How difficult is it to build a guitar?

[stripes]

I wanna try to put together a short scale musicmaster type guitar from vintage parts, but I really don't know anything about building a guitar. I build effect pedals so the soldering/wiring isn't really an issue, and I can set up a guitar okay... just wondering if there is any crazy skill that you need other than piecing everything together and making it to your liking.

[kosta]

One way to find out!

Seriously though, I've done a few Yuri Landman instrument workshops, and it's been no trouble at all when starting with good parts. Seems like as long as the neck and frets are good and the scale length and neck pocket matches up you should be good to go. (Grossly over-simplified, but yeah.)

My Yuri Landman White Eagle:



(Basically a regular neck, tuners and pickups and everything else from the hardware store per Yuri's design. Took about 4 hours to put together.)

[skullservant]

Dude Kosta that guitar looks rad

[kosta]

Thanks man! The body is just a few slabs of 1x18 pine. Pretty awesome idea, and really easy to work with. The real genius of the design though is that it has a pickup behind the bridge and an additional, second bridge in the tail. This creates a fixed third octave in the non-fretted strings behind the first bridge that ring these really awesome harmonics in the rear pickup. It has an additional output jack and switching options so that you can route both pickups to one jack or split them to separate jacks. Pretty fun to play, and it sounds like nothing else.

Mick / Phantasmagorovich did this workshop too, so he has one as well. As a matter of fact, here he is playing it in a police impound lot in Amsterdam.


Dutch ILF'er Toonster has one too:

Thread about it here : viewtopic.php?f=149&t=16452

[skullservant]

I think I might have to build myself one. I'm a sucker for geometric guitars

[kosta]

With your skills and the spare parts I'd imagine you to have laying around, I'm sure you could build one of these in a snap.

[skullservant]

Yeah I've got pickups covered for sure. No neck laying around at the moment, but I might be able to find one cheap. The concept is REALLY intriguing as I've always wanted that resonance!

[kosta]

You build the thing, and you're like, damn, why didn't I think of this! So simple and sounds so good.

[skullservant]

Is there any sort of written documentation for the build that I might be able to follow, such as parts involved and the cuts of wood? Am I just not looking hard enough?

[kosta]

Nope, no documentation to be had. Yuri usually does these as workshop instruments or as custom builds for people, so I think it would cut the legs out from under his business if he published any kind of instructables for it.

[iamthesnow]

i've got a mix mash of vintage mustang/musicmaster parts. i call it my "mustangmaster." I've had a beat up ol '64 stang that still needs a refin but i wanted to use the neck so i bought a '78 musicmaster guitar body, a loaded '78 MM pickguard and a matching bridge.

the neck slapped right on and i didn't have to fuss with the intonation. still need to order a pickup and some glendale saddles as i'm not a fan of the ones on it. (personal preference, they're decent saddles stock.) i'll get a pic later on tonight when i get home from work. i've been wanting to do something similar and build up a musicmaster bass too!

[skullservant]

Nope, no documentation to be had. Yuri usually does these as workshop instruments or as custom builds for people, so I think it would cut the legs out from under his business if he published any kind of instructables for it.

Gotcha and totally understandable!!

[Josh Pelican]

Putting together a guitar from parts is real easy. I put a telecaster together using a lot of vintage parts and some modern parts. I put a lot of time and effort into sanding and whatnot. I still need to get it painted, but it's rewarding in the end.

[colin]

Assuming you don't need to route anything or fabricate up any parts yourself, should be a breeze. I've never done this myself, but I've definitely taken some of my guitars pretty much completely apart before and put them back together with no problems.

[lapsteel]

Building a solid body electric guitar is easy as long as you are comfortable using, and have access to, some fundamental tools. The joinery is really basic and if you have experience making jigs the routing won't take long at all. I find the toughest part is always the neck. Getting the truss rod installed right and cutting the scale accurately can be intimidating. But you can easily skip this part and just pick up a complete neck. Or you can just set yourself up with a big kit o'parts with a pre-routed body and assemble your own... you don't really need much beyond what you got in your garage to assemble everything.