Electric guitar

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>>1142190
I'm doing that too.

From what I have gathered, wiring and installing the working parts of an electric guitar are fairly straightforward. The difficult part is making a guitar design that does not look like shit, has a functional shape, has nice resonance and has a nice finish. all of the rest can be conquered with guides, accurate maths and pre soldiered kits.

Making something better than a pre built is the real challenge.

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>>1142199
Electronic part is rather easy.. Im more concern about design. How did you start ? Do you have any models or where can i get those ? As i said, my girlfriend is wood sculptor and might help me with it but is need some kind of model. Maybe creating shade of other guitars might work.

The neck and joining it correctly to the body is the tricky bit. The body itself and the electronics is fairly simple. You will need to rent a router to route the holes for pickups and possibly bridge (bridge style depending).

The neck... it may be better worth your time and money to just buy one. Getting the tools and materials together for a one off project will be almost as expensive as the premade neck. It only gets cheaper when you're already setup with everything to make them.

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>>1142202
Well, there is a design philosophy with the shape of guitar bodies that explains exactly why the stratocaster is the most popular shape of all time.

There are certain requirements that make the strat body the perfect example of everything you could need: good size, slopes in appropriate places to prevent the body from digging into your arm, a high cutout for the left hand to reach the end of the fret board, nicely placed strap pegs that gravitate the body to be slightly off centre to you when you play standing up, a groove in the side so that when you sit down it settles in the appropriate location in relation to your body... ect.

I started by finding a similar, yet distinctly unique shape for my guitar body, glued 3 hardwood planks together to make a poorman's body blank, then jigsawed, and routered the edges, neck pocket, and the electronic cutout holes.

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Well not sure how to deal with the whole neck problem. Do you guys have any informations how to create one ? She said that create something like pic is easy and can go for something crazier but she cant imagine the whole project (connecting whole thing etc.) . I will try to do what i can

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>>1142210
if by that photo you mean that your gf said she can engrave all that wanky shit, then Im afraid she is of no contribution to the possibility of you creating a guitar.

There is no neck problem, friendo. Just buy a pre-built and mathematically route out the cavity where it should sit. Remember to factor in depth in relation to how high your strings will be above your fretboard.

>>1142212
previous angel has been created by her. She said that all curving, processing, wood treatment etc is easy and she can help me. But what if i want to do neck etc. instead of buying

>>1142213
If she can do that stuff, it's great. But you need to focus on the technical stuff first. Your first build should be a partscaster, period. You'll get familiar with the geometry and setup of a guitar this way. If you try to build some fancy artsy fartsy thing right off the bad, you're going to fail. Don't put the cart before the horse.

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>>1142213
Alright. She got the skillz.

But seriously now. Making a neck, you may aswell make a through-neck guitar if you are up for that kind of challenge. look up through-neck guitar.

The issues surrounding making you own neck involve making the entire head/neck combo from one solid piece of wood, then accurately marking, cutting, then installing frets (fuck this up even slightly and you will have a weirdly out of tune guitar forever), then leveling and filing the frets so that they are all perfect, then drilling a perfectly centralised hole for a truss rod. Why not just skip the truss rod you say? Thats because your homemade neck could bend inward with the strain of the strings, and viola, unplayable guitar.

But yeah, if you have the time and effort to make a good neck, then I salute you.

>>1142217
>>1142215
Can i use hard wood like Oak just for the neck ? maybe it will solve the bending problem. But i will consider buying neck alone and then creating the rest. Thanks a lot

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>>1142220
Maple and mahogany are the most common for necks. Get a copy of pic related. I can not emphasize enough that you need to know how to set up a guitar before attempting to build one.

>>1142220

Nope. I mean, yes, you can build a neck out of oak no problem. The problem is that a truss rod is very important to fine tune the neck as it changes shape slightly with varying humidity and temperature. You might get it right for the conditions of your house but take it anywhere else and surprise your action is off and your intonation is borked. That is purpose of truss rod.

You could try making something smaller scale first. A ukelele or something like that. It's a bit easier.

>>1142220
You can get a body blank on the internet. It's just a slab of wood. It's pre-dried, made out of all the token toan woods, etc. Kind of expensive imo. But i suppose if you're gf is gonna pretty it all up you're not gonna want to cheap out and glue some plywood together. The neck will be hard cuz thr truss rod, but there's a math to the fret spacing you can look up. Brian May from Queen mad his whole guitar from scratch, using a 100s yr old fireplace mantle. Wound the pickups, made the tremolo from motorcycle hand brake parts. He made the dots for the inlays. Anything is possible if you have the patience

>>1142190
I've built 2 guitars and I'm working on a third.

When you say that you'd like to build one, are you planning on making both the neck and body? I personally have more trouble with necks, and find them to be a pain in the ass.

Sanding down the fret board and getting all of your frets polished correctly takes a lot of time, and once your frets are set, you can't really remove them without damaging the fret board.

Wiring in the pickups and potentiometers is fairly strait forward. Probably the easiest part.

Are you planning on buying a body blank, or making your own?

Guitars are actually great little projects. For about 100 dollars in hardware, you can make a pretty decent guitar. Assuming you already have the wood ready.

>>1142190
>is it hard
If you're "no tools" and no experience then yes, but people have been doing it since there have been electric guitars, even before the days of the internet. All the info is out there, just read a bunch. Measuring tools are the most important, it doesn't matter how good it looks if it's unplayable.

>>1142459
If possible i would like to make both. Do i have to create neck and body separately and then connect them or can i make like everything from 1 pile of wood ?

>>1142514
You can make an all in one. I've never done it, but it would be more difficult for sure. I've seen examples of them, and they look pretty intense.

Most all in one's are CNC'd out. If you only have hand tools, it would be a project for sure.

>>1142522
a guitar is the final project for the CNC class at my community college.

>>1142522
>>1142528
Well.. i thought that maybe because its from 1 piece od wood it might break because of the twisting force od strings. Isnt it better to create neck and body and then connect them ?

>>1142532
I don't know about better, but that's how I've always done mine. It also gives you the ability to work on either the body or neck alone, and it's probably easier to work with.

It's fairly common to connect the neck to the body with 4 screws and a back plate. It also gives you a place to adjust the truss rod from, if you notch out a little section.

>>1142532
its two pieces yeah, but they are machined out at the same time.

doing the toolpathing takes like 4 hours in the computer but the actual run time is only like 45 minutes.

>>1142543
>>1142542
Any forums where i can find shapes, tutorials, examples and informations about wood type ? I've heard that differnet type of wood provide different tone of music etc. I've tried to find it somewhere but i couldn't.

>>1142935

The material of the guitar will only affect how much the strings maintain their vibration when you strum since you're making an electric guitar. Generally the denser the volume the more it will maintain vibration up to a point.

When I made my first one I made a test model out of a 2x4 that I cut, glued together then cut to shape. I used Basswood for the one I actually played.

Any other opinions? I would consider making neck out of hard wood like oak because of bendings etc. What do you thing? What kind of wood should i use for neck and what kind for body?

>>1142514
If you have to ask, then you shouldn't. Learn with a bolt-on first. Find the books, read them, then report back next year.

I think i will be able to put everything together and create masterpiece. Do you guys have any plans or dimensions ?

>>1144104
It will be very hard to carve out a good neck profile with oak.

>>1142190
It's fairly simple to make a functioning instrument but it's artistry to make something quality

>>1142210
Easiest way to deal with the neck joint problem is making a neckthough instead

>>1144154
>>1144152
I can't find correct version with all dimensions on it. I have 2 books and few free samples of guitar shapes (google) but these are not accurate and few the most important measurements are missing. There are few fully completed shapes but you've got to pay more than 70$ for one of them..

>>1144410
Which dimensions are you missing? The only ones you really need are ones for the neck joint (which depends on neck), the bridge (which also depends on the neck, and the pickup locations. All of which can also be measured out using some string and knowledge of the scale length. The bridge even has some acceptable margin for error because the saddles are adjustable. The formula for cutting frets is also widely available.

If there's an existing design you want to copy, go rent it for a day, trace it out on large format packing paper, and bust out the calipers. That's how it was done and still done when reverse engineering "master crafted" acoustic instruments.

>>1142210
Buy a replacement neck and build around it. It's really the only part you can fuck up.

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What do you think ?

>>1144545

well im missing few :

1. how deep should be 2 humbucker and bridge (picture above)

>>1144996

2. is there a huge different in sound if i put humbucker closer to each other ?

3. Is it better to get string through the guitar or just get Hard tail ?

You need to decide on scale length before you place the pickups and bridge.

There is a science to proper pickup placement depending on scale and fret count.

There is no better anything, all bits are subjective when considering the guitar as a whole.

I'd recommend you buy an old squier bullet and take it apart and mess with it. Learn how a truss rod works. Why neck radius is important. Alter the neck profile via sanding. Etc etc.

Then buy parts from stewmac and Dartmouth for your first build. It will not be cheap.

Then build a guitar from scratch.

Warmouth

>>1145000
>1. how deep should be 2 humbucker and bridge (picture above)
as deep as they need to be, usually around 3/4"-1". Need to measure the pickup to be sure.
>2. is there a huge different in sound if i put humbucker closer to each other ?
as opposed to if they were spaced far apart? yes
>3. Is it better to get string through the guitar or just get Hard tail ?
string through requires extra drilling for the string holes

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Also I've got an other problem. What is the dimension for that (picture), because whole scale length. I know that from the beggining of bridge and end of neck it has to be 25.5'' but how do it set it correctly ?

>>1145022
are you making a guitar for a giant?

>>1145029
i have huge fingers, no i don't...

>>1145034
You don't seem to have any sense of scale either. 25.5" would be fucking enormous from the end of the neck to the bridge. The measurement is from the bridge saddles to the nut, not the heel of the neck.

The fact that you overlooked says that this project is too much for you to handle right now, and maybe ever.

Stick to pre-cut stuff from Warmoth or something to learn the basics of putting together and setting up a guitar.

btw all the measurements on the body are done after marking the neck, cutting the neck pocket, screwing the neck to the body blank, and using a couple pieces of string to measure things out.

>>1142190
But don't be that guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsowLBretlk

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>>1145038

The body shape it all wrong... sorry dude
search for a full standar template

>>1145224
give me one then, everysingle one out there you've got to buy

>>1145213
Just scale everything accordingly. 648 should be 25.5" and so on and so forth.

>>1145226
I was going to scan you a strat routing template but you sound like an asshole.

>>1145245
if telling truth means to being asshole then sorry. I've created my own because i can't afford / dont want to get template .

>>1145245
also i've asked few times about templates but nobody wanted to share therefore i wouldn't consider you to do it

>>1145002
>buy parts from stewmac

This.Neck.

>>1145274
im going to buy neck - im aware that one error and i can throw away everything.. now im more concerne about shape...

>>1145278
Choose any. It will be either ugly or unplayable in the end. It's always like that with the first guitar.

>>1145278
No point in planning the body measurements until you get the neck in hand and cut the neck pocket.

>>1145328
Whay if i've got neck's dimensions and i'm albe to plan locations ? Should i still wait for actually getting neck and then trying to measure everything ?

>>1145329
You can plan the general vicinity of where the routings are going to go to make sure you have enough wood, but for the actual measurements and making sure everything is in line, you must wait till the neck is seated in the neck pocket.

>>1145332
alright ! Thanks

What's your opinion, does it look awful ? Also its my first try doing anything in AutoCAD
>>1145213

>>1145334
body looks wonky as hell

take a picture, convert it to pdf, and trace over it in autocad

also don't work on your template upside down

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>>1145373

Can i use picture like this ? That might be stupid but how do i know that if i upload photo and strech it a little bit it is going to have exact measurement as expected ?

>>1145377
Well, you use that image as a reference and you trace over it without giving a shit about the exact dimension. Then you scale the entire thing while maintaining the aspect ratio according to the scale length from bridge saddles to nut.

>>1145383
ok, thanks a lot

>>1145383 hello, one more quiestion this time about pickups. Is it better to get 2x middle class pickups or combine them and get one but really good ?

>>1145383
It's more commonly to actually use 2 pickups, thats why im wondering

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>>1145383

>>1145580
I don't understand your question. You'll get very different sounds when comparing the neck position vs bridge position.

>>1145646
That looks fine.

Be wary that the final position of the bridge will vary. http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/tips/ebridge.htm should help.

>>1142213
Honestly for your first one just get a prevails neck. It'll probably turn out like shit so may as well get the practise on the other bits. Seriously trying to do the neck will put you off entirely

>been there done that

I'd suggest starting with a little 3 string cigar box - just to get a feel for exactly how difficult it is to put a relatively simple build together, and get it sounding at least playable.

This will also be a lot cheaper if you codge it up whilst trying to get a feel for things.

>>1146378
I thought that using 1 pickup (expensive and really good) in the middle between bridge and neck might be better than 2 positioned normally.

>>1146447
Yea, because of that im going to buy already made neck. Thanks

>>1146467
Since my girlfriend is wood-sculpturer we are going to get great wood for free and all wood work with lowered costs. And pieces like pickups, neck, bridge i can sell if this project become failure (won't !) but thanks yea

>>1146378
also i've already decided, im going to use:

Merlin P.A.F - neck
Merlin Sabotage - Bridge

I've tried to listen to both, and i think those are good. Any suggestions ?

>>1146724
Another thing I thought of is

Don't use heavy wood.

I made a leccy out of mahogany and barely play it because it's so damned heavy

>>1146778
Well i thought that using mahogany is ok because thats hard wood, but thanks ! will use that information, maybe using linden or clone might be better

>>1146855
on the other hand using clone is bad idea because it's nearly impossible to sculpture in it.

Currently we are looking for inspiration. Can you suggest us how we should sculpture/decorate it ?

>>1146855
Well you can but make it at least as thin as a real strat. Mine is nice but if I ever shave off a couple centimetres it'll be nicer

>>1142234
IMO you should only have to adjust the truss rod at setup. Humidity and temp in the general case don't swing hard enough to justify truss rod adjustment. Just retuning.

>>1145377
https://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator

I'd do a full scale blueprint before you build. You can use this to figure out the scale. 25.4" is most common. 22 frets is most common. Measure each fret from the nut, not fret to fret. It's more accurate.

You will generally have a slight angle for the neck so if you look sideways it kind of runs to the top of the bridge. It will depend on the bridge height for the bridge you use. If you use a tunomatic bridge you can actually adjust the height a bit up and down.

actually, just read this and it will be more clear than I can explain. Basically you want to the strings to not be too high so it's harder to play but not too low that they hit the next fret down and buzz. Sorry man there is so much I could explain but there is so much to go over.

http://www.tundraman.com/Guitars/NeckAngle/

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When it comes to placing electronic parts should make holes accurately like in the picture or a little bit bigger ? Smaller holes means bigger stability and more esthetic.

>>1147866
Don't know what you're asking. Humbuckers are screwed onto mounting rings while single coils are mounted on the pick guard.

>>1148031
I don't want to use mounting rings. I think more "sterile" are guitars without those covers. (see picture for example). I need to know how deep hole for electronic on the back must be and holes for pickups also.

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>>1148031
being retarded is hard, sorry
pic here

>>1148104
Have you ever even set up a guitar? I just read through the thread, and the questions you're asking make it pretty obvious that you don't know much (no offense). You're setting yourself up for failure.

>>1142223
THIS

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>>1148113
I've never done this before, i have to admit. Will go through this book asap.

>>1148116
Have you touched a guitar before?

You're asking unnecessarily specific questions without having a clue on the context.