How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

[ApeDosMil]

I was thinking about doing a long term project. Just for kicks and to learn something. I want to make a SG style body or something.

The only problem is... i don't have any milling machines or anything that can cut wood except for a saw [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

My friends dad is a construction worker so he might have something.

How was your guys experience on it if you ever tried?

[Drsracing]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

You need some good tools to cut your own bodies and necks.

Also Have you got that stereo jack yet, Alot of my fedx shipments from this week have been really slow for some odd reason

[ApeDosMil]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

Didn't come yet [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[Drsracing]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

I hate fedx, I got to call em mon morning about this and other customers packages and a package they destroyed so, I'll pm ya mon.

[bucknaked31]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

You can cut your own guitar body with a router and a template. But you are going to have to find a source for 8/4 stock. You can always buy a glued and planed body blank from ebay. Go to guitarbuildingtemplates.com , there are templates you can buy and instructions on how to do it.

[etaeniura]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

THe most difficult part will be measuring for the bridge position and getting things centered so when you bolt it up, the pickups are alligned under the strings and the bridge can be intonated properly. The easiest thing to do would be to get your hands on a real SG or whatever you are making and measure it carefully. I assume you plan on making hte body and buying a bolt-on neck? If so, many of the necks you can buy are desinged to fit strats, so might be better off measuring a strat for the bridge placement. Good luck!

[hippietim]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

Call Warmoth. I talked to them about this about a year ago and they were willing to sell me a blank with the neck, bridge, and pickup routes done already. USA Custom Guitars will probably do it as well.

[MetalMedal II]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

How was your guys experience on it if you ever tried?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I built one guitar body from scratch when I was 15 and was only playing guitar for 4 months. I hardly knew what I was doing, and could hardly play at the same time, but it turned out to be one of the best sounding guitars I currently own.

I lucked out in that the school I went to had a decent woodshop. The planer and bandsaw were helpful to prep and get the rough shape of the guitar done, but the router they had was a godsend. It was one of those massive ones where you mount the guitar to a moveable surface which is manipulated at right angles with 2 wheels. The pickups, electronics cavity, and neck-mount area were routed with that.

The aftermarket neck, fixed bridge, and pu's I kinda trial and errored til it played right..yeah it took awhile at the time, especially since I could hardly play! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
As an aside, I replaced the neck pickup about a year ago, and I extended the existing wires on it by just braiding the wires together...I didn't use any solder on it! When I first installed it I was new to soldering and must have thought that was easier to do at the time! Yikes!

Anyway, have fun with it and don't be afraid to experiment with a different or modified guitar body shape. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[ApeDosMil]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

Thanks for the input

MetalMedal, can you show us some pics?

[MetalMedal II]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

The only pics I have on hand are of the finished product, so to speak. One is with the Schaller 475 roller bridge that I originally had on it, which I later had changed to a TOM stoptail piece some 14 yrs later. I also finally installed some decent pickups that were worthy of the guitar. The neck is a Chandler.





As you can see, it's explorer-shaped, but not a proper reproduction. I never played an exploerer, and all I had to draw out the shape was a bunch of pics of Hetfield playing his. I came up with what I thought was a close shape. I didn't realize it was so much larger than a normal explorer until I took it to a shop to see if it fit in a Gibson explorer case...no way did it fit!, off by about 4 inches at least! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

The body's basswood, but not one solid piece. The grain of the wood goes along with the longest side of the guitar (where your forearm would rest). The triangular area where the electronics are is a separate piece of wood that was glued there before the rough shape was cut out with a band saw.
I have some pics taken during its making, but I gotta get em scanned somewhere.

[ApeDosMil]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

Wow thats awesome man [img]graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]

Great job

[zeegler]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

I always thought Explorers should be bigger. That looks very cool.

[MetalMedal II]

Re: How hard would it to make my own guitar body?

Thanks for the kudos. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I remember the biggest gripe I had was trying to put the Schaller bridge in the right place so it'd intonate right. I must have drilled and doweled the thing at least twice before I got it right. Then, the thing didn't intonate right after I painted it!..which is why there's another set of dowel marks that's visible in addition to the other screw holes. Good thing the bridge was easy to mount with just 3 screws. When I had the TOM put on, I gladly took it to a luthier to have that done, cos obviously I got a problem with proper bridge placements! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I was over at my bud's earlier and got em to scan some of the early photos of the thing. From the pix, it looks like I routed out the neck joint first, mounted the neck, then the bridge. I strung it up after that to decide where I wanted the pickup routes to go. The last thing I did was the control cavity. At the time it'd seem like the logical progression to do things, even though it took a bit o time, but I'd do it again that way.

The paint has held up pretty well over the years, especially since there's no clear-coat over the white, and it never had a case for the first 14 or so years. I used a gray sandable primer for the first few coats (from a can), followed by some white appliance paint I found in the basement (again in a spray can). At the time I couldn't find a decent clear coat that wouldn't yellow over time, and frankly, I was eager to put it back together and then never got around to it after that.