Guitar Forums

Has anyone ever built their own guitar? I built this one using pine and marine ply, It has a single coil in the bridge position, and a humbucker in the neck position, both p.u.'s are fairly cheap one's but the sound is good, I used gold plated Schaller machine head's and strap lock's, I have gigged with this guitar, It is now 17yrs old and going well.

You are very skilled!! does it play nice??

Hello James, yes it plays very well, it has a very fast action, and also if you noticed in the pics it has a short scale only 19 frets,

Alun - that is cool. I would love to have built my own guitar - how long did this end up taking and did you have to use specialist tools?

Did you buy the neck or make that also?

Really great pics there and how cool to be able to play a guitar you made yourself.

I always thought that it was really cool that Brian May and his Dad built his "Red Special" guitar that he learnt to play on and used throughout his whole career and, as far as I know, is still going strong!

Olly wrote:Alun - that is cool. I would love to have built my own guitar - how long did this end up taking and did you have to use specialist tools?

Thanks Olly, It took about three months on and off, I had no specialist tool's, just a hand saw, hacksaw, electric drill, wood chisel, and a couple of screwdrivers,
Oh and a soldering iron, I have built other electric guitars prior to this one, but this is probably the best,
The neck came from a very early Japanese guitar, of which the name is long forgotten, it may have been an Orbit
Anyway I shaved it right down to fit my hands, and dressed the frets almost flat with a file and oil stone, and reshaped the headstock,
The single coil is off a Kay, and the twin coil from an Axe guitar, I routed out for the p/u's with a chisel and filled in around them with a soundproof sponge, there is virtually no acoustic sound, It weighs about the same as a L.P. and is very well balanced, It does play and sound nice, I'm very pleased I built it.

Yes Alun that is totally rock n roll! Nice one!

You should do us a recording of you playing it and upload it here!