I wanted to call this video: "guitar making for weekend woodworkers and other guitar enthusiasts with no woodworking experience who always had a dream of
building their own guitar but never had a clue where to start" But that would have been a
very long and confusing title Anyway now I hope you get the idea. Hi I'm an amateur woodworker from Belgium and I'm here to tell you everything I
think I know about making a guitar at home Before we start you should know that
I'm not a professional guitar maker, I don't sell guitars I just make them for fun and always
try to learn something along the way. I started woodworking as a
hobbyist three years ago, and I only picked up on guitar
making about a year ago, and in that time I've built eight instruments, six of which are featured on my youtube channel. I've been a Brian May fan for most of my
life, and building a guitar on my own, like he did with the Red special,
has been a long time dream. When I was done with my first build, as I said, it was 15 months ago, I realized that in this day and age, with a bit of documentation, a bit of
practice, the right tools, and a lot of coffee, anyone should be able to make
a half decent guitar at home. In the end, you are probably
not gonna sell that first guitar and it might have some flaws here and there. But it's gonna be your first DIY guitar. One that you've built with your own hands, and that you can play after a long day at work, or simply watch with pride, whenever you're feeling like an empty
shell, crushed by the burden of adulthood. If you think you're not good with your
hands then this will give you hope, ... ...three years ago, I didn't
know how to use a chisel, or any of the tools I'm about to show you. But i was born in 1986, which
technically makes me a millennial. And do you know what millennials are good at ? The answer is: learning bizarre new skills, out of boredom, on their own,
just by watching youtube videos, in the comfort of their couch. And I've been doing a lot of that lately. Today I'm gonna share my findings with you. In the first video of this two part series, I'm going to talk about the
tools needed for a guitar build. What they do what you should
buy and what is optional. Then i'm also gonna talk about the hardware,
wood options, the plans, timber dimensions, as well as more general
consideration for a first time build. By the end of this video, hopefully,
you will be ready for the second part, which will be a step-by-step
guide through the build itself The guitar we're gonna build
today is a Telecaster copy. Like it or not, it's an iconic
guitar and one that I love. And I think it's the ideal guitar
for our first project and there's a host of reasons why. The main one being that it's the absolute
simplest guitar design I can think of, but more on that later. This tutorial is based off of a guitar
that I built using only hand tools ... and one hand. But I make the vast majority of my guitars
using both hand tools and power tools ... and also both hands If you are on a budget or if you don't want to invest your money time and
space in expensive machines I think the hand tool approach would be the best In the description below you will find a list with
the names and brands of the exact tools that I use If you start from nothing the list may seem
daunting at first but with the exception of a couple of items, most of the tools are
very affordable and generally speaking they are valuable woodworking tools.
So in the end, even for a hobbyist, I think it's a good investment Well
at least that's what I tell my family. Now let's kick off with the hand tools My main saw is a double edged Japanese pull saw It allows me to crosscut and
rip cut using the same saw I highly recommend this type of saw, especially for beginners. It's very easy to use and it's a
great general woodworking tool. But you can use any saw you want
as long as it cuts through wood In addition to the first saw which can only cut
straight, you will also need some kind of fretsaw or coping saw, to cut tight curves
around the body and headstock. You will need a rasp to remove a lot
of wood rapidly with some control I use a shinto rasp it's cheap, it's very
efficient and you can use one side for rough work and the other side for more detailed jobs. You will need at least one clamp but
I usually use two, whatever I'm doing. The first one holds the piece down, and the second one keeps the piece
from rotating around the first one. I hope it makes sense. In addition to regular clamps you're going
to need a couple of long reach clamps, to glue the body blank together. You will need at least a 6mm chisel as it is exactly the width
of the truss rod channel. I used the 15mm chisel for the rest
of the build as an all-around chisel. By the way, those are cheap chisels, they cost 10 euros a piece and they're just extremely sharp. You will need some kind of
mallet to strike the chisel in. Anything will work as long as it's heavy enough. You will need a hand drill to drill holes
for the strings to go through the body. But also to attach a lot
of hardware to the guitar. If you want to make the guitar
entirely by hand like I did a hand drill is also very good at
hogging out a lot of wood very fast. For this build you will need some
wood drill bits of various sizes and at least one Forstner bit. For the jack plate hole you will need a 22 mm bit, it can be your Forstner bit,
a spade bit or an Auger bit. The spokeshave is optional. It does make shaping the neck
look kind of cool on camera, but you can do it with a rasp. I put hand planes in the optional ones because you don't strictly need one. But if you've seen my videos, then you know that i use hand planes all the time, even for things that could have
been done with something else. I don't know i just like hand planes. If you plan on doing any kind
of woodworking in the future, do yourself a favor and just get one. It's a great tool and it forces you
to understand how wood grain works. I'd suggest the number 5 plane also known
as the jack plane, as an all-around plane. You will need a metal file for the fretwork, which includes making the fret
ends flush with the fretboard, spot leveling, crowning,
and rounding the fret ends. I also use metal files for
very delicate works on woods. If you can only have one, get a straight
one with the fine grain and the safe edge. You will need one of those to know
precisely where to cut and drill. A marking knife is more precise than a
pencil and a box cutter just won't do. Because you only want one
bevel on the cutting edge, so that you can butt up the
non-beveled side against the ruler. You will be more consistent and will save a lot of time by using either one of those
marking gauges But it's optional. If you want to get one, try
to get the one with the wheel. It's great with oddly shaped pieces like a guitar. You'll need a thickness caliper, a square,
a long metal ruler, and a tape measurer. I soldered my first harness
with my wife's wood burning pen. It worked but it was a terrible idea, because it was way too hot
and there was no temperature control Just buy a soldering station
and some basic equipment, it doesn't cost much and it will
make the harness a lot more reliable You've probably seen me using the edge
of painters tape as a reference line, it gives me more contrast on very
dark woods like walnut or wenge by the way, I know it's pronounced wenJJe, even
in French, but wenGGe sounds much more funky WenGééé I also like to use painter's
tape in combination with CA glue to hold my pieces down on the workbench without having the clamps getting in the way of
the plane or whatever I'm using at the moment. You can also use double-sided carpet tape. Aluminum or copper foil would
be used to shield the cavities, but you can also use conductive painting. You'll need some 80 120 and 240 grit sandpaper. For the fretwork, you're going to need
some 320 and 400 grit metal sandpaper I use regular PVA glue for all of my builds, and I know it's a debatable choice You could choose Titebond 2 or hide glue, but
those aren't easily available where I live You can use spray glue or a glue stick to attach the templates to the body
neck and fretboard blanks I've mentioned my use of CA glue before, and
it can also be used to glue the frets in place Fret cutters are luthier specialty tools designed to cut fret ends flush with the fretboard I've never had one but instead i bought a cable
cutter and filed off the upper part of the jaws to mimic those of a fret cutter. It may not look sexy but in the
end it does the job and costs the third of a price of a dedicated fret cutter. A radius sanding block is a
block usually made out of wood, it has a concave bottom that matches
the arc across the width of the breadboard, which is known as "the radius". By sticking some sandpaper under
it and sanding your blank for hours you will eventually create that fretboard radius. This is by far the most tedious and least
pleasant part of making a guitar by hand. I've wrapped my head around this one for a long
time and I couldn't figure any alternative, so you will need to buy one. I did build one for myself but this is out
of the scope of this tutorial. Mine has a 9.5 inch radius
but the choice is up to you. The higher the number the flatter the
curve. Vintage Fender's are usually 9.5", Gibson's are usually 12", but you can find anything between 7 and 18 inches. It doesn't change anything construction wise. You can also make the radius
with the router and a radius jig but again that would take too long to explain You will need some kind of "fret leveling beam", you can buy them online but I made my own by
sanding a piece of square aluminum tubing on a flat tile using metal sandpaper. It took
me about an hour to make it perfectly flat A miter box makes cutting
the fret slots a lot easier because it ensures that your slots
are square to the main axis of the fretboard I made my first guitar without one and I could really tell a difference
after I decided to build one. You don't need to build one
from scratch like I did : just go to the local big
box store and get one there. Then, use your own saw to cut a
second groove square to the fence so it matches the curve of your saw blade exactly. As you can see mine has three grooves
one for each type of saw that I use This one is optional but it will
certainly make your life easier. The curve of the saw is designed to make the
fret tangs fit nicely inside the fret slots, without having to force them in and
risking some damage on the fretboard. I put this one in the optionals
because I've somehow managed to build five instruments without one, but that's only because by
chance one of my Japanese saws has a curve that is very close to 0,54 mm you can buy them if you want but those are very
optional I only started buying them one at a time when I slowly realized that guitar making
was apparently becoming a thing in my life, and that was after about five guitars Here are three power tools that can really make the process a lot faster
and less frustrating for you First one is the router and it's the
amateur guitar builder's best friend you can use it to shape the entire body
contour as well as the neck and headstock, to route out the pickup cavities, the control
cavity, the neck pocket, the truss rod channel, the binding channel,
and the fretboard radius. And that's about 80% of what making a guitar is : "Removing wood from where it's not supposed to be" Any router will do, as long as it can plunge cut. In addition to the router you're
gonna have to get three different bits You'll need a flush trim bit, a template
routing bit, and a 6.35 mm straight bit The router also has some downsides, it's
a dangerous tool it's also very loud it makes an unholy amount of dust and the router bits always end up
costing more than the router itself. And finally, no, a Dremel won't work
because it's just not powerful enough A band saw or jigsaw can also speed up the
process of cutting the body and neck contours You don't need a big bandsaw like i do because making a guitar is not
very demanding for a bandsaw Finally if you don't want to spend hours and hours making the body side square to
the top and bottom with the rasp, or if you want to remove the marks left
by the bandsaw the jigsaw or the router, then get an oscillating spindle sander. This is the list of all the
hardware and electronics that you're gonna have to get for this build It's basically what you get
when you buy a kit guitar except here you get to
choose exactly what you want. I will put links in the description
to the exact items that I used You will need fret wires the
size is up to you. But for a first build i would recommend
pre-bent and pre-cut frets. You will need a 43 mm nut. I
use pre-slotted nuts and i'm sure I would benefit from making
my own nuts using bone material, but I haven't had the time
to learn how to do that yet You will need a double action truss rod The one I used is 440 mm and will be adjusted on
the heel side of the neck with the hex key. You'll need a tele bridge, a tele
pickguard, a control cavity steel plate, six string ferrules, one string tree, two knobs an d a switch. A jack plate, an output jack socket, two strap buttons, push cloth wires, two
pots, one capacitor, and a three-way switch, and of course you're going to need
a neck pickup and a bridge pickup, you can choose humbuckers or
p90 but i chose single coils. Just make sure that the pickguard is appropriate
and don't worry about the pickup cavity size Traditionally the body of a
tele is made out of ash or alder The neck is usually maple and the
fretboard can be maple or rosewood, that being said you can really pick any wood
species you want as long as it's hardwood, as opposed to soft wood. Even though the body of the esquire prototype back
in 1949 was made out of pine. Here's what you should consider
when deciding which wood to buy You've probably heard of tone woods,
they are wood varieties that are said to have specific sonic properties
varying from one species to the other. For example, mahogany and rosewood
are expected to sound warm, whereas maple walnut and wenge
are said to sound much brighter The weight of the wood should also be a concern
especially if you have a shoulder or back problem in that case try to use lighter
species like basswood or alder, and generally speaking try to avoid a neck dive by balancing the weight of the
neck and the weight of the body Not all woods are equal when it
comes to sawing chiseling and planing some woods are very easy to work
with like walnut ash and maple they have a medium density and
are quite predictable woods meaning that when I put my chisel in,
I know exactly what's going to happen I would suggest those woods
for beginners especially walnut Other woods are very hard to work with
either because they're rock hard like wenge or because they have a grain pattern that is
constantly changing, like sapele or ebony. Those woods aren't forgiving when you
don't know exactly what you're doing I get all my rifts on wood from a
general wood store here in Brussels They sell woods to companies making staircases, decking, roofs and all those
kinds of wooden things. In no way do they specialize in luthier
woods, but lucky for me the vast majority of the woods they sell happen to be
suitable for instrument building. They range from domestic
woods like ash walnut maple to more exotic woods like
mahogany, sapele, bubinga or wenge. If you don't have such a wood store
near you everything's not lost. I'll try to find links to some web shops out
there and you should also check out ebay. For this project I chose ash for the body because
I wanted a very specific look with the finish on I used mahogany for the neck because by chance I had a perfectly quarter-sawn
piece left from my previous builds and I used rosewood for the fretboard because I never tried it before and when i built my shelf guitar, I didn't know
if I'd use ebony or rosewood, so I bought both Here's a quick list of the most commonly
used species for each component of the guitar and remember that this is electric
guitars we're talking about. What i mean by that is when it comes to the sound, there are too many variables in play
just to narrow it down to the word choice In the end, you get to choose
whatever wood you want, depending on your tastes budget
and experience with hardwood Just google "Telecaster plan PDF" and
there's a ton of free plans out there I'll leave a link in the
description for the plans I used. The plans may seem overwhelming
at first but not all measurements mentioned in there are relevant
to what we're trying to do here As i mentioned previously the
telecaster is a very very simple guitar and we're now going to take a look at the
plan to illustrate what I meant by that. Somebody once said in my comment
section that making a guitar is easy: it's just gluing woods together and then
taking out everything that's not a guitar Well he or she wasn't
wrong, especially for a tele build. The body is literally two pieces
of wood glued together and then cut so the whole thing vaguely looks like a guitar There's no complex carving on the top,
nor in the back, there's no comfort, cut no belly cut there's no complex
routing to get the electronics in, there's no back plate, no mortise for a set
neck no neck to body transition, no neck angle. It's just a stupid block of
wood with holes here and there The neck is also very simple You see, most guitars have their headstock angled towards the back to put some downward
pressure on the strings at the nut. Such an angle is obtained by cutting the headstock angle that way or by making
what is called a scarf joint and while it is not very hard to do at all,
it's still some more work and adds a tiny bit of complexity to your first build
Well there is no such thing on a tele, as the headstock is simply on the plane
that's parallel to the plane of the neck You don't have to worry about any angle, at all. Also the bottom of the heel and the bottom
of the headstock are perfectly aligned, which will also make your life easier
when you're trying to clamp things. Now about the plan and what to do with it. You will need to print the
three templates separately. We'll glue them on the body
neck and fretboard blanks. Just print out any file you want
because we only need the contour lines, the fret and nut positions, and the center lines. Those are the three elements that
we're actually going to print out, because we're going to mark the rest
of the measurement on the actual wood. I couldn't find a file with just a
fretboard on so just print the neck template twice and then isolate
the fretboard on the second time Also make sure that the printer is calibrated
so it actually prints on the one-to-one scale This is especially crucial for the fret positions
if you want your guitar to play in tune, and also make sure that the center lines are
perfectly straight on the three templates because we're heavily going to
rely on them for the whole build If you can do it try to find the
printer that handles A3 sheets, because if you rotate the neck by 33°, the fretboard will sit nicely
inside one page diagonally, no need for complex glue up and
you'll gain a lot of precision by doing so. We'll use the center line as a reference
and not the size of the fretboard so don't worry if you don't cut straight If you have the tools to do the milling
by yourself at home, that is a planer or jointer and a table saw or if you know how
to do it by hand, here are the dimensions. If you don't then just download the
cut list in the description box below and ask the good people from the lumber
yard to dimension the wood for you. It's not worth investing in heavy machinery or
learning how to do it by hand at this point. Just pay a little extra to
the lumber yard and you'll have everything you'll need for your first guitar. A few very important things
are worth mentioning here, if you don't want to run into troubles later. You can make the entire
body with just one piece of wood but larger and good quality pieces are
pricier and they are harder to find too. Compared to just cutting a board
into and gluing the pieces together this last option also makes
the body blank more stable as it won't warp as easily as a one piece body also if you use two pieces
you can sort of bookmatch them The thicknesses have to be absolutely
spot-on and consistent across the board. That's 45 mm for the body blank. 19 mm for the neck blank that is 3/4 inch or 9/15 of a potato and 6.35 mm for the fretboard or 1/4 inch or two bananas I counted 100 mm of extra length on each board because most of the planers,
even professional ones, will leave some kind of snipe at both ends, sometimes it's very subtle but it's there. And you
don't want your neck to wobble in the neck pocket or your body to have a sudden
dip next to your strap button. If you're confident that you won't have a
snipe then you can subtract those 100 mm. My snipes usually happen at 50 mm from the ends. If you have no idea what i'm talking about then
just trust me and get those 100 mm extra. Make sure that the milling process got
rid of any twist bow or cup in your boards You can check that by putting your boards flat on the workbench and then
pressing on the four corners ... ... if your board moves even the slightest then
it still has a defect and you need to address it You need to have all the edges of
the boards of your body blank jointed which means that their edges are
perfectly square to their faces in fact, two would be enough but if you
have four of them then you'll be able to play around with the wood figuring
and try out every possible combination as for the neck blank you don't need to have
any square edge because we'll cut them anyway It's easier to have one good edge on the fretboard blank because we're gonna use
it as a reference the miter box About grain orientation Quarter-sawn is arguably the
best choice because the wood will be more stable through seasonal changes and that is especially true for neck and fretboard but for a first build I wouldn't
care about that too much If you can't get your hands on quarter-sawn or rift-sawn wood, or if you don't have
any idea of what I'm talking about just buy anything pretty hard and
well dried and you'll be just fine my body blank on this guitar is flat
sawn and I'm pretty okay with it Oh and try to avoid knots or have them
where you know they won't cause a problem I will conclude this first part
by sharing a few thoughts so you have a better idea of what
making a guitar at home will involve I have a workshop at the back of my garage but I
haven't always had such a dedicated space For a first time build with
a restricted number of tools, the only thing you're gonna
need is some kind of workbench and any kind of table will work as
long as you can clamp things on it but it also has to be stable enough meaning that
it won't fall apart when you strike your chisel in Also the whole thing will produce a lot of sawdust so maybe don't do it in the
kitchen or in your kid's bedroom On average it usually takes me about
four to six weeks to finish a guitar project but i'm pathologically slow and since this is a hobby and one
that's supposed to be relaxing at that I never feel any rush So building a guitar at home is time consuming but so is a thousand piece puzzle
or stamp collecting or bird watching I'd rather make guitars though because
I'm not smart enough for puzzles and I'm genuinely afraid of birds The budget depends on where
you decide to spend your money but generally speaking the thing that is going to make all the difference is the
hardware and the electronics Most of the time they will cost you
more than all the tools combined Just like with bird watching, experience will help
but if you've never done any woodworking before it's not a big deal. Building a guitar
like a telly is not as hard as it seems As I've said over and over there's
gonna be a lot of room for mistakes I'll try to make a foolproof tutorial and
will tell you when to be extra careful Also I'm probably going to upload a short video
explaining you how to actually use the tools as well as some tips and tricks for the main
ones, that is the saw the chisel and the plane I'll see you for the next video, it's gonna be
the actual step-by-step tutorial to the build I'm gonna take you to the workshop and I'm
actually gonna show you what to do and remember I did it with one hand so you can probably do
it with two you don't have any excuse anymore
Here's my full story, I hope it will inspire some:
Until 3 years ago, I've always struggled with executing the simplest home improving tasks, like hammering a nail on a wall to hang a frame, or installing a towel holder in the bathroom. My father in law even offered me a drill on Christmas once, just so I could magically "become a handyman for his daughter and finally take care of our house". Spoiler alert, it didn't work.
But in the summer of 2017 everything changed all of a sudden, just because I convinced myself I could build a bench for the garden by watching a tutorial from Ana White on Youtube.
I took a leap of faith and bought a hand held circular saw, used my in-law's drill, and made that bench in one afternoon. From this day on, there hasn't been a week in the last 3 years where I haven't built a thing, wether it's another piece of furniture, a toy for my kid, or artsy decorations for the house/workplace. And I did that just by watching youtube videos.
In September 2020, I made what I thought was an even bigger jump and decided to follow Brian May's path and build my own guitar from scratch. The only problem was that I couldn't find any tutorial aimed at absolute beginners, telling me what tools I needed, where to find the plans, what kind of wood I needed etc. etc.
So I decided to use my newly acquired woodworking skills, and stare intensively at my cheap Squier telecaster for hours, and figure things out by myself. The Hole build took me 3-4 weeks and even if I did meet one or two problems along the way, I managed to build a fully functional and playable guitar, ne was filled with pride. In the next 15 months I made 7 other instruments.
That experience led me to the conclusion that in this day and age, literally ANYONE can make ANYTHING thanks to the unlimited power of online tutorials and/or boredom.
In this video, I've compiled everything I've learned these last months, so that anyone who's always dreamed of building a guitar (but never really never knew where to start) can find it a little less intimidating and make the final jump. The tutorial is in 3 parts. Part 1 covers everything you should know before you start, it is aimed at people with absolutely 0 experience in woodworking, part 2 and 3 are the actual detailed step by step guide! The whole thing is one hour long but it will save you from having to document the project for weeks (like I did). To put it simply : I wish someone made that tutorial for me 15 months ago.
This is not a simple tutorial, as I'm not a professional (anything), it is a call, a message, or a testimonial: nowadays, the DIY approach doesn't have any limitation anymore.
Happy build to you all!