Hey all.

I thought I would share you my home built guitar. Made back about 1990.

I come from a family of do it yourselfers and I was playing the guitar quiet a bit but the really super nice guitars were around $3000 to $4000 NZ dollars.

We decided to make one ourselves.

Using guitar making books and looking at theories of design etc we came up with this creation.

It as shown is the latest photo and it has gone through some different guises.

When it first was made it was painted black, with Gold plated brass accessories. since then i have sanded it slimmer and painted it red with chrome accessories (but as you see i haven't finished it off)

The wood is African Mahogany and is very solid. We chose a wood that was dense as thats what the theory was. More dense wood = Better sound.

The pickups are EMG 86 and 81 both active pickups with huge grunt.

The guitar is 2 piece with the same wood in the neck. A motor bike wheel maker made us a 'trus rod' to tention the neck and the fretboard was made from (i forget the name) that they use to make ball bearings out of. As the theory was you wanted a super hard wood for the fretboard to stop wearing out!

The inlay pattern i just made up and we used IVORY! that I found on an old abandoned piano in an abandoned house. If you didn't know the old pianos had Ivory overlaying the keys. So i grabbed enough for guitar. The black is ebony. 24 frets.

The guitar sounds great and is very solid. The only mistake that I did was that I miss measured the total bridge length and made a neck that is 25 3/4 inch long! so it has a bit extra spacing than most guitars! I can remember sitting down as a kid and going through all the maths to get the spacing of the frets right!

The design is out of a Jackson catalogue that I had, and was called 'Death Angel' I copied it best that I could from small picture to big template and my father cut it out.

We were told that we were crazy and could never make our own guitar, but it goes to show with the right commitment that you can. Plus, all the best guitars are hand made anyhow huh!

something different and unique!


Dayna
New Zealand

i am planning on makiig my own guitar. just dont know where to start.
is it possible to get one plank of wood to make the body?

Nice one!

It's really cool how you made everything yourselves. It's almost like "went to Africa and chopped down a tree... etc" You know what I mean, most stuff is available to buy and puzzle it together, finished with inlays and everything.
Your guitar build was cool!



Yes it is
Example
Another example
Yet an example

Hah, the last one is pretty good

Wow, this almost inspires me to build my own - like a Jedi building hos onw lighsabre

I suck at woodwork, but the prebuilt parts look manageable

Wow thats amazing! Really awesome.

My dad just recently got done with making a Ukulele He's also planning to make his own electric guitar.

This post has been edited by Robin: Jun 29 2007, 02:41 PM

The guitar i made was out of 2 pieces of mahogany, a nice thin piece for the neck and a big block for the main body.

I would say that basic wood working skills are only whats needed.

Bandsaw out the shape from the block. Route out the back for the pots and switches. Route out the pickup holes. drill holes for the wires, pots, bridge.

A lot of hand sanding for the curves, and using a ready made guitar to compare and measure off.

IF you really like the action of a particular fretboard, measure it and duplicate it in your design measurements.

I had a Fender Squire at the time and and used that as my control model so to speak.

Oh, and the end price of my guitar was $1000NZ to build. So it wasn't cheap but I believe it would sit beside a $3-4000 quite happily. Being that a few hours went into building it.

The action is reasonably good and low, but i must admit that some of the ibanez guitars out there have some awesome action and thinner necks than mine. I did thin my neck down at one stage but I was always weary of sanding through to the truss rod which would have been an unhappy time for me! so i didn't go too crazy on the sanding.

I want to build another guitar, maybe an improved version but i'm thinking. How do I improve on what I have. And the only real way is for me to keep practising with my new tutor...GuitarMasterClass.net!!!!

HEHE
some more pics for ya all

very admirable. and that is a dual purpose guitar, also great item to carry outside at night should you hear anybody breaking into your garage. bad guys will certainly run in fear, when they see the guitarist from hell approaching.


edit: btw, i know the pride of accomplishment in a wood project. spent over a year replacing the wood floor on my boat, would not have done it had i known what i was getting into (it is not easy to do this, trust me on this), but am very proud of my boat floor.

This post has been edited by fkalich: Jul 1 2007, 03:32 AM

I could MAYBE do the woodwork, but i know i couldnt do the wiring.

Heh, then we could make a guitar between us - I suck at woodworking, but the wiring would be easy!

Ive wanted to do this for a while.. i really would like to indulge on making my own neck tho instead of a whole new guitar.. like inlays in all.. so i could put in my own custom inlays and shape the neck EXACTLY for me just the neck and head.. i bet it would be nearly impossible.. and back to the original topic that is 1 beutiful peice of wood, plastic and metal

awesome design!
kiwis all the way!