BASS

I’m mainly a bass player, so I’m definitely planning on BUILDING A BASS somewhere down the road.

First one i'd buy plans , get the hang of things like truss rods, frets , wiring.

I did from parts and it costed more than I could have bought one for.
I already had the pickups and a few other parts lying around.
I bought a used Tele body $50
A mighty mite licensed Tele style neck for $150
Tuners $50
Bridge $30
Plus about $20 in odds and ends.
(Pick ups would have been another $100 at least)

It's a great telecaster knockoff but because it's a knockoff it isn't worth anything.
When you compare it to an American Standard I saved about $1000
Considering that you can buy excellent quality fender clones for under $300 it may not have been worth it.

Overall I enjoyed the process of putting together my own custom. I think it's every bit as good as an American tele. It's not a polished but it plays and feels the same.

Right now I’m just going to buy finished necks from Warmoth with no inlays and do custom inlay work myself, wiring them up and installing hardware/setup is no big deal I’ve been doing that for years. If I get really into it at some point I’ll invest in tooling and try building them from scratch.

good luck mate , I will say the ones I built ended up costing about twice as much in parts as pre built ones

I can enjoy the fact that I can make my own music with something I built.

I also put together a Chinese 12 string kit.
I did the best I could but it didn't turn out as good as the other guitar. It had a lot of manufacturing defects I had to work around. I've continued to improve it along the way but it still doesn't play as good as I like.

Yeah those Warmoth parts ain’t cheap but at least I’ll know it was made right. I’m not really worried about cost because I can spread it out buying parts here and there, I mainly want a custom instrument exactly how I like it. I love Gibson guitars but they charge way too much and the quality is really lacking for the price they want.

Yeah I’m going to steer clear of Chinese stuff, my girlfriend is Chinese and she won’t touch anything made in China lol, they know better. Good luck though I hope you get it playing how you want.

And speaking of twelve strings, doing some research I came across a guy that makes ten string guitars, kind of interesting, he doesn’t double the low E and A strings.

[link to michaelkellyguitars.com (secure)]

I highly recommend finding a class if you can there’s lots of junior colleges
That will take you through the process of building a guitar. It was one of the best things I ever did. It was expensive about $1k for the class and I had to buy all the materials but it taught me more than just how to build guitars but also how to work with wood which I wasn’t that good at before.

Great thread for me to troll OP!
Yea, I've built some guitars and they are the best ever yet built!



Last Edited by RocketScientist on 01/19/2019 03:22 PM

I've got "LIVE STRINGS" too!

Ha ha sweet! An acoustic Dimebag Darrel guitar! I love the speaker in the sound hole lol. Dimebag is actually my favorite guitar player, I love squealing harmonics and he was the master of that shit.

That’s white trash as fuck lol, I bet his neighbors love him

THIS one is actually the best yet... and yea, I'm riding a hoverboard. hmmm maybe worth a new vid today since its snowing... maybe I'll take it out on the unicycle with my dog! :D