Johnny's DIY Guitar Build Log

[Johnny Two Tone]

I recently started my custom guitar build, mostly from scratch, so I thought I'd post the process for anyone interested.

 

Here's what I've done so far:

 

The first thing I did was come up with the concept via MS Paint (Yeah, yeah...)

 

I then printed off the MS Paint design and used it as a reference while I drew out the 1:1 scale drawing. You can see the pickup and bridge marker lines as well as all of my corrections.

 

After finishing any corrections I drew out a final draft (of sorts) and used carbon paper to creat the out line on a piece of cardboard (which came from my rack unit's original box).

 

Here's the cardboard tracer cutout. I needed a cardboard cutout so that I could hold it to see how it felt and use it as the tracer for the wood pieces.

[Johnny Two Tone]

Next up is the shop:

 

This is the back half of the shop. The other side has the scroll saws and sanders.

 

I wanted to do the entire body with really cheap wood once before I got into the expensive stuff so that I could perfect the body then use it as the tracer for the good wood.

 

After cutting out the three sections and drawing the outlines using the cardboard tracer I used the scroll saw to cut out the pieces.

 

If you're wondering why I have a separate middle section it's because the neck I have is neck through.

 

Here's the guitar pieced together. It isn't glued yet, in this picture, as I will be doing more sanding before gluing. Then there will be even MORE sanding..... I hate sanding.....

[Johnny Two Tone]

The neck is the only pre-made thing I'm using with this guitar. I got it from soulmateguitars.com and it's really nice. Very basic, just the way I wanted it, but well made and smooth. The headstock will be cut to the design show in the first concept photo.

 

 

 

Here's a ruff "cut" of what the guitar will look like:

 

The body isn't exactly done being altered yet. It's a little too big so I'll be reducing the overall size, plus I'll be adding a lot of bevels, arm grooves and a body cut.

[Belva]

I love this kind of project! I'll want more info on the neck. Been thinking about my next build and Soulmate is high on my list. Need input. What type bridge? Pups? Tuners? What final wood? I like the idea of roughing it out on scrap. Specially with an alternative design. Checking how it fits your body, balance and aesthetics. All important.

[irishstu]

Nice. Make sure you check the position of the bridge before you glue that together. That last photo looks like the bridge would be awfully close to the back edge of the guitar.

[Johnny Two Tone]

The neck was made with three curly (flame) maple, and two walnut pieces. Soulmate insists all of their necks use lamenates so you can't get solid one piece necks but 5-piece neck look pretty cool anyway. I know multi-piece necks tend to have less sustain than one pieces but multi-piece necks are far, FAR stronger and warp free compared to one-pieces.

 

Anyway, Soulmate lets you give basically every specification you want for your neck. I asked for curly maple with walnut neck-through neck, ebony finger board with no inlays (side markers only) and medium frets (not stainless - I hate the sharpness of stainless steel frets and they are impossible to work on without high quality repair tools). I asked for the width of the nut, the radius, the scale and the thickness of the neck to be all the same specs you'd find on the Ibanez JS1200 Joe Satriani signature guitar (well, actually the thickness is like one mm thinner at both the first and twelfth fret). One thing to remember with Soulmate is that they don't cut the headstock so keep in mind that you'll have to be prepared to do that yourself. Plus, you'll have to do a little more sanding if you want that silky smooth feel. I'm going to be painting and finishing the body and headstock so I simply used some 600 grit then 800 grit sand paper in the back of the neck to get it glass like, then I wiped on a thin layer of tung-oil and bees wax mix. Smoothest neck ever now.

 

As for the rest of the parts of the guitar here's the hardware I'll be using:

 

For tuners I'll be using black Steinberger gearless tuners. These took over a month just to ship out due to back order

 

I wanted a super nice bridge so I went with the Schaller Hannes bridge. This is the most comfortable bridge I've ever laid my hands on.

 

Right now I haven't chosen which neck PU (EDIT: I've since purchased a GHS Lil Killer for the neck) I'll be using but I'm going to be using a Q-Tuner GL-6 super high-z bridge PU. I found one used on eBay for $80. I've already tried it in my EB/MM JP6 and its picking dynamics were insane. It might be a little flat in the EQ for some people's tastes but it's clarity is great. (EDIT: I've changed this choice to a Bare Knuckle Painkiller)

 

For the nut I'll be using an Earvana nut. (EDIT: I've since changed my mind on this nut. I got one but the retro-fit ones just don't feel right to me. I'm using a standard Graphtech nut instead).

 

I bought two super volume pots from RS-Guitarworks for the volumes and two CST linear taper pots for the tone. I also bought a couple mini-toggle switches for coil-splitting (the GL-6 is not tap-able but I figure if I switch PUs in the future I'll be glad I put in coil-tapping switches).

 

Lastly I had a couple Hovland Musicaps laying around to use as the capacitors.

 

 

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to add that for the body wings I'll be using African (or maybe Honduran) mahogany.

[Johnny Two Tone]

 

Nice. Make sure you check the position of the bridge before you glue that together. That last photo looks like the bridge would be awfully close to the back edge of the guitar.

 

 

Yeah, after cutting that ruff cut out I realized the upper left horn is a little... off, and that I may need to correct the leg cut to compensate for the bridge as the Hannes bridge is sorta long (Hence the reason I started with a ruff cut. An eight foot length of that crappy spruce only costs $4 compared to the $50-100 people can end up paying for "tone" woods just large enough to fit a guitar body.).

[English Bob]

Looks great, and the roughed-out body idea is a good one.

 

I don't know how finalised your head design is, but there look to be some sharp angles on your E and A strings behind the nut. Could be a recipe for string breakage, or maybe even nut breakage - just a suggestion.

[Johnny Two Tone]

^Yeah, I've been thinking about the logistics of the tuners and I think I'll use my Jackson's SLS headstock has a reference for where the tuners should be. I'll just drop down the A string's tuner then alter the headstock's shape to look as close to my concept photo's shape as possible.

[musicdog400]

I like the headstock. Keep us updated !

[WRGKMC]

never heard of that pichup before, Looks like a Hot Rod engine. You'll have to put some clips up and let us know how it sounds.

[liveloveshare]

Pretty cool stuff dude.

Am I reading this right though? 89 bucks for a tuning peg?

Granted, they seem badass but man that's pricey.

[Johnny Two Tone]

^Yeah, $99 (for all six of course). Super expensive but I needed the gearless tuners so that I could shape the headstock any way I wanted without the keys sticking out all over the place.

 

Today I had to redo the cardboard tracer once I realized I made the body too big. I'll have to cut a couple new pieces. Good thing I started with the cheap stuff.

[Johnny Two Tone]

Okay, I had to start over since I found my original wood cutout was too large.

 

Here you can see the difference in design from the cardboard cutout of old and the new one (new one is on the right)

 

Here's a pic of the new cardboard cutout on top of the 'too big' wood cutout.

 

This is the newly designed wood cutout. I have to go out and get some new sandpaper for my barrel sander before I can clean up those edges.

 

The cuts for the hands won't be flush to the straight neck like it shows in the picture, the center piece simply doesn't have the curves drawn onto it yet.

[Johnny Two Tone]

Last pic of the night:

 

This is basically the final layout. I still need to fine tune the sanding around the edges, obviously, but I need to bolt the three pieces together before I can do anything as one piece. I need to bolt the pieces together instead of glue them together since I will be using the final pieces as the template for the better wood later on.

 

I attached a small length of cardboard for visual effect. The headstock would be at the end of that length (meaning the cardboard isn't the full length).

 

I will likely be beveling and rounding all the edges too.

[Belva]

At least the wood cutout was too big instead of too small. I know you've heard this one, "I cut it twice and it's still too short!". Lookin good. We will all be drooling on ourselves for the duration of this thread.

[Johnny Two Tone]

^ I actually had to use new pieces of wood for the new shape. Even though the new cardboard tracer looks like simply a smaller version of the original wood cut the top horns are actually pretty different so I had to chuck the old body. No big-y though, The eight foot board cheap board I bought was long enough for two sets of wood cutouts.

 

Tomorrow after bolting the pieces together and finishing the sanding I'll be beveling the edges. I can also start on transferring the headstock design to the actual neck. Cutting that out is going to be a real bitch since I'll have to be holding the whole neck in a wonky way while I turn it on the scroll saw. And I can't go back on that one no matter what.

[Belva]

Can you ruff out a form to keep the neck flat while you cut? May have to use double stick tape to hold it to the form, but that will save phucking up an expensive neck. Or get a coping saw & do it by hand. Power tools are great, but sometimes not the best way to do things. Wrap the neck in lots of cloth, GENTLY clamp it in a vise & cut it by hand. May be the best & safest way.

[Johnny Two Tone]

^I suppose that would be the best way to do it. I always cut a few mm away from the stenciled line then sand the rest of the way to make sure I don't goof anything so maybe doing it by hand would be the better way to go.

 

Either way I'll be sweatin' buckets while cutting it!

[Belva]

If you have those Japanese back saws that would be my weapon of chioce. At least doing it by hand you don't have sawdust in your way and going slow means less sweat. Not a good time to drink a few cold ones before cutting?

[Johnny Two Tone]

Alright, new day, more work done.

 

Here's a pic of the 'before' shaping that shows just the top beveling (ignore the circles drawn on the lower right horn, they mean nothing). The center wood part representing the neck got beveled too but on the actual thing that area will technically be the finger board so ignore the beveling there.

 

And here's the top after shaping:

 

 

It may be a little hard to really see the difference from that angle so here's a clearer shot on an angle:

 

I will likely be making the upper fret access cut's slant/groove more dramatic later.

 

Note how the lower left horn has a significant arm slant/groove/whatever-you-call-it. The top right horn, where my hand will be is extra cut away for better access. That area is still kinda' tight but there's simply no way to change that horn design without changing the entire right half of the guitar to compensate and I like the look so much I don't feel like messing with it. It's not TOO tight but sweeping at the 23/24 fret area may feel a little cramped.

 

Here's a pic of the back side:

 

As you can see there are significant slopes for the belly cut and the back of the neck joint area.

 

Here's another angle:

 

 

 

Tomorrow I'll start workout out how the cavity and pickup routing will go.

[Johnny Two Tone]

Small update: I ran into a major problem with my planer. It doesn't seem to be cutting absolutely dead flat so when I was planing the edges of the good mahogany that will be cut for the wings I realized that the ever so slight unevenness would likely create a problem when gluing said wings to the dead flat neck. What this means is that, on an available day, I'll have to take my pieces to a shop of a guy I know, who has a high end joiner, to do the edges. This will likely push finishing the body back a few days.

 

In the mean time I'll start work on the headstock.

[mrbrown49]

Builds looking great. It's a good thing you caught that before gluing it up.

[Bryan316]

I hate to be harping on your design. But if the pencil circles are where you plan your control knobs, you're heading for serious trouble. You need a minimal amount of wood around the holes, to allow for the control cavity. Potentiometers need a bit of space around them for mounting and wiring, and you're leaving no room for that.

 

I suggest you get your wiring and knobs and pots and everything, and actually place them where you'd want them, but on a sheet of cardboard. After that, you can trace a line around your components to show how big and what shape your cavity will have to be. THEN you'll be able to tell where they'd go on your body.

[English Bob]

Tomorrow I'll start workout out how the cavity and pickup routing will go.

 

What Bryan said; also, bear in mind that it's much easier to rout / drill the appropriate channels for wiring before you stick the body wings onto the central neck block. For example, you might rout a channel along the inside face of the upper body wing to carry the wiring between the pickup cavities; and the holes for the wiring to the control cavity, and the bridge earth wire, will be so much easier to drill at this stage too.

 

The pickup cavities themselves will usually span both the neck block and the body wings, so are best left until you have the body together.

 

Ignore me if you knew this already.