GuitarTools.co.uk

Article Index
How To Build A Guitar If You Are A Technical Cripple
Picking a kit - Motivation, dahling
Arrival - like ABBA, it's here
Maybe a bit of research before we chop something
Body finishing - Here's what you could have had
Replacing the nut - Another five minute job that took an age
Preparing the body - Embalming for beginners
Headstock design - Three little steps
Finally doing something - Shaping the headstock
Cutting the headstock - Part 2
Painting the body - Plonking on the primer
Painting the body - Time for the paint itself
Painting the body - Time for the second coat
Electronics & soldering - Practice time again
Finishing the neck - Decisions, decisions...
DIY decal - Stickers are doing it for themselves
Replacing stuff
Painting the body - Lacquer
Painting the body - Lacquering again
Finishing the neck - Keeping it simple
Finishing the neck - The touches
Finishing the Body - Going down for the thirtieth time
Putting The Tuning Pegs On
Oiling and Polishing
Putting it All Together
Claws and More
Shielding - Cutting the noise pragmatically
Solder Blue
And Finally...
Links
All Pages

The last time I attempted anything along the lines of luthering, was in 1982 when the combined results of three years work in school woodwork lessons amounted to a wooden box (notionally for storing cassettes, but minus the lid as I never got as far as mastering hinges) and a couple of stitches and a scar where I was stabbed with a chisel. Since then, I have managed to cock-up a variety of Ikea put-togethers, and have after two years finally managed to get a curtain rail to stick to a wall for longer than a fortnight (four weeks now, though I did give up on glue and reused the original holes left by the previous owner of the house.)

To say I'm not exactly practical is probably being kind. I'm a technical cripple, it's as simple as that.

With this is mind, you would probably find it unlikely that I would have spent many years dreaming of making my own guitar, and more so that I am finally - more than a quarter of a century after the cassette-box-fiasco - taking the plunge, but that is exactly what I am attempting to do and I thought it might be fun to record my 'progress', assuming I ever make any.

This series of articles then is my record of what happens when a complete no-hoper tries to build his own guitar, in the hope that there will be a happy ending and that  'if I can do it...' for once means that truly anybody can.

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