[OP]
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Need help First time tring to build a guitar
Any info would be great, I like to educate myself when I start something new, so If anyone is willing to give me some suggestions on video or books best for a beginner guitar builder? any idea what kit to start out with eletric or acoustic for a beginner? is grizzy a quality kit
Is there special tools needed to build your own guitar when just starting out? thanks in advance for your help.
Member
Rusty,
Coming from the acoustic persuasion.......
The go-to book for those starting out on acoustic guitars is Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, by Cumpiano and Natelson, along with the author's web site, http://cumpiano.com where he has updates to the book. It's rather thick reading, but informative. Also Build Your Own Acoustic Guitar by Jonathan Kinkead, which has a lot of photos.
Get tools as you need them.
Kit, tool and parts sources:
http://stewmac.com
http://lmii.com has kits in varied stages of completion
http://bluescreekguitars.com John Hall has kits, also in various stages of completion, and will provide excellent support.
These sites for advice:
http://luthiersforum.com
http://luthiercom.org
Ask around your area, if you have a Woodcraft or similar store, or find a luthier in your area, who might know of a local club or group of builders.
You might have a look at my web site, where I document builds for my customers.
http://www.patfosterguitars.com/process/process.html
Kathy Matsushita's web site has helped quite a few people getting started.
http://home.comcast.net/~kathymatsushita/
And of course, there's always YouTube.
You're in for quite the journey. Have fun!
Pat
Last edited by Pat Foster; 12-31-2011 at 10:19 AM. Reason: typo
Contributor
I'd always recommend starting with a simple electric kit or just buy parts from Warmouth or Stewmac. This will allow you to do some shaping, sanding, and most important of all fretting and finishing. Once you do that once, you'll have a very good understanding of things like neck geometry, neck angle, setup, what it takes to do a good finish, etc. It's kind of like I always recommend that someone get a high quality Lee Valley or Lie-Nielsen plane before attempting to restore an old plane or tune up a cheap, new plane. It's difficult to know what you're shooting for unless you've had a chance to work with something that's already in good shape.
If you're in Connecticut, or anywhere nearby, the Manchester Woodcraft does a guitar building class. The current one will have you starting from an acoustic kit. They used to do an electric class too, but I don't think they were able to line one up yet for next year yet.
You can also buy body and neck planks, and then body and neck templates. That's in between a kit/parts and building from scratch. All the geometry is basically figured out, but you still need to do all the raw woodworking.
You can basically build anything from assembling a pre-finished body and neck (including buying prewired wiring harnesses and controls) to starting with rough lumber and doing it all yourself. It really depends on what you'd like to do, the tools you have available, and how much tolerance you have for staring at a piece of wood and scratching your head.
I do recommend that no matter what you do, though, that you do a lot of research on the various steps involved. Building a guitar is a study in doing a lot of very simple operations in the right order. You don't want to blow away straight lines and edges too early or you make measuring, clamping and machining headaches for yourself. There aren't very many straight edges and flat surfaces on a guitar, so it really does require a little bit of thought unless you're a gluten for punishment and you just enjoy doing things the hard way. LOL
Last edited by John Coloccia; 12-31-2011 at 7:46 PM.
Member
The Grizzly kits are ok from what I've read. The Carvin kits are also ok. Saga kits are bottom of the barrel but they are super cheap and if you can turn it into a playable instrument that means you learned something along the way. I built one and use it as a MIDI controller.Originally Posted by Rusty Howard
Is there special tools needed to build your own guitar when just starting out? thanks in advance for your help.
Here is "the" book you need: http://www.amazon.com/Building-Elect...5745301&sr=8-4
This book is also good: http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Ele...5745560&sr=8-6 but it does have some incorrect specifications printed in it (namely nut widths are wrong, but so far off it looks like a typo)
Contributor
Re. Saga kits..... from what I've read, it's mainly the hardware bits that sucks with the Saga kits......tuners, mic's etc..
Is this correct, or ... ??
Member
The tuners are really bad, as cheap as you can get. The nut is some kind of cheap plastic. The pickups are cheap but don't sound too bad honestly. The switches are ok. The press together wiring I tossed and soldered everything. The wood is not so great either. The fingerboards are a mystery wood that kind of looks like a rosewood. The fingerboard also has like a 60" (almost flat) radius. The bodies are made of like 45 pieces of basswood laminated together (with some knots too) and sealed with some wicked sanding sealer that may not work with particular paints. The actual shaping and routing of the guitar is not bad. Like I said, its possible to turn it into a playable instrument but it will force you to learn how to really setup a guitar.
Member
This guy has some good kits, parts are good for the price and service is good as well:
http://www.edroman.com/parts/kits.htm
Cheers Ron.
Member
On further investigation, don't buy a thing from this guy, he sucks sorry for the mis information.
"Ron PetleyThis guy has some good kits, parts are good for the price and service is good as well:
http://www.edroman.com/parts/kits.htm
Cheers Ron.
Member
He's also dead, so theres that....
Member
I read and watch-read and watched the net and utube-- some 20Gig of info. Instead of investing on a kit, I decided to spend the money on tools. My 1st acoustic is almost finished. I learned and learned a lot along the road. My no. 1 suggestion is to read Kenneth Micheals ( at least he is an engineer which is my league too ). My 2d suggestion is try to make the best possible mold u can. Last is think, and be as scrupulous as u can. Measure 4 times, and cut once.
By the way I find no joy in building electric guitars. Classics and Acoustics are real luthiership.
Good Luck
Contributor
I build both and must disagree.
Member
How good are the kits at Grizzly?
http://www.grizzly.com/products/feat...ier_store.aspx
Carpe Lignum
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