SilverHamer
07-18-2007, 05:21 AM
Well, I have. I thought about it for a couple of years before embarking on the project. This is going to be a very loooong post because there is a lot for me to say here, so please read on!
Having limited wood-working capabilities, mostly due to a lack of good quality wood-working tools and a workshop, I had to be a bit selective in how I approached building my first guitar.
Don't be caught up in the idea that you'll be saving yourself a ton of money if you build it yourself. It's like changing the oil in your car...you can go to Jiffy-Lube and spend about $20.00 and 10 or 15 minutes of your time while someone else drains your sump, changes the filter, and replaces the oil with a fresh batch of Castrol, or Penzoil, or whatever your preference. The more specialized you get in the type of oil, the higher the price, but it will still cost you about $20.00. If you do it yourself, you'll spend almost the same amount, maybe a little less, but YOU do the labor, and YOU have to dispose of your used oil...and if you follow EPA guidelines, you'll end up having to pay someone for the disposal anyways...so it's best to just go down to Jiffy-Lube or Wal-Mart and let THEM do it.
The same is true in building a guitar...well, sort of. Building a guitar is MUCH more enjoyable than changing the oil in your car...sorry for that analogy, but it was the best thing I could come up with...hehe. But when you DO decide to embark on building a guitar, you have some decisions to make.
1. Do I want to try to save myself a bunch of money?
2. Do I want to build a guitar which I will be proud to show because it looks great, sounds great, and plays nice?
3. A combination of 1 & 2.
For my first project, I decided to low-ball the costs because I wasn't sure if I would be able to build a guitar that would play worth a damn. There are so many little variables involved that must be considered...it's not simply a matter of getting a body and a neck, bolting them together, installing electronics, tuners, strings, and other hardware, and have a guitar. For me, I decided to take the path of least resistance, and attempt to save as much money as I could.
There are several possibilities out there for choosing a project. For me, as I mentioned previously, I do not have a shop and proper tools, so I opted for buying a body which was already stained/finished, as well as already routed for pickups and control cavity. I do not possess the skills to build a guitar with a set neck either, so I chose a simple project with a bolt-on neck...I built a Telecaster.
In all, my total expense came to just over $450.00. I cut costs on a few things, the first of which was the body. The body was brand new and unused, but it is unknown where it was made...most likely south of the border, or beyond the borders somewhere. I bought it on ebay...and I think I got lucky because when I found it, there was about 30 minutes left in the auction and there were only a couple of bids on it...which gave me some time to scout the seller's OTHER bodies. The one I bought did not have a "buy it now" price set on it, but others from the same seller had prices set on them from between $95.00 and $129.00. I won the auction for MINE for $40.00.
I purchased the rest of my hardware on ebay as well, save for my control pots and 3-way switch which I got from a local music store. I actually bought some from an ebay auction but when I got them I returned them because they were WAAAY too skimpy for my tastes...but I also paid a skimpy price. Everything else I got on ebay I paid the "buy it now" price for...the bridge, screws, control cavity plate, knobs, strap buttons, output jack and jack plate...etc.
There were two other things which I determined early on that I would NOT skimp on...that is the neck and the tuners. The tuners MUST maintain the tuning, and the neck MUST be straight and of good quality. I paid the "buy it now" price for a set of Wilkinson Kluson-style tuners which are of the "Vintage" design, and I bought the neck straight from Mighty Mite's website. The tuners were about $50.00 (shipped) and the neck was about $135.00 (shipped).
Pickups, well, I had it in my mind that I was going to use Seymour Duncans. I even did some checking into several pickup combination possibilities...to include using a "Little Humbucker" at the bridge position with a 4 conductor lead so I could do coil splitting for more tone variation. I found out, however, that when you do coil-tapping (splitting) in that position, you mostly just get a change in level as opposed to tone, and the real tone variance would be in the neck position. Since my body was already routed for a classic Tele-sized single coil pickup, putting a Humbucker in the neck position was out of the question.
I finally decided that I would go low-end on the pickups because I was still uncertain about whether the guitar would even play right. I didn't skimp on the control pots, so if the guitar turned out to be a jewel, I could always upgrade my pickups later. As it turned out, I bought two GFS Telecaster pickups from Guitar Fetish (actually from their ebay store but their website sells the same stuff for the same price as their "buy it now" on ebay) and was pleasantly pleased with what I got. The bridge pickup is wound to 7.4k and I paid $14.99 for it...the neck is wound to 5.4k and I paid $17.99 for it...it was a little more because it has a nice gold cover ;).
In all it took me about 6 months to collect all of the parts and finally get it all assembled. About the time I received shipment on the last bits of parts, there was a strike by the pilots at my company so I was finding myself with a lot of time on my hands for a few months. Of course THAT worked out real nice...thus I was able to grow my beard as you see here in this pic with my newly assembled Tele:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/LarryC/Warmoth/mytele.jpg
If you have not seen my video demo, here is a link for that:
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3864941
I DID get the string holes drilled through the body and the string ferules installed. One of the reasons why the body I bought was not one of the more expensive ones is because it was not drilled for the strings. Some Tele's are "top-loaded" but I wanted to string it through the body. It's working great too. AND, as of now I have absolutely NO plans of changing the pickups. Those GFS pickups have a great sound so I'm keeping them!
Ok...this post is long enough...BUT there is more to come and I will continue with it in a subsequent post.
Having limited wood-working capabilities, mostly due to a lack of good quality wood-working tools and a workshop, I had to be a bit selective in how I approached building my first guitar.
Don't be caught up in the idea that you'll be saving yourself a ton of money if you build it yourself. It's like changing the oil in your car...you can go to Jiffy-Lube and spend about $20.00 and 10 or 15 minutes of your time while someone else drains your sump, changes the filter, and replaces the oil with a fresh batch of Castrol, or Penzoil, or whatever your preference. The more specialized you get in the type of oil, the higher the price, but it will still cost you about $20.00. If you do it yourself, you'll spend almost the same amount, maybe a little less, but YOU do the labor, and YOU have to dispose of your used oil...and if you follow EPA guidelines, you'll end up having to pay someone for the disposal anyways...so it's best to just go down to Jiffy-Lube or Wal-Mart and let THEM do it.
The same is true in building a guitar...well, sort of. Building a guitar is MUCH more enjoyable than changing the oil in your car...sorry for that analogy, but it was the best thing I could come up with...hehe. But when you DO decide to embark on building a guitar, you have some decisions to make.
1. Do I want to try to save myself a bunch of money?
2. Do I want to build a guitar which I will be proud to show because it looks great, sounds great, and plays nice?
3. A combination of 1 & 2.
For my first project, I decided to low-ball the costs because I wasn't sure if I would be able to build a guitar that would play worth a damn. There are so many little variables involved that must be considered...it's not simply a matter of getting a body and a neck, bolting them together, installing electronics, tuners, strings, and other hardware, and have a guitar. For me, I decided to take the path of least resistance, and attempt to save as much money as I could.
There are several possibilities out there for choosing a project. For me, as I mentioned previously, I do not have a shop and proper tools, so I opted for buying a body which was already stained/finished, as well as already routed for pickups and control cavity. I do not possess the skills to build a guitar with a set neck either, so I chose a simple project with a bolt-on neck...I built a Telecaster.
In all, my total expense came to just over $450.00. I cut costs on a few things, the first of which was the body. The body was brand new and unused, but it is unknown where it was made...most likely south of the border, or beyond the borders somewhere. I bought it on ebay...and I think I got lucky because when I found it, there was about 30 minutes left in the auction and there were only a couple of bids on it...which gave me some time to scout the seller's OTHER bodies. The one I bought did not have a "buy it now" price set on it, but others from the same seller had prices set on them from between $95.00 and $129.00. I won the auction for MINE for $40.00.
I purchased the rest of my hardware on ebay as well, save for my control pots and 3-way switch which I got from a local music store. I actually bought some from an ebay auction but when I got them I returned them because they were WAAAY too skimpy for my tastes...but I also paid a skimpy price. Everything else I got on ebay I paid the "buy it now" price for...the bridge, screws, control cavity plate, knobs, strap buttons, output jack and jack plate...etc.
There were two other things which I determined early on that I would NOT skimp on...that is the neck and the tuners. The tuners MUST maintain the tuning, and the neck MUST be straight and of good quality. I paid the "buy it now" price for a set of Wilkinson Kluson-style tuners which are of the "Vintage" design, and I bought the neck straight from Mighty Mite's website. The tuners were about $50.00 (shipped) and the neck was about $135.00 (shipped).
Pickups, well, I had it in my mind that I was going to use Seymour Duncans. I even did some checking into several pickup combination possibilities...to include using a "Little Humbucker" at the bridge position with a 4 conductor lead so I could do coil splitting for more tone variation. I found out, however, that when you do coil-tapping (splitting) in that position, you mostly just get a change in level as opposed to tone, and the real tone variance would be in the neck position. Since my body was already routed for a classic Tele-sized single coil pickup, putting a Humbucker in the neck position was out of the question.
I finally decided that I would go low-end on the pickups because I was still uncertain about whether the guitar would even play right. I didn't skimp on the control pots, so if the guitar turned out to be a jewel, I could always upgrade my pickups later. As it turned out, I bought two GFS Telecaster pickups from Guitar Fetish (actually from their ebay store but their website sells the same stuff for the same price as their "buy it now" on ebay) and was pleasantly pleased with what I got. The bridge pickup is wound to 7.4k and I paid $14.99 for it...the neck is wound to 5.4k and I paid $17.99 for it...it was a little more because it has a nice gold cover ;).
In all it took me about 6 months to collect all of the parts and finally get it all assembled. About the time I received shipment on the last bits of parts, there was a strike by the pilots at my company so I was finding myself with a lot of time on my hands for a few months. Of course THAT worked out real nice...thus I was able to grow my beard as you see here in this pic with my newly assembled Tele:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/LarryC/Warmoth/mytele.jpg
If you have not seen my video demo, here is a link for that:
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3864941
I DID get the string holes drilled through the body and the string ferules installed. One of the reasons why the body I bought was not one of the more expensive ones is because it was not drilled for the strings. Some Tele's are "top-loaded" but I wanted to string it through the body. It's working great too. AND, as of now I have absolutely NO plans of changing the pickups. Those GFS pickups have a great sound so I'm keeping them!
Ok...this post is long enough...BUT there is more to come and I will continue with it in a subsequent post.