Making a Custom Guitar...

Kilgore_Trout

Hey all... welcome back... i love the new board... anywho... im just starting a custom strat guitar for a xmas present for myself and i was hoping someone around her has some experience with building/painting guitars... as far as the body goes, im not sure how easy it would be to actually build it (plus i dont really have any power tools) but can anyone recommend a good source for bodies... i was thinking ash or alder (whats better in your opinion)... and i was sortof hoping to save some $$ by getting a used body in good condition... if anyone has one thatd be great... as far as the paint goes... i think i found the paint i need at House of Kolor.com, but could anyone send me some step by step directions on sanding, prepping, painting, and whatnot to make my life a little easier... this is my first time building a custom guitar but its something ive been wanting to do for awhile... i really appreciate any help you could offer... thanks

Kilgore_Trout

Bump......

mccreadyisgod

You should be able to pick up a used body on eBay, or get a new one from Warmoth (http://www.warmoth.com/).

As far as assembling the body, a couple different Phillips-head screwdrivers and a soldering iron are all you need.

Now, for painting... I'd recommend taking it into an autobody shop and having it painted there. And make sure to get it clearcoated well, too.

Where's Bob on this one? Someone call him and tell him the board's back up... we need that voice of experience...

Pacomc79

you might also look into http://www.usacustomguitars.com

great guys, they do thier finishes with ROXY.

http://www.stewmac.com has plenty of books that might help you.

samick

I was thinking of doing the same thing

except i'll be getting me a Les Paul and taking apart the samick strat style body i have now and replacing just about everything on it......tuners pickups and the rest of the wiring pots etc............

I was going to give it a flame paint job.............but not any typical flame paint job.........this one would be special..........

PearlJamaholic

i re-did my first guitar, an epiphone. all i kept was the body and neck. it was strat styled and i have two volume and one tone knob on it. for morello stuff. the wiring was easier than i thought. i never even used a soldering before. all the bridge stuff took forever and its not perfect. but i learned alot about guitars and i can now fix up my guitars with alittle bit of know how now.
go for it its worth the time and money.

Tav

I'm currently in the process of building a telecaster from warmoth. If you do a search in the showcase for body number PT269 it might still be up. Gold telecaster body. Alder. 1/4 maple neck with black inlays and PRS size fret wire. Graph tech nut and string trees. Black Kluson tuners. Got a pair of Seymour Duncan Hot for Tele pickups wired up through a 5way switch with a single volume and tone control. Black warmoth style scratch plate, black/gold jack socket and finally chrome control plate and knobs. I've yet to get it fully assembled but what I can tell you is that it really is quite difficult so I can only wonder how hard building from scratch must be. I've made a few little mistakes...accidentally marked the back of the body when pushing a string feurrle in..AH! Still it should turn out really good I can't wait to have it finished. I think the total cost for my dream guitar was £500-600 which is awesom as your getting the same quality as Fender.

LemonYellowSun

I've built a couple of electric guitars so far. The first was totally from scratch/homemade, and it turned out a little on the rough side. I found that the neck gave me the most problems, esp. the fretting which was a royal p.i.a.

For the second one I went into it a little more, spending more time and more money on it. It's a semi-hollowbody in the shape of an ES-335, but a little different. I used my uncle's CNC machine (computer controlled milling, etc...) to cut the body out of a single chunk of mahogany. For the top I used Lacewood with a strip of Padauk down the center. I decided to buy the neck from Carvin (smart move), and I went with a neck-thru-body version rather than the standard bolt-on. I used a tung oil finish on it to give the wood a nice radiance to it. Overall, it turned out to be a pretty nice, pretty heavy, pretty pricey, and pretty good sounding adventure.

Anyhow.....I'd highly recommend buying a neck from a place like Carvin or Warmoth. As far as bodies go, you can get them pretty cheap online thru ebay, warmoth, carvin and the like. Or you could make it interesting and build your own design. It's a lot of work, but in the end I can look at it and be proud of my acheivement.

Soul Shakedown

Reading this post is so impressive. You guys sound like you really know what you're doing.

How sweet...

LemonYellowSun

Soul Shakedown wrote:

Reading this post is so impressive. You guys sound like you really know what you're doing.

How sweet...

We only SOUND like we know what we're talking about..... or at least that's my story.

samick

LemonYellowSun wrote:

We only SOUND like we know what we're talking about..... or at least that's my story.

I second this

mark

does anybody know the name and make of guitar eddie uses on touring band dvd. i really like it and if i build my own could make one like that. also please pm me with any information on prices for building your on guitar, and any tips when im doing it. i want to make a real decent guitar but as cheap as possible. thanks.....mark

Pacomc79

mark wrote:

does anybody know the name and make of guitar eddie uses on touring band dvd. i really like it and if i build my own could make one like that. also please pm me with any information on prices for building your on guitar, and any tips when im doing it. i want to make a real decent guitar but as cheap as possible. thanks.....mark

That tour he was playing a US Schecter Pete Townsend (PT) The same that Pete played on the 82 Who tour.

you can find books at http://www.stewmac.com

check the rest of the thread for various other websites. You can certainly build one like it, essentially it's a hot rodded fender telecaster with two humbuckers.


http://www.carvin.com offers a similar model, but you could certainly build your own ordering from several of the sites listed.

Just do a little research on the Schecter (PT) the one he plays is the older US models made in the 80's not the newer Diamond Series version. I believe the pickups are Seymour Duncan. You'll need to determine what fret size you like, what hardware you want, neck, fingerboard and body/top (opt) wood.

The gold guitar he plays in SVT is the same model in a gold top.

http://www.seymourduncan.com but there are lots of brands and options to choose from depending on what you want.

Warmoth and USA custom guitars are both good quality places to get premade bodies and necks.

Warmoth does their own finishing and USA customs get all their work done by ROXY finishes (one look and you'll know why)


If you want a Schecter model you can certainly order one from their custom shop and they will build to order.

You're probably looking at around 5-700 from Carvin, and around 1000 is probably what you're going to shoot for from anyone else but you can get out a little cheaper probably because that guitar isn't ornate, I'm guessing on the high end of things likely 600 or less is not out of the question especially if you are frugal and ebay hardware, pickups and the like. Speaking of Ebay, occassionally a few original PT's come up for bids at less than $500.

Schecter's Custom shop will be considerably more expensive, but probably not as much as Fender (Master Built) which is astronomical.

I'd email a few builders, tell them what you want and ask them what they think the ballpark would be.

mark

Pacomc79 wrote:

That tour he was playing a US Schecter Pete Townsend (PT) The same that Pete played on the 82 Who tour.

you can find books at http://www.stewmac.com

check the rest of the thread for various other websites. You can certainly build one like it, essentially it's a hot rodded fender telecaster with two humbuckers.


http://www.carvin.com offers a similar model, but you could certainly build your own ordering from several of the sites listed.

Just do a little research on the Schecter (PT) the one he plays is the older US models made in the 80's not the newer Diamond Series version. I believe the pickups are Seymour Duncan. You'll need to determine what fret size you like, what hardware you want, neck, fingerboard and body/top (opt) wood.

The gold guitar he plays in SVT is the same model in a gold top.

http://www.seymourduncan.com but there are lots of brands and options to choose from depending on what you want.

Warmoth and USA custom guitars are both good quality places to get premade bodies and necks.

Warmoth does their own finishing and USA customs get all their work done by ROXY finishes (one look and you'll know why)


If you want a Schecter model you can certainly order one from their custom shop and they will build to order.

You're probably looking at around 5-700 from Carvin, and around 1000 is probably what you're going to shoot for from anyone else but you can get out a little cheaper probably because that guitar isn't ornate, I'm guessing on the high end of things likely 600 or less is not out of the question especially if you are frugal and ebay hardware, pickups and the like. Speaking of Ebay, occassionally a few original PT's come up for bids at less than $500.

Schecter's Custom shop will be considerably more expensive, but probably not as much as Fender (Master Built) which is astronomical.

I'd email a few builders, tell them what you want and ask them what they think the ballpark would be.

thanks alot...mark

Pacomc79

http://www.projectguitar.com/


really cool builder site.