How to Build a Guitar by Hand

Making your own guitar can be a rewarding experience.

Although you can buy a guitar off-the-rack online or at a local guitar shop, it can save you money and allow you to customize to your heart's content by making your own guitar by hand. With a little woodworking knowledge and access to guitar parts, you can create your own custom guitar that represents your personality while also saving you money on very expensive custom models.

Things You'll Need

• Body Blank
• Saw
• Router
• Drill
• Screws
• Control Cavity Cover
• Pickups
• Guitar Neck
• Bridge
• Strings

Instructions

1. Cut out the body shape from a guitar body blank. Draw the shape you wish to use directly onto the wood with a pencil and use a jigsaw or vertical band saw to cut out its rough shape. Be careful to stay outside of the line--you can finish it to size, but cannot make it any larger. You can buy a body blank at All Parts or Warmoth, two well-known guitar parts retailers.

2. Sand the edges of the body using sandpaper of various grits. Start with a coarse grit and slowly use smaller-grit sand paper to get a good finish so that you can paint the guitar. You may also choose to solely use stain if you have a nice grain visible. Use a file to remove the wood in the areas where you will have contours, usually on the back of the guitar and where your forearm will sit while play.

3. Rout out the cavities for the pickups, neck pocket and control cavity, located on the back of the guitar. Use templates of the pickups and place the neck in its location and draw around the heel for the neck pocket. Place the control cavity cover over the area to be routed and use it as a template as well. Drill a hole within the area to be routed and then place the router bit or use a plunge router to cut the areas you have chosen for these parts.

4. Attach the neck to the guitar in the neck pocket. Screw it through the back of the body to hold it in place. You will want the neck, pickups and bridge to line up so that everything plays and sounds correct when you are finished.

5. Drill the bridge into place in line with the pickups and neck. You want the strings to go over the pickups evenly and be even across the fret board. The bridge usually has four or five large wood screws to hold it in place.

6. Drop the pickups in their routes and screw into the wood. Theses screws will also allow you to raise and lower the pickups in reference to the strings. Many guitar players like the strings closer for a thicker sound, while others prefer them a bit farther away for a "twang" in their sound.

7. Solder the pickups to the knobs located in the control cavity. Drill holes through the control cavity to accommodate the knobs. Slide each pot through the hole and attach with the washer on the top side of the front of the guitar. The pickup wires will be fed through small holes in the pickup cavities to the control cavity.

8. String the guitar with your favorite set of strings.

References

• Project Guitar: Making a Guitar Body

Resources

• Warmoth