First Guitar build Ever, Starting with a scratchie.

[farnzie]

Hi All,
Well Last week introduced myself and said i was waiting for my pay check this week and i was going to buy a tele kit, well a little change of plan, i decided that ill skip the tele kit and build one from scratch.
So with out having any woodworking skills this should be rather interesting.....
plan is to build a A chapman ML-3 guitar,

So I bought some hardwood from local timber joint, i wanted tassie oak but they didnt have anything big enough for guitar body's so i ended up with Kiln Dried hardwood, I actually like the grain on it so im happy with it.
The neck blank i got is tassie oak though so i'm happy with that.
I have had to buy everything, from clamps, router, digital calipers, fret nippers, all tools that it takes for guitar building. But i now have them so its all good.
Have ordered a heap of stuff from different web sites, got stuff from stew mac.com, realparts.com and i also ordered my pick ups off pitbull guitars.

I got plans for a tele off the web and printed out to scale so i can make my templates.
any way here is some photos of some of the stuff i got,
Please excuse the mess in the back ground, we are doing an extension of the house at the moment so there is crap absolutely everywhere.

[west0288]

Man... You're very brave indeed going full bore at a scratchie for your first foray into woodwork!

But hey, fortune favours the bold, they say; so I'm keen to see this build come alive. Good luck, and happy building!

[Nickosaurus]

Grabbing luthiery by the balls - you are a brave man! Good luck mate. Get as much advice as you can and learn how to keep your tools in good nick. Remember to measure twice and don't let the router bit slip

[Gavin1393]

There is a lot of specialised equipment that you will need to build a guitar from scratch. But it looks like you have access to the usual stores! Whilst I wish you the best of luck with the build, I do wonder how you are going to drill the bridge holes, the headstock tuner holes, route the pickup cavities and other chambers, cut the frets for the fretboard and indeed level and shape the frets. The truss rod cavity can also be challenging. But if you truely have no wood working skills and minimal tools experience and you can pull this off, we shall all be applauding you very loudly. Looking forwards to the continuation of your build diary.

[farnzie]

Hi all thanks for all the encouragement. As far as specialist tools go for the fret board I bought a pre Slotted rosewood board from stew Mac. I thought the fret board might be to hard for me because I don't have all the right tools. Also my father in law has a pedistal drill so I plan to use that for body and tuner holes.

[keloooe]

Hi farnzie,
I agree with Gavin. Building a guitar from scratch is extremely difficult without the proper tools, and by the looks of it, you still might need some more if you want to make this build as fun as you can. Good luck with the build and let's hope it will be a winner!

[Gavin1393]

Hi all thanks for all the encouragement. As far as specialist tools go for the fret board I bought a pre Slotted rosewood board from stew Mac. I thought the fret board might be to hard for me because I don't have all the right tools. Also my father in law has a pedistal drill so I plan to use that for body and tuner holes.

It looks like you are doing a string trough the body bridge? If so make sure you have the correct drill bits for this process or you may 'rip' the wood when the bit exits the drill path. It is also worthwhile placing another piece of 'throw-away' wood under the drill path. It should go without needing to say that this throw away wood needs to be perfectly level.
You will be using ferrules? If so make sure you have measured up the width of your bridge and acquire ferrules that will 'fit' within this width. Definitely use the drill press to achieve as straight a line as possible. The drill press will need to have a fairly wide 'mouth' so that you can access the ferrule position. A smaller mouthed drill press wont cut it and you might then be tempted to drill by hand. Not a good idea. The 'brad point' drill bits are highly recommended for this work. They reduce the posibility of 'tear out'. But they ave another advantage when combined with a drill press. When executing the drill path for the string thru, you can use a 2mm brad point to drill the exact pathway that the strings need to follow through the bridge( with the bridge as a template). Then using the appropriate 'mm' brad point drill but to seat the ferrules, you can drill to the appropriate depth on the back of the guitar positioning the 'pointed' bit of the brill bit perfectly over the previous 2mm holes drilled using the bridge as a template.

Take your time with this part of the process to ensure you get a great result.

[bargeloobs]

There's nothing like jumping head first off the deep end, I like it!
As others have said, having the right tools are pretty much paramount in building a quality instrument, and I can guarantee you'll find out pretty quickly as the build progresses what tools you haven't got, and the list will grow from there;-)
As long as you've done a fair bit of homework into each technique you'll be attempting, have measured twice (three's better), and have a gameplan as to what you should be doing before you turn a machine on you should be fine.
Take your time, do your homework, measure and don't be afraid to ask questions.
Good luck Farnzie.

[pablopepper]

I have to agree with Barge, nothing like biting off more than you can chew and giving it a red hot go. There are plenty of instructional videos on youtube, find one you like and watch it over and over. It's a big undertaking, but if you take your time and do your homework, it will be very rewarding.

[wokkaboy]

best of luck with the build Farnzie, take your time and as others suggested watch a few video's before each step and ask any questions you have