I am building an electric guitar from scratch, using maple for the body and neck, and even the pickups are made of maple. I will be posting pictures as I go, only because a few friends here requested me to do so. I know this isn't the first home built guitar in the world, nor the first tutorial of one. So here we go.  I purchased some maple lumber from the Woodcraft store, and contracted the pickups built by a Internet friend of mine, Ted Crocker. If anyone is looking for great sounding hand made pickups, Ted's the guy to see.

I didn't have a Biscuit Jointer, so I had to make a fixture for my drill press, so I could drill holes for dowel pins, that were glued in the holes to fix the two halves together.




After gluing in dowel pins and clamping, I wet the guitar body area to give us a hint on what the final natural finish might look close to. I tried to use what knots and figured grain I had in the lumber. A second backing will be processed the same way to add to the back side, to give it almost a 1.75 inch thickness.

Looking good Mort..........I cant wait to see the finished product.......

thanks Freak, I have no idea why my second batch didnt load.

Hey mort, thanks man, this is going to be one of the all time 'best' chordbook posts ever ! So what are you (we?) naming your homemade flyin' V git?

Great pics too...maybe freak will tell us what happened, because i took a look and couldn't find the pic posting error either...

Cheers,

GuitarZen

EDIT: Maybe i see the pic posting error now..
         has to do with the [img][/img] code i think.
         I'll still watch for freak to enlighten us...!

I dont know Zen, maybe name it the T-V ?

How bout  P-V ?

lol

looks good man...

J

mort snerd wrote:

thanks Freak, I have no idea why my second batch didnt load.

you put [IMG][/IMG] all in caps, i just changed them to lower case and it did it.

and no worries mate


this looks awesome!!!

i wish i had the time/talent to make my own guitar!
dead excited to see the finished thing.


yeah you should give it a real kool name =P

GF, I only copied the Photo Bucket link address and pasted it here. Anyway, I have the front half cut out, and the back half glued and clamped. I cut out the Jack pocket, and tone and volume pockets, and mortised out a channel for the pick up wires to lace through, after I glue the two sides, front and back together. The tone and volume pots will be attached to a thin maple cover, and set over the pockets when done. I will route out the pickup well in the face, as soon as they arive in the mail.

Lookin Good Paul
Keep It Up

TMR3

Thanks T0mboy, I think I will. :-)
A drinking straw is placed in the channel to run the pickup coil wires through. I have no idea how much glue will fill the channel when I clamp the two sides together, so the straw will make sure I have the ability to thread the wires through the body.

Mort, I want one.

T-V stands for?

Ahhhh...freak, i din't even notice the capped img's...good eyes man !

Hey, everyone, this is quite an undertaking...i think we have a 'house' Luthier in
our midst. So mort, when will you start taking orders for gits? I want a tele that
looks just like a 2004 anniversary...can you make me one for under $500? Heh, heh.

Cheers,

GuitarZen

Zen, T is for Thompson. I can do a tele for that much, but it wont come close to "just like" a 2004 anniversary model. LOL
My wife actually thought I would build a Tele when I ran the project past her. If this goes good, I can put a Tele on the list.

Dang....well it would have to be identical...heh, heh...but hey, i hope you do a tele sometime too.

Oh ok...T-V...i get it now...hmmm...what about T F V or M T V...heh...

Cheers,

GuitarZen

mort;; great post love your work

Well that part was easy,, $60. Thank you e-bay!

The holes for the pickups are cut out, this is the face of the guitar.


The pickup coils need to have an access door on the back side, I have made a little door for this.

Router work


Inside router work on both halves, waiting for the neck to arrive for more router work. I really cant do to much more until the neck shows up.

Geez morty, that's going to be one cool guitar. Presumably you'll be leaving the fine looking wood natural
with some kind of clear finish....or ?

Cheers,

GuitarZen