Building a Guitar

Stone Is God

I've always thought this would be a cool thing to do. How would somebody go about it? How difficult is it? Is there a cost savings when you do it yourself?

I'm thinking I might take a crack at it after I get married in January, that way I can research the proper way to do it.

Any thoughts, suggestions, advice would be welcome.

fiddyfootroman

the only thing i ever built was a tele and ebay had every part i needed. there are a good amount of ebay stores that carry nothing but fender components. not sure what exactly you're trying to build but if a strat or tele is what you're looking for its not hard at all. you can save some money too. necks always seem to fetch the highest price so on that part i went a bit cheaper but that enabled me to buy the scn pickups and s-1 contols, so now i have basically an american deluxe with a swamp ash body just with a less expensive neck and i came in well below what a new one would cost. now might be a better time too, the economy has made high bids come down a good amount recently

Piper At The Gates

Check out Warmoth.com. They should have everything you need to build an electric guitar.

ianvomsaal

There is a big difference between piecing together pre-fab parts and building a
guitar by hand. If you choose to go with pre-fab parts you should order them
from a reputable place like Warmoth or you could end up with mis-aligned parts.
Many places sell parts imported parts to save money, & unfortunately many of
these parts use mm when they should be using inches (or vise versa), so their
bodies or necks will be misaligned with the hardware you have. You'll need to
make sure that the parts you have are all compatible with the hardware.

However, if you really want to build a guitar by hand LMI http://www.lmii.com/
is the place to go for wood for bodies, necks (they have really great products).
This is where I get all my wood, binding, glue, lacquer, truss rods, everything.
They even sell electric guitar kits (Solid Body/Figured Top {like PRS & Gibson}
and Fender style kits) that come with all the wood, parts, and electronics, you
just need to carve it all out and glue it all together:
http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=++Instrument+Kits&NameProdHeader=Electric+Guitar+Kits
Cheers . . .

- Ian

Hurley3038

Theres a ton of good builders in the John Mayer Musicians Forum. I get a ton of tips there. Regardless of if you like him or not, there's a gold mine of info about all things guitars there.

http://johnmayer.yuku.com/forums/65/t/Musician-Forum.html

Guitarhero27

http://projectguitar.com/

u won't need anything else, except for a forum to get some help...

ultimate-guitar.com comes to mind

Stone Is God

Thanks for the help everyone.