Building Your Own Guitar

[rice_pudding]

Very cool Paul! I look forward to seeing how you get on.

Rob

[Stiltzkin]

if you wanna build ... now is the time

http://www.guitarfetish.com/Necks-and-Bodies_c_70.html

[illiterate bastard]

Just saw this thread... and since I'm here I might as well show some of my home builds. I didn't build from scratch, the guitar bodies are from a small builder out of Alabama. I bought the woods and sent them to him in raw form, he did the rest. The necks are all Warmoth. I did the finish work (all tung oil) and assembly/setup, etc..

First one is flame maple over mahogany:



Second one is flamed Claro Walnut over mahogany:



And the third is quilted maple over mahogany. The "ugly duckling" of the three:

[sytharnia]

Just saw this thread... and since I'm here I might as well show some of my home builds. I didn't build from scratch, the guitar bodies are from a small builder out of Alabama. I bought the woods and sent them to him in raw form, he did the rest. The necks are all Warmoth. I did the finish work (all tung oil) and assembly/setup, etc..

First one is flame maple over mahogany:



Second one is flamed Claro Walnut over mahogany:



And the third is quilted maple over mahogany. The "ugly duckling" of the three:

nice stuff man.......I reckon you need to swap the necks with the flamed maple and the walnut. And put zebra P/ups in the maple IMO..YMMV etc

[illiterate bastard]

nice stuff man.......I reckon you need to swap the necks with the flamed maple and the walnut. And put zebra P/ups in the maple IMO..YMMV etc

Thanks. The fretboard on the flame maple guitar is Pau Ferro, which is dense/hard like ebony or maple but not quite as bright. Thought that might add a little warmth to offset the bright tonal characteristics of the really thick maple top. Personally, I don't care for the feel of most rosewood necks but like the warmth of the tone and I wanted some contrast between body and neck. So I went with Pau Ferro to get the "color" of rosewood but the feel of ebony/maple. Same with the Claro, so I went maple on that one to offset the dark body color.

Funny you should mention zebra pickups though. The claro walnut guitar has a double creme Dimarzio Steve Morse humbucker in it now.

[Paul Wolfe]

Okay, I finally started on refinishing my no-name V. I'm staying with my mom while she recovers from a broken pelvis, so I have free time to work on it.

Originally I thought I'd paint it black with a Texas Longhorns graphic, but After removing the paint, I'm considering leaving it natural and clear-coating instead. I'm also thinking about changing the pickguard so it covers less of the body and swapping out the chrome hardware with black. Maybe (if I can work up the courage) I'll replace the dots with block inlays like an LPC has.

I removed the paint and clear-coated a V years ago and liked the result... Dan Stout from tk has that one now.

[Paul Wolfe]

What about doing binding on the body and headstock? Would that be a difficult addition? More importantly, would it look good?

[Stiltzkin]

look good...yes ...difficult to add...yes

[Paul Wolfe]

look good...yes ...difficult to add...yes

Which would look better, black or white?

[Stiltzkin]

I'd go with white. Matches the natural body