Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello Everybody,
First off, to all the folks who have built a guitar you have my utmost respect and admiration and I need your input. I want to build a guitar. I know conventional wisdom says start with a kit but I've never been one to take baby steps. So, I want to build a guitar from scratch. I do have woodworking experience, am familiar with hand and power tools and have built a couple of instruments (hammered dulcimers). It seems to me that the major expense lies in the tools. I know there are different ways to achieve the same result so my question is: which guitar specific tools are indispensable?
Thanks,
Dale

A kit isn't really putting you *THAT* far ahead -- especially the unserviced kits from LMI. They are basically a box of lumber and other materials.

You absolutely need a way to bend the sides, either a pipe or a bender tool. You will also want a mold (you can either buy them or make them), good straight edges, a fret slotting blade, a go bar deck, radius dishes, a way to radius your fingerboards, etc. Generally the kits help bridge the gap on your first guitar or two while you are tooling up.

But I assure you, even with a kit. there is a LOT to do.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Dale,What kind of guitar are you wanting to build ,electric or acoustic? If you are looking to build an acoustic, you'll need a bender to do the sides weather it be a pipe or bending jig.If you are building from scratch like i do, you will need a chainsaw and mill to process the wood first.

Pretty much what Brock said. I ordered an unserviced kit from LMI for my first guitar, and was a little
dismayed when I got a little (relative to the size of a guitar), flat package from Fed-Ex. The advantage
of their unserviced kits is that you still get to keep the price reasonable, have a lot of choice for the
woods used, and are still sure you have everything you need. They have a "Kit Wizard" that makes it
simple to make the choices. Other sponsors on this forum, like Blues Creek Guitars, offer similar service
if you call them. You will need a way to bend the sides, and several planes, lots of clamps, etc. For good
ideas on exactly what you will need, and be in for, I particularly recommend Kathy Matsushita's
website http://home.comcast.net/~kathymatsushita/, for a great description of what tools you
will need, and detailed descriptions of several guitar builds. You really get a feel for the process...

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Dale,
Welcome to the OLF. I'm sure you'll find lot of friends and information right here on the forum.
I know I did.

Good luck and get out your pocket book.....lol

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
Jack Batts Maker and Repairer of Fine Violins

Welcome to OLF. There is nothing to keep you from building your first guitar from scratch. I did it with only limited woodworking experience. I took my time, and learned what I needed to as I went along. Yes, it took a long time, a year, but it was great, and the guitar turned out better than I ever expected that it would.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

For your first guitar from scratch I would pick up the book by Jonathan Kinkead, I build my first from scratch with this book and it came out great. He takes you from design to set up, he shows tools you will need. I think it's a great book.



http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plan ... uitar.html

Thanks for the welcome and thank you everyone for your replies and info. This is not an inexpensive hobby is it?


Mark, I'm going to build an acoustic. I guess there are definately different levels of "scratch" aren't there?



This site is exactly what I was looking for. It's nice to see all the resources that are available and Kathy Matsushita's site was very informative.




Thanks for the heads up about the book. I've looked at this one online and it seemed pretty thorough. It's always nice to get a personal recommendation.

Another great book is Cumpiano and Natelson's Guitarmaking Tradition and Technology.
Just building straight by their recipe will yield a successful guitar....

Cumpiano has posted an updated bolted neck joint on his website.

Then search through our forum here to get a lighter/responsive soundboard bracing scheme.... his "published" bracing scheme and top thickness combo is a little stiff... and will give a guitar that definitely sounds better with Medium strings.

If you are fairly handy with woodworking -- if you can make a good dovetail box or a decent chair... there is nothing particularly "Complicated" about the cabinetry aspect of building a Guitar.....
Almost every joint is a plain Lap or Butt joint and the geometry is fairly straight forward.

The 2 main caveats:
A Guitar isn't a bookshelf, table, or birdhouse... Building heavy and strong = dead sounding.
and
Sound doesn't magically permeate out of the wood. Sound is in the Construction.
A Brazillian Rosewood and Adirondack spruce Coffee Table doesn't make wonderful music..
The wood adds that last bit of "Zing" on the top of the thoughtful design and careful
construction that otherwise make the guitar sound great.

Good luck

John

Okay , you want to build a guitar but you need to educate yourself. What little you said so far you are not very well informed. There are many books out there. You seem to be against a kit but to help you out , you don't know what you don't know until you know it.
There are a few things you need to know to pull this off. first off , be realistic. Don't expect to build a "martin"on your first try. I have helped many people learn to build and I can tell you that it isn't easy. I love the quote that says " building a guitar looks hard but it is harder than it looks ". Can you succeed? sure you can but understand that the process demands attention to detail. You have to decide what you want to build . You need some things to make this a success. A mold sure will help but I cannot express this enough , educate yourself. One big advantage to a kit is that parts are set up for that particular guitar. The parts are not likem and stickem .You need to understand the geometry of the guitar to make the neck angle and action height match. The fit and finish can be the most challenging. Do your homework and plan what you want to build. There are more questions than you will get answers for.
good luck
john hall
blues creek guitars

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Of course, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns, as Don Rumsfeld has reminded us.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

The first one cost more than just buying two or three ready made, the next 100 are cheap.

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If you can't do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.

Hi Dale,
I think you have to read between the lines a little, but you have been given good advice on the whole. Agreed, Kathy Matsushita's site is superb , but I have noticed that, whenever she comes up against a new process, she buys the appropriate tool from Stewmac (or LMI or elsewhere). Looking at her site I can tell you that she has spent a small fortune on tools. But thats's OK. She's an amateur, like me, in the true meaning of the word. (Please, Lance or Brock, can you correct the spelling in the status column? We are not loving killers!). So, if she can afford to buy all those tools that's fine. (Honestly Kathy, it's not a criticism). (I almost forgot, 'How can a luthier make a small fortune?' Answer:'Start with a big one')

But I made 2 guitars in 1970 and 1971 (probably before Kathy was born, a Classic and a Dread) with no internet (can you imagine that?), no luthiers nearby, in fact, no help at all, apart from the book by Irvine Sloane and another by 2 guys from Cambridge (UK) whose names I can't remember . At that time, I only had basic woodworking tools, smoothing plane, block plane, set of chisels, etc. A router was certainly out of the question. Too expensive and too dangerous in my opinion. Nowadays, looking at all the forums, it would appear that if you haven't got a router, you can't make a guitar! so, 'which guitar specific tools are indispensable?' None! It will just take a little longer. You can make yourself a circle cutter for the rosette and the soundhole. you can make a gramil to cut the rebates for bindings, etc. Torres didn't have a router or a bandsaw or a pedestal drill or a thickness sander or an orbital sander or any other sort of power tool. How the hell did he manage to make a guitar? They can't have been much good!

OK, I'm a bit 'over the top' but you see where I'm coming from?

So, if you really want to know, (IMHO), in order of preference:

A pedestal drill.

A bandsaw, the bigger the better.

And a sander.

But that's just my opinion.

Can't edit, hence new message.

The guys I used to work with, when I had problems with whatever I was working on, loved telling me "Eh lad, there's no substitute for skill".

They were wrong. There's patience (and a lot of it). And now there's CNC. But there's a point at which it stops being a craft... Just my two pennorth... Take no notice... I do go on, don't I?...

Welcome to the forum Dale.

Nobody can build just one!

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

I think there needs to be a: "So you want to build a guitar, ehhh?" thread, posted permanently somewhere, as well as some advice on retopping a cheapo guitar. Then people can list all the tools you should have, must have, can make according to his experience....

Yamaha guy did a old rebuid and only spent about
$500.00 on tools...etc..retopping is also a cheaper option.

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

Nothing wrong with going with a kit, or with building from scratch. I think either approach is fine, and wouldn't discourage you from either one. In fact, I'd suggest you might try something in between, assembling your own kit by purchasing pre-serviced parts for the things you don't think you can handle, and making from scratch the things you know you CAN handle. This is essentially what I did. I had been building solid body instruments for a couple of years before I built my first acoustic guitar, so there were some things I knew I could handle, but there were a few things I was worried about or didn't yet have the tools for. So I built that first one from a semi-serviced kit of parts and supplies that I acquired myself from Ebay, LMI, Grizzly, and StewMac. Here are the "serviced" parts I bought:

1) A factory-reject Martin sitka spruce top with the rosette already in
2) A factory-reject Martin mahogany neck carved roughly to shape
3) A set of pre-bent Indian RW sides from LMI, thicknessed to .095"
4) An Indian RW back from LMI, thicknessed to .095", then glued up with a back strip
5) A set of pre-shaped top braces from StewMac
6) A pre-made bridge from Grizzly Industrial

I made up my own fingerboard, head block, heel block, and back braces, and built the form and go-bar deck to glue everything up. See the attached picture for the results. The first time I strung it up, I was terrified that the string tension would cause it to explode into a pile of match sticks, but 4 years later it's still doing just fine.

One little additional comment: I used curly maple bindings on the body of that first guitar, but wasn't sure how I was going to bend them to shape. I mentioned my dilemma to my wife, and she suggested a curling iron. So I went to Walmart and bought a 1-1/2" diameter curling iron for $7, and it worked like a charm! I replaced that with a $25 one with a variable temperature control and more power, and that worked even better. I even tried bending a set of sides on that curling iron, and got the job done, but it took a LONG TIME - the curling iron does not put out enough heat to get the job done efficiently. The body of the one guitar I built that way is a little bit - shall we say, "unsymmetrical?" Now I have a Fox-style bending machine so I use that for all bending.

--Steve

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---Steve

I tried to answer your specific question regarding what tools are necessary and nedded to build a good quality guitar. So I created a list with approxiamte tool costs for my students but published it on my web site for free. See http://www.wellsguitars.com/Articles/Tool_Costs.php. You certainly don't need them all at the beginning but buy as you build and the process will be that much easier. Good luck!

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Sylvan
http://www.wellsguitars.com

I don't consider the LMI pre-processed kits to be kits. They are just a box of wood parts. Sure there are pre-made parts in there like purfling and bridges but many builder buy those parts. Some of the best luthiers I know are buying pre-slotted fret boards. The top, back and side wood has to be thicknessed, the sides need to be bent, etc.

As for tools, the only luthier specific tool that you will need is a bending pipe or, do what I did, and build a bending machine. Everything else can be done with normal woodworking tools. Sharp chisels and a scraper are probably necessary. I can't imagine building a guitar without a block plane. I suppose there are guys who do it but I can't imagine how.