-= Building a Guitar from Scratch with Absolutely No Woodworking Experience "

[Rodman]

another point of no return incoming....

before you apply the glue - you must make sure you did do the sidedots on your neck - or your guitar will not get any (at the higher frets)

clamp clamp clamp

yay

[Rodman]

on to the back of the body-neck joint aka 1st most ignored but when done well beautiful spots of a guitar (look at your guitars, sad story)

 

i decided to just follow the lines of the carve a bit

as that still felt very thick i decided to add a valley behind a rock there, coming in handy when playing the highest frets

just a good hour, maybe 2 of work, extreme difference design wise i think

[Rodman]

back to the front..

final final shaping

it would look better if we remove that bit

it does

more sanding

repairing that spot (sawdust, superglue)

bad parts for sanding

also here

thats about ready for finish

[Rodman]

 

Ok, after all that optical nonsense the real important thing for playability - fretwork!!!

starting by checking absolute straightness of the neck (notched straight edge), if necessary correcting with the trussrod

starting with rounding over the edges with 320 sandpaper

then fretrubbers coarse - superfine (you can use sandpaper also)

covering the fretboard carefully with masking tape (takes forever)

a marker on top of the frets

sanding bar to flatten the frets (bring at one perfect level)
now is the time to create a fallaway from ~12th fret if you like that - i always do, it´s the better setup for me for less buzz at very low actions (if you wonder therefore is the transparent masking tape at 12-13)

measure for perfect straightness (1-12 and 12-end if fallout)

crowning with a triangular file (from both sides) after putting marker on top again

cleaning the metal dust

result shall be a thin line way<1mm like those 3 in the middle there

fretrock all fretpositions a lot!

then polish starting from 400

800

1200

and also buffing wheel i do

clean up that mess

fretrock a lot

oil

enjoy

and cover up

 

 

[Rodman]

somehow got the impression that that valley was lacking a river

final sanding 240

- 400

 

 

[Rodman]

clean it must be

that guitar shall get colored. Blue is was thinking... yellow another option.

I have never ever stained anything, so i was really curious how that would work

ugh... like in art class back at school. bitter.

that will take a lot of coats !?

just to see.... let´s try the yell.... no!

looking at the wood i decided to grainfill it to underline that beautiful lines... cause the stain gave me the strong impression that the wood structure would be seen through ... so here we go

golden boy

sanding

oh yes.... lot´s of effort, a small but great effect on the texture

bad bad spots for sanding back

pfffff

 

[Rodman]

back to the stains

that is going towards the right direction

not bad at all

quickly ordered some red to make a bit sunburst effect from violet at the border to the blue in the middle

lil sanding back for the transition

and blue

that´s unexpectedly cool

was not sure until then, but.... blue all the way!

a few coats later - what a color!

 

caring for that river there

[Rodman]

it´s september.... the moment i´ve been waiting for since january is now

about 5 layers of oil (2x penetrating, 3x high build)

it´s alive!

some buffing

some hot renaissance wax (wear gloves!!!!!!)

most happy

[Rodman]

sorry long post:

 

hardware!!!! aged Copper

some testing

measure!!!!

mark

strange dimensions

soooo scary

phhh... no tear-outs, all looks ok

ground -cable to bridge!!!!

i like the Schaller stuff

i had to learn how to age copper, as aged copper parts are ... not available... custom parts for body through stringing

those look ok

perfect match with the bridge

aaaaah.... the body doesn´t fit there

so gotta go by hand which is sooo scary cause the holes on the back shall be lining up also

and they do

 

 

[Rodman]

 

 

 

nice

ouch.... forgot something...

remove all and place those as stringguides

there

getting good at copper aging

i hit the body with the hammer.... spotrepair

let´s see

ah... nice

 

 

a good day

 

[Rodman]

shielding

is straight forward...

put the pickups in to have a look.....

and it was just too tempting to see her equiped

so a quick stringeling to "see if all works"

and yeah... that custom bodythroughs... work great

 

[Rodman]

it´s hard to spot...

... what i´ve been doing here

how to locate positions without measuring:

there we are

drill drill glue glue (if possible with the right polarity up!?)

fits in place...

... and stands the test of being held up against the ceiling

 

 

[Rodman]

 

pots and switches....

i only did small holes before, so it was planned to finish those now

yes

some drilling there

and there

and there

but wait - why here??? how come there is always one pot that doesnt fit the place you created for it, sigh...

i think it´s got no choice now

reinforcements have arrived (againagainagain...) searching...

for that one, who is not a lil Buckethead???

 

 

[Rodman]

 

custom washer, anyone?

always drink beer while doing things that can destroy months of work!!!!

those widening bits are really good for jacks

memo to myself - remember to do that drilling right when you do the back cavity!!!!! and if you forget it there then right when you grab the shielding paint!!!

that´s so scary .... because of the carving of the front you don´t really know how close the surface is.... i use to knock a lot of times for estimation....

shileding againgan

fits well

 

 

[Rodman]

doubleshielding against the vol-pot

i´m not a solderer, all my irons are junk obviously also, but the right setup helps getting it done..

i have groundsignal everywhere (from jack to machineheads), and the pots alter the signal well

the cheap japanese saw demands to be used

custom P90mount that allows height adjusments

with some good springs

well in place

 

 

[Rodman]

that bridge came with no precut slots... good thing i have a set(4, not 6) of those ultra expensive nutslotting files

good thing you can place the strings perfectly over the poles of the pickup when you do it manually

Nut=Bone, and that is a great piece to start with

getting the min line to not cut deeper, a good way is a half-pencil, but i had none

filing bone smells intense and is hard work

yeah that fits

again the expensive ones

yes... but

"the nut is the last thing that you do" in setting up - golden rule... so setup first... i like lowes action possible...
check neck (on fretlevel!) for straightness
tune to your standard tuning
capo in 2nd fret
credit card set in place fitting the radius there over 12-13th
lower the saddles (bridge in that case) so that there is no buss playing the strings with a pick in position of the credit card gently!
thats the lowest possible action

intonation won´t mess with that, so here is nut fied down to:
tune to your standard tuning
when string pressed down in 3rd there shall be just minimum (clearly <1mm) of space between fret and string on 1st fret

finalising the nutshape

we gotta give it up to the bone here!!

superglue

intonation:
tune very precisely to your desired tuning for that guitar
check 12th fret pressed and flagolet and bring saddle in right position

A perfectly setup guitar

Here i took a long long moment just standing there

[Rodman]

 

 

after a longer search i found what those are named and ordered a set (ridiculously i don´t remember no more)

some polish

aged copper knobs for vol and tone have been placed also

HELL YEAH!!!!

 

[Rodman]

 

THX FOR WATCHING!!!!!

 

 

[Milo]

Wow, what a journey! So awesome to see the story and the building process for this beautiful instrument. Thank you, my dear friend!

[Sniper Reload3d]

I don't know how I missed this thread last year when you started the first one. I found the thread couple weeks ago. I am glad for you that you did a second one. If you are not careful, this will lead to a third one, a fourth one, then your thirtieth guitar. Then you will have to open Rodman's Guitars shop. Next thread tho, you will have to change the title as you can no longer claim zero wood working experience ,

Let me say, this is not an easy thing to do, experience or no experience.

Back when I was a teen, I found an article in a popular magazine on how to build one. The article included a lot of detail. When I got to my first duty station in the Army, I made a trip to Warmoth Guitars in Puyallup WA and bought a nice slab of mahogany and a truss rod, and a  bunch of hardware from Cramer (pickups, tuners).

I then made several trips when i was in garrison to the base woodworking shop and spent quite a bit of time hacking out a body and started on the neck.

The body turned out great. The neck was a complete failure.

couple years ago, I bought some nice wood to do another project. Time, lack of work area, lack of tools, and the complete worry of another failure has kept me from attempting another go at attempting another build.

Hats off to you. It is one thing to build one that looks like a guitar, complete different story having one that is playable. Building these is not as easy as people make it out to be. (I'm surprised I still have both my thumbs.)

[GoatHerd]

Fantastic body shape. Love the neck join & carving of the top. The body shape is amazing. The next step is for you to try your hand at spray-on paints. I've had some amazing results, recently, especially with candy-style paint jobs.

Here are a few of my recent projects:

12-stringer electro-acoustic build:

 

 

[GoatHerd]

 

[GoatHerd]

I recently did a micro-telecaster and a micro-les paul. Basically a full-sized headless neck, with the smallest possible body, to make a travel guitar.

[GoatHerd]

The Micro-Les Paul has 2 mini-humbuckers with coil-split. It has a cracking sound, and fits in a normal travel bag.

 

 

[GoatHerd]

And then I did this micro-tele, complete with the correct electronics. I used scraps of wood from previous builds, and enhanced some of the joins with wood veneer.