How to make your own acoustic guitar from wood. How to make an electric guitar: a step-by-step description of making a guitar from scrap materials

The idea of ​​starting to make musical instruments comes to many musicians, including guitarists. Of course, it’s hard to expect that the first time you’ll get a masterpiece that will sound great two or three hundred years later. But all great masters started somewhere, so why not try? How to make a guitar with your own hands will be discussed in our article.

What is a guitar made of?

Before you make a guitar with your own hands at home, you need to understand what exactly you will have to do, that is, figure out what this instrument consists of. At first glance, two parts are visible:

• frame;
• vulture

Frame

If you examine the body more closely, it becomes clear that it is not at all hollowed out of whole piece wood, like some other instruments. WITH outside visible:

• lower deck – solid or two parts;
• the top soundboard is a plate with a round resonator hole, decorated with a rosette, that is, an ornament;
• shell, which connects both decks;
• stand - a small plate on the top deck;
• the bottom sill is an elevation on a stand.

The stand is used to fasten the strings, and their height above the top deck depends on the lower nut. There are springs inside the housing. These are wooden strips that provide the strength of the body and the necessary vibration. They are:

• transverse;
• fan-shaped.

If you look inside the guitar, you will also see the footer - narrow plates that are glued along center line lower or upper deck. However, not all models have these details. There is a button on the shell so that you can attach a belt and play while standing.

Important! The resonator hole also has another name - voice box.

Vulture

Upon closer examination, it turns out that the neck also consists of several parts:

• heads;
• pens;
• overlays;
• heels;
• sills and frets.

In the upper part there is a head on which the tuning mechanism is placed. Strings, in turn, are attached to it. The cover is divided by metal strips into unequal sections - they are wide at the head, and the closer to the socket, the smaller the distances.

Important! The metal strips are called saddles, the spaces between them are called frets. Some frets have dots or stars on them. Most acoustic guitars have the fifth, seventh, tenth, and twelfth frets marked this way. Sometimes marks are placed not in the central part of the fingerboard, but on top.

The bar also has a heel, with which it is attached to the body. Expensive instruments have a glued neck. For cheap mass-produced instruments, it is secured with a screw. This screw adjusts the distance between the neck and the strings.

What is a guitar made of?

For body and neck used different materials. The body can be made:

• made of wood;
• from plywood;
• made of plastic;
• made of metal.

Tree

Expensive models are made from quality wood, while for different parts different breeds are used.

Important! If you select good material and store the instrument correctly, the guitar will last a very long time, and the more time passes, the better it will sound.

Plywood

You can also see cheap plywood tools in stores. To get a good sound from such an instrument, you need not only skill, but also great luck. As an option for beginners, you can try making a guitar with your own hands from plywood. But we must consider this approach solely as a training stage of assembly for the subsequent production of an instrument from expensive wood.

Important! Plywood decks quickly crack, springs fly off, and the instrument becomes deformed.

Plastic

IN Soviet time The Leningrad factory produced plastic guitars, popularly called “trough”. Some models were made entirely of plastic, while others had a wooden top.

Important! It was believed that plastic is more durable than wood, but this turned out not to be the case.

Metal

Finally, metal guitars can be classified as exotic. They made a strange sound, vaguely reminiscent of a banjo. They were made specifically for tourists, because on a water trip it was a universal household item that, if necessary, could even be used for rowing. Musicians, however, loved such artifacts much less than watermen.

Important! For anyone who is planning to make a guitar that they can play with their own hands, it is better to abandon the exotic and choose something more traditional for their product.

What breeds are suitable?

To make a guitar with your own hands, not just any wood is suitable. In this case, different parts of the body are made from different breeds.

Upper body

Conifers suitable for the top deck:

• resonant spruce;
• cedar;
• pine.

Expensive models use resonant spruce and cedar - classic guitar materials. The workpiece will not be cheap, you can’t get it everywhere - boards required size are not found in every carpentry workshop. However, in online stores you can find required material possible, and even in the form of almost finished fragments, which only remain to be finally processed and put together.

There are several varieties of spruce:

• German;
• Sitka;
• ordinary.

Important! Interesting effect The combination of spruce and cedar also gives. For cheap models, pine is also used, but such an instrument sounds worse.

Bottom and sides

These parts of the guitar are usually made from the same type of wood. It must be hard, so most often they use:

• rosewood;
• maple;
• Red tree.

An instrument with a maple back has a sharper and ringing sound than the other two. But if the material is well dried and processed, only high-class professionals will notice the difference.

Important! Boards can be found not only in the workshop. If, for example, the neighbors threw out an old piano (and this often happens now), do not pass by, but remove everything from it wooden parts, which are suitable for the manufacture of many musical instruments.

Vulture

It does not affect the sound quality as much as the body, although musicians believe that the instrument has no small details. But the acoustic properties in this case recede into the background; the main thing is the ability to keep its shape.

Therefore, to make a guitar with your own hands, or rather its neck, use hard rocks:

• maple.

The overlay, among other things, must be beautiful. Therefore, the most popular materials for its manufacture are:

• ebony;
• rosewood

For decoration

It's a nice instrument to hold in your hands. That's why professional craftsmen They strive in every possible way, trying to give their products a unique look and grace.

Most often, when making a guitar with your own hands, the following are used:

• thread;
• inlay.

The carving on the body is, of course, more than dubious. It reduces durability and greatly affects sound quality. Therefore, only the headstock is decorated with carved ornaments.

As for the inlay, it can be on the neck or on the body - for example, around the rosette. To do this, you can use pieces of wood of different species. Stroke is used to mask seams.

Let's start making a guitar with our own hands

So, have you finally decided, despite the fact that not all materials are suitable? Well, then we have to try. But it is advisable to draw up a work plan in advance. To make a high-quality guitar with your own hands at home, it will be something like this:

1. Select your guitar type.
2. Find a suitable drawing.
3. Transfer it to the tree of the selected species.
4. Study the technological process.
5. Find and prepare a room.
6. Prepare your tools.

Drawing

There is no point in developing a drawing on your own - a person taking up the matter for the first time is unlikely to cope with such a task. But there are many books on making musical instruments - there you will also find the necessary drawings. Now this stage has been greatly simplified, because to search you will need only two things - a computer with Internet access and a printer on which you can print patterns. As a last resort, you can take a finished guitar and simply trace it.

Technology

As for technology, you immediately need to think about how you will bend some wooden parts. This is the most crucial moment. An electric heater will help you a lot.

Room

This is very important point! And it's not just about comfort. Materials needed special conditions. The room should be:

• warm, but not hot;
• with good lighting;
• with good ventilation;
• be sure to be dry.

Important! Humidity in the workshop should not exceed 50%.

Choosing a board

If you decide to make the blanks yourself rather than buy them from a workshop, you first need to choose a board. Regardless of what type of wood you prefer:

• the future deck should be free of knots;
• the fibers should run parallel and not make sharp bends.

It is very good when you have the opportunity to look at many boards. If you like several, tap them and listen. You should choose the one whose sound you like best.

Important! Along with the blanks, in order to make a guitar with your own hands, you need to buy strings and a tuning machine.

Preparing the tools

Electrical and hand tools It's better to prepare it right away. You need:

• jigsaw;
• hand jigsaw;
• electric drill;
• Sander;
• milling machine;
• compressor unit;
• spray gun;
• jars of varnish;
• plane;
• sherhebel;
• skobel;
• large clamps;
• pliers;
• wire cutters;
• hammer;
• crosshead screwdriver;
• sharp knife;
• files.

Important! Why do you need two jigsaws at once - manual and electric? For different types works You will use a jigsaw to cut out parts, but for cuts on the fretboard, as well as for other delicate work, a manual one is more suitable.

A novice guitar maker may not know the names of different carpentry tools, but he will need several planes - for rough and fine processing.

We complete the tool

A jigsaw will not work without a file, nor will a sanding machine without belts. Therefore, take care of the components immediately. You need:

• wide and narrow files for a jigsaw: the first - for straight cuts, the second - for contours;
• belts with different grains for grinder– for rough grinding, for eliminating scratches, for fine processing;
• straight and edge molding cutters for a milling machine;
• metal drills 3, 6 and 9 mm;
• wood drills 12, 19, 22, 26 mm;
• concrete drill 8 mm.

First stage

So, you have the boards, you have chosen the type of guitar and even printed out the drawing. It's time to start cutting. You need to start by gluing the body, and the first thing is to fit the two boards for the lower deck so that they turn into one. There are several ways to do this.

Option 1:

1. Connect the pieces by clamping them into a “sandwich” clamp.
2. Treat the surfaces with a plane as if you had one plane, not two.
3. Glue it together.

Option 2:

1. Clamp the pieces with clamps to form a shield.
2. Go along the joint with a milling machine.
3. Glue it together.

Option 3:

1. Process each piece separately.
2. Glue them together.

Important! The next step is to cut the workpiece along the contour with a jigsaw. And here it is very important to make sure that there are no knots.

Second phase

Glue the footer and springs to the bottom deck. The footer runs strictly axially, the three springs are strictly at right angles to it. It turns out something like a “chest” with a spine and three ribs.

Top deck

It is better if it is made of a solid board rather than a composite one. Although some craftsmen prefer a different option and make the upper deck in the same way as the lower one. But when the strings are already stretched, tension develops in the upper part, and the seam can quickly burst.

You need to mark the outlet. Its center is at the narrowest point of the guitar. A resonator hole is cut out in the middle of the socket. WITH inside The top deck also has springs. It's time to glue them.

Shell

Perhaps the most complex parts are the shells. You need them:

• cut out;
• cut out;
• bend;
• stick.

And if there are usually no problems with cutting and initial processing - they, just like all other parts, are trimmed with several planes and sanded with sandpaper, then some difficulties may arise in giving the wood the desired shape. That's why:

1. Wet the workpiece well with warm water.
2. Place it in a warm place for 10-15 minutes.
3. Heat the part to a temperature slightly above 100ºС.
4. Bend it to shape.
5. Let cool - the workpiece will retain its bend.

Vulture

Glue the heel and the handle of the neck. This will not be a problem, the main thing is that the connection is strong.

Important! There is no need to cut a groove on the body in advance; this can be done later, when the time comes to assemble all the parts together.

But you need to decide on the head right away. She may be:

• straight;
• inclined.

Oddly enough, the second option is simpler:

• If you are making a straight head, you will need more retainers, otherwise the strings simply will not press against the nut.

Important! The direct version is made together with a handle, from the same piece of wood.

• In an inclined position, you can do two things. If you don’t need to save wood, cut the neck in one piece from a whole piece. But you can glue it together from two or even three parts. There are companies that make composite necks - from two or three longitudinal layers.

Important! The inclination should not exceed 17º.

Kernel

An anchor rod is glued into the neck. It gives the part the necessary bend and increases strength. To make a guitar with your own hands at home, the rod can be glued in two ways:

• under the lining, that is, in the upper part;
• With back side, covering with a decorative plate.

Important! A channel is made for the rod along the entire length of the neck.

Assembly

When all the parts are prepared, that is, cut, sanded and equipped with all the necessary details, you can begin assembly.

Important! It is best to glue with casein glue, sometimes fish glue.

Operating procedure:

1. Glue the shells into one piece.
2. Place them on the lower deck.
3. Glue the top deck on top.
4. Dry the entire structure thoroughly - it is necessary to clamp it properly.
5. Mark and cut out the notch for the neck.
6. Glue in the neck.

Important! After this, all that remains is to coat the guitar with varnish, make inlays and stretch the strings. As for the stand, it can be glued both before assembly and after.

Now you have a complete understanding of how to make a guitar with your own hands at home. We hope that this technology did not seem too complicated to you, or, even if it did, your desire turned out to be stronger than fear do something wrong, and you did a great job!

The first mass production of electric guitars dates back to 1934. Over time, the popularity of this musical instrument only growing.

There is an opinion that it is impossible to make a decent quality electric guitar with your own hands. But this is not true at all. You just need to have some skills in carpentry and plumbing, as well as be patient and careful.

How to make an electric guitar from scratch - we’ll talk about this and more in this article.

Frame

Many of those who make homemade electric guitars argue that the instrument should be as light as possible. This is especially true for beginning guitarists.

Despite the fact that it is more difficult to play a heavy guitar, the body must still be massive. Its weight usually varies between 3.5-4 kg.

As you can see in the photo of homemade electric guitars, birch, maple or multi-layer plywood are most often used to make the body.

But fiberboard is considered the optimal raw material, since of this material there is no specific texture or knots. In addition, it is easy to process.

The work plan for creating the guitar body is as follows:

• Draw a sketch of the body onto the board and cut it out with a jigsaw.
• Cut and drill all the required holes.
• Make the bottom wall from 4-6 mm plywood.
• Fasten both parts with liquid nails;
• Treat the workpiece with a rasp and sand it with sandpaper.
• Cover the body with nitro putty in several layers.
• Clean with fine sandpaper.
• Paint with nitro paint in 4-5 layers.

Vulture

The neck is made of wood durum varieties tree. Ideal if it is beech. Let's look at the instructions on how to make a neck and handles for an electric guitar.

The first step is to select a bar of the required size. It is ground down using a plane. The top of the bar should be perfectly flat and the bottom should be rounded.

The rounding of the upper part is purely symbolic - from the nut to the end of the fingerboard, the curvature should disappear. It is permissible to use the neck from an old instrument. But it will have to be reduced in width and the shape of the head changed.

For the headstock, the same wood is used from which the fingerboard is made. After cutting it out, do not forget to file and sand it. Using a drill, make holes for the pegs in 3 cm increments. Insert the pegs and glue the head to the neck.

The next step is to carefully position the frets and make cuts using a hacksaw. It is permissible not to paint the top of the neck; you just need to cover it with stain and varnish. To indicate frets, you can use plates or circles made of black or plastic white. Cut them flush into the neck.

The neck must be covered with putty and painted. It is fastened to the body using a steel plate with nails.

Mechanical vibrator

It is necessary to change the tone. The strings pass through the shaft, trying to turn it, and the springs serve as an obstacle. With the help of an anchor, the springs are tensioned, and, as a result, the strings are weakened. This results in a decrease in sound by 1-0.5 tones.

If you turn the anchor in the opposite direction, the strings will be tensioned and the sound will increase by a tone or semitone. A mechanical vibrator is easier to buy ready-made.

Note!

Pickups

This is the basis of the electric guitar. Usually they install 2 - 3 pickups. It is very important to choose suitable option. To do this, study all the offers in your region and view advertisements on the Internet. Remember that you should not skimp on quality. The wire from the guitar to the amplifier must be shielded, up to 5 m long.

How to make an electric guitar left-handed

Many left-handers are naturally concerned with the question of how to properly make an electric guitar left-handed. To do this, you will need to remove all the strings from the instrument and turn it over. It is also optimal if you purchase a new string nut.

All that is necessary is to insert a new one in place of the glued threshold. This must be done in such a way that the hole for the sixth string is in place of the first, and the first in place of the sixth. The remaining strings must be tensioned in a mirror order. That's all.

In this article, we looked at only one idea on how to make an electric guitar yourself. There are others. Therefore, have patience and confidence in your abilities and dare - create. This hand-made electric guitar will become a source of pride for you.

Photo of a homemade electric guitar

Note!

Note!

Plastic: gold, mother-of-pearl and bronze Fimo, a little black and the rest of any color, to fill the guitar drum.
Stationery knife(I use two different sizes).
Some kind of device with a ball at the end (I made it on a toothpick and baked it).
Guitar drum template (cut from cardboard)
Medical gloves.
Wire.
Round nose pliers, thin nose pliers and wire cutters.
Tweezers.

Not shown in the photo, but absolutely necessary are two rolling pins: glass bottles, large and small.

Using gold and mother-of-pearl Fimo, we imitate wood; to do this, we act as if we were going to make a smooth color transition manually:
Fold the triangles into a square, as shown in the figure.

Let's cut it into several strips, so that each of them has a different ratio of mother-of-pearl and gold.
Now you need to mix each strip until the color is uniform and roll into a ball. The easiest way is to knead as shown in Figures 3 and 4. Roll out a long sausage, twist it in half..

and flatten.
After which, roll the resulting flat cake into a sausage again. Repeat the procedure until a uniform shade is obtained.

We received several of these balls, in different shades. Looking ahead, I’ll say that the brightest turned out to be too much, a large number of light stripes are not good for naturalness.

We roll out these thin sausages from each ball, be sure to use our hands; squeezing from a syringe is not suitable here. The pearlescent scales must curl differently to achieve the effect.
I posted the ruler and template in the photo for neat people like me. This way I determine the approximate size of the sliced ​​sausages. You see, I have them about two times the length of the template; when we roll them out, they will turn out to be exactly three lengths. (I don’t like a lot of scraps)) In general, you don’t have to mess with it, but just cut it into equal pieces.

There is also no need to worry about the evenness of the thickness of the sausages. After all, the veins in the wood are also uneven.
We fold the resulting sausages into one sheet, pressing lightly against each other, in any order.

We got this canvas of alternating shades.

We take the larger rolling pin and slowly roll out all this splendor. Don’t rush, so as not to accidentally roll it out to a very thin transparent layer.

Voila! We have absolutely wooden surface. The veins turn out to be very natural, since the scales in the metallic plastic “stand on end” along the edges of each sausage and give dark color, and in the middle, each vein plays with a shade, because we rolled it out with our hands and the scales were wrapped randomly.

Let's get straight to the guitar.
Using a small blade, we cut out two soundboards and a shell for the body of the guitar according to the template.
Using the same template, we will cut out a base 3-4 mm thick from plastic filler, which we will then glue over.

I cut out the shell using a ruler. 12cm long, width equal to the thickness of the filler plus the thickness of the decks you cut out.
Starting from this moment, we carry out all operations with gloves so as not to leave fingers and give smoothness to our wood.

First, glue the decks on and carefully iron them from the middle to release all the air. Then we will cover the sides with a shell.

Let's smooth out the joints a little, there is no need to achieve complete merging, real guitars always have such a edging.

Now we roll a small ball made of bronze plastic. And very carefully flatten it with a small rolling pin (for me this function is performed by a naphthyzine bottle). The difficulty here is that we need a thin layer perfectly round shape. In finished (flatten) form with a diameter of 8mm.

Using a device with a ball at the end, we will make a depression in the upper deck and literally press a bronze circle into it. Smoothing out from the middle so that no bubbles remain.

We form a small piece of bronze plastic and glue it to the body, creating a support for the neck.
Well, the troubles with the guitar body are over for now. Dimensions: 3.5cm by 2.5cm.

We cut out a block 4.5 cm long from bronze plastic. We flatten one end and form the headstock.

Let's roll up a small sill from black plastic and place it on the fingerboard. And use a thin wire or needle to pierce through holes diagonally. I thought that for such a little thing three strings would be enough.

Now we need pegs. It is convenient to roll very small balls on the table with your index finger.

Using a needle, place them on the back of the fingerboard,

Let's attach the neck to the body, press it well, just make sure that our work is not deformed. Let's adjust the second sill, slightly longer than the first. And we'll make a small hole for a pin with a loop on which the guitar will hang, slightly diagonally to the center of the drum.

so that they visually cover the holes, but do not clog them.

All we have to do is put three drawings on the sills, the strings will lie in them. And pierce three holes, 1-2mm deep, on the body opposite each rice. We will glue strings into them.
The guitar is ready for baking. Preheat the oven to 110-130 degrees, place the guitar on a sheet of baking paper folded in four and into the oven! For thirty minutes.
You can, of course, put it on cotton wool so that the neck doesn’t bend, but it seemed easier to me to straighten it with my fingers when we take the finished guitar out of the oven, while it’s still warm.

If you have been playing the electric guitar for a long time and want a good new tool but can't afford it, then you've probably wondered " how to make a guitar with your own hands at home?".

Here's what you'll need: material (wood), organic glue (bone, flesh or fish glue) or high-quality carpentry glue, pickups, batteries (if there are elements that require power), saddle, volume controls (and others - at your discretion), graphite aerosol , paint, varnish.

The wood must be dried and free from defects such as cracks and knots. You can order on the Internet specifically for the guitar soundboard and neck, or you can get by budget option: disassemble unnecessary furniture made of strong, dried wood.

The type of wood will affect both acoustic and mechanical properties tool.

Making a fingerboard at home is quite difficult...

The fingerboard is quite difficult to make, so It’s better to order a ready-made one or find a used/broken guitar.

What are the best strings for an acoustic guitar?

Also to you will be needed manual frezer with a set of cutters, sheets of different sandpaper, plastic (acrylic or wooden) deck template.

You can choose the shape and dimensions of the deck yourself and make a drawing in special program, then take it to a company that produces acrylic advertising boxes. You can take the drawings from the finished electric guitar or find them on the Internet.

Guitar pre-processing...

The first step is to process the material. If you ordered new timber, then you can immediately begin work on processing and gluing the deck.

If you are making it from used material, you must first remove the varnish/paint. If you have several thin boards, then you need to glue them together, put them on clamps and wait two to three days until the glue dries.

The workpieces to be glued must be planed with a plane. to make a good, uniform glue line. On the resulting slab you need to fix the template and cut out the deck blank using it.

This can be done using a router using a template or with a stock saw, followed by processing with a router. The rounding of the deck ribs is done manually using sandpaper or a special cutter.

Guitar tuning - all ways to tune a guitar

Also on the deck you need to cut out cavities for electronics. First you need to outline the exact location of the parts, then carefully cut everything out. The cavities also need to be sanded so that they are even.

Making a guitar neck...

When the deck is ready, you can start making the neck. Making the neck is practically no different from making the soundboard, the only difficulty is to install the anchor in it.

For this you will need to make a longitudinal groove in the neck for the anchor, install it, and glue the fret cover on top. You need to make marks on the fingerboard to install the frets, then carefully make cuts with a thin blade.

The frets are driven into the neck slowly, carefully, at the same depth on all sides and fixed with quick-drying glue.

Once the frets are installed they need to be sanded. They must be at the same height so that the guitar does not “get along”. You can check this by placing a long metal ruler on the frets along the neck.

Painting the guitar...

The next step is painting. Before painting, the guitar must be perfectly smooth and dry, without cracks or scratches, sanded and polished with fine sandpaper.

Surely, many guitar owners have had the idea of ​​making a guitar with their own hands, according to their own taste and understanding. In my opinion, such thoughts more often come to those whose purchased guitar is not very good, but new money no and who knows when they will be.

Why do I think this? Why would a person who owns a Fender, Gibson or PRS get their hands dirty?

Unfortunately, it is very naive to hope that the first handmade guitar will be decent. Both in terms of sound and appearance. There are, of course, people who make masterpieces the first time! But more often than not the first pancake comes out lumpy.

In order to do something, you need to know how to do it. So people came up with books and textbooks to share their experiences. And before you pick up an ax, you should definitely spend some time on the Internet, see what experienced masters write, how pioneers do it, what mistakes they make, etc.

I don’t even have the thought of covering everything in more or less detail, because it would turn out to be a thick book of wisdom, which, for example, is the fundamental =) work of Martin Koch. What is written below is a bunch of my mistakes, shortcomings, just another coin in your treasury of knowledge, which, I hope, will help make your guitar better.

It all starts with choosing a tree, a few words about it.

Very often, the bodies of the first guitars are made of pine. “Experts” believe that this is a complete crime and proudly look down on us. However, if you have a good pine board (without knots, dense fibers, required thickness and drying) and sensors for 500 rubles, you can extract a tolerable sound: clean and transparent.

Spruce was chosen as the mass production material for Jolana Diamant guitars.

This was for those who financial difficulties not fully resolved.

If you decide, then you can go to a store that sells all sorts of exotic things. It makes no sense to describe each breed; there are many FAQs on this topic on the Internet. When choosing a tree, you need to look at the location of the fibers: they should run symmetrically, without sharp bends.

Look and compare, it is obvious that the right piece is better. At least purely visually. The fibers are arranged nice and evenly. On the left is a dark tree of the same species. This means that it is from the core. This is not suitable.

If beautiful pieces are found, then they need to be tapped; you can feel 50 boards, but not one will respond the same way. Whichever sound you like best is the one you should take.

It is advisable to take the accessories right away! This way it will be easier to polish the instrument right away, and not have to worry about it later with a finished, painted, etc.

Here, it seems like I wrote the introductory part. Next I will describe the process of making my first guitar, with notes and additions.

So, the tool:

1. Jigsaw
2. Electric Grinder(preferably not tape, but eccentric)
3. Milling machine
4. Electric drill
5. Compressor unit (it goes with a spray gun and cans of paint or varnish)

Hand tool:

1. Planer, sherhebel, skobel.
2. Carpentry clamps, the more, the better. (Regular G-shaped ones won’t fit; you won’t be able to squeeze parts into them large sizes).
3. Pliers
4. Phillips screwdrivers
5. Wire cutters
6. Hammer
7. Hand jigsaw (the only thing I was able to use to make cuts under the frets)
8. Knife
9. Files

This is such a small set.

For tools you need:

1. For a jigsaw, a file with a clean cut and a wide blade, for straight cuts and with a narrow blade, about 4 mm, to cut out contours.
2. For a belt grinder, belts of different grain sizes: P36(40), P60, P80, P100. In order of decreasing grains. P40 for rough sanding, P60 to remove rough scratches, P80 and P100, P320, 500, etc.
3. For the router you will need a straight cutter (preferably one large 12.7 and the other 6 mm), if the edges are made semicircular, then an edge moulder.
4. For drill drills for metal 9 mm, 6 mm, 3 mm, 2 mm, for wood 12 mm, 22 mm, 19 mm, 26 mm. Concrete drill 8 mm.

Let’s agree that the tree has been selected, there is a reference point in the sound, and the form has been printed.
I decided to make it from pine, non-standard shape, with a classic Strat machine, a humbucker in the bridge and a single-coil in the neck. The neck is made of ash, without fingerboard, with a truss rod on the back.

One of the most important things is the absence of knots. They shouldn't exist under any circumstances, and I don't have them.
The first stage of a long process and almost the most important: gluing the body.
It is not so easy to fit 2 boards correctly and accurately so that there are no gaps when gluing.

There are several options:

1. Connect them using “sandwich” clamps and process the glued surfaces as one whole with a plane.
2. Using clamps, connect them into a shield and run a router along the joint, which in theory should ensure a perfect (!) fit. I'm going to try this out in the near future.
3. Process each separately, etc.

Adjusted and glued:

We mark the contours to avoid any sneaky knots and cut them out with a jigsaw.

When the board is wet and begins to dry out, it can become curved, which is what happened to me. First with sherhebel ( rough processing), then for finishing with a plane and rough sandpaper P40.

It's time for the router.

I draw the f-holes, transfer them to a plywood template, cut them out with a jigsaw, attach them to the body and cut them out with a straight cutter with a bearing.

Next I made a groove for the neck. I made the markings using a pencil and a ruler, and cut them out without any restrictions, it turned out well, but still far from perfect. The solution is this: the neck, at least its contours and thickness, must be done before milling work on the body, when the neck is there, it is secured in this way and then the place for it is calmly and accurately cut out.

On my upper horn there is a slope on one side and the other, there are a lot of options for creating it. One of them is to make a ladder with a milling cutter and then smooth it out with chisels.

Then I rounded the edges on the body with a grinder; it is more expedient and more accurate to do this with an edge radius cutter with a bearing.

The headstock can be either straight or at an angle of 13-17 degrees. If in a straight line, then it is necessary to install retainers so that the strings are still pressed against the nut. Usually, if the head is not inclined relative to the neck, then it is made with it from a single piece. If it has a slope, then it is usually glued for reasons of profitability, that is, saving wood.

There is a whole theory about gluing the head (well, if not a theory, then rules).
Sometimes, for some reason, the neck is glued together along its entire length from several pieces. But, exclusively longitudinally, this often happens on inexpensive Ibaneses, Jacksons, or vice versa, on expensive custom guitars in order to add visual and sound beauty.

I took the wrong path, gluing the fingerboard from 2 equal parts sandwich, and then also by gluing the straight head using the wrong method, as a result of which, when the strings were pulled for the first time, it was simply torn off. I note that having glued it back in exactly the same way, it no longer created problems.

So, I had 2 ash boards and a piece of pine for the head, mark it, cut it, glue the piece together.

For operations with the fingerboard, it is necessary to remove absolutely all the clamps in the house to ensure good gluing.

Now is the time to think about the truss rod. A double-action anchor is preferable, which requires a straight channel of equal depth along its entire length to operate. For traditional Fender rods, the groove must have a certain bend in depth, which is not so easy to do. But I limited myself to a simple rod with a thread, a couple of washers and several nuts; the neck of such a design will bend in any case, but under a certain set of circumstances, it can take on a wave-like shape, which is fraught with you know what.

The groove for it can be made either from the back of the neck, covering it with a piece of wood, or from the front, gluing an overlay on top. But I don’t have an overlay, so the first path was chosen. A guide is installed on the router to make everything straight and even. The cutter is set with a 6 mm groove and off you go! I didn’t have such a diameter, only a larger one, and I didn’t have any working skills or theory in stock either.

The workpiece must be given the same narrowing to the top sill on both sides. In principle, you can do this simply with a jigsaw, which is what I did. Then he cut out the head, made holes for the pegs, and glued it on. The result of all actions:

Since the groove did not come out straight, but even crooked, there can be no question of carefully gluing in the plug. I put it in the groove, put a mixture of PVA and sawdust on top to hide the flaws. It’s immediately obvious that I didn’t skimp on the “porridge”:

The whole thing dries, you can return to the body. Next up are the pickup niches, tone block, and tremolo selection.

If you plan to make more than one guitar, then it is better to immediately make templates for the router. I didn’t do this; having marked everything, I took up the router.

Next you need to make a hole for the jack and connect all the recesses into a single network of tunnels =). Through the hole drilled with a drill at 22, with the help of a long drill I dig into the rock and come out with a humbucker. I connect the single-coil to the humbucker through a sample under the neck.

There are still holes for potentiometers and a switch. This is what we have after all the manipulations:

Progress is obvious! It's time to return to the long-suffering vulture.

The neck has two bends in its cross section. The first is the radius of the fingerboard, the second is the profile of the neck. Both are purely individual things, depending on the purpose of the guitar, the required sound, etc. There are many articles on this topic, and there is no point in describing them here. The neck profile can be done as follows:

Create a profile at the top nut using a file, do the same at the heel of the neck and use a staple to connect it to each other. My overlay does not have a radius for ease of production, but if you decide, then a radius throw with skin is in your hands. The most subtle thing in the whole action is the process of marking the frets, which will determine whether the guitar builds or not. It is necessary to mark as accurately as possible; all sizes are available on the Internet for any scale. For even cuts, it makes sense to make something like a miter box.

The thickness of the file is also important; if it is too thick, the fret will not hold, and if it is thin, then it will not fit at all. I did all this using hand jigsaw, and widened the cuts with a knife, this is far from the best option.

In order for the frets on the fingerboard to be even, before hammering they need to be given either the same radius as the fretboard, or completely straightened in my case. Using a mallet or hammer, the fret is carefully hammered in, starting from the end. Then we bevel the frets with a file on the sides.

And we align them relative to each other in height using a sandpaper block. Final stage: groove under the threshold, glue it in.

At this point the work with the tree is completed, you can begin painting work

This work is quite specific and requires good skills in working with a spray gun. A slight delay in one place and there will immediately be a drop-shaped leak on the body. To avoid leaks, you need to follow certain rules:
Do not go over the same place twice on the same layer. The paint should be thicker or more liquid, but the amount supplied into the stream should be small. There are many tricks, such as determining the viscosity of paint using a stick and a stopwatch. It's all in car painting books.

The work area must be cleared of all debris and dust in advance. Otherwise, there will be sand appliqué on the guitar =). Before painting, the body must be sanded with fine sandpaper P500-1000, all irregularities must be removed.

The easiest paint to use is nitrocelluloid based, it has only one component, dries relatively quickly, and after many years of happy use it inevitably becomes covered with a wonderful web of cracks.

The first layer is nitro primer. You can use regular nitro varnish. After covering the guitar, let it dry, then use fine sandpaper to reduce it to virtually zero, but don't overdo it! It is necessary to fill the pores in the wood.
Then again a layer of nitro primer, sanding with the finest sandpaper. And then it is applied desired color. As a rule, 3 more layers, and a clear varnish on top.

Here's how to do it in a nutshell. My path was completely criminal. I decided to paint it right away. (Why bother with all sorts of soils?) And even without knowing how to properly work with a spray gun. The result is appropriate. All the wood fibers are real, the paint doesn’t adhere well, there are smudges, etc.

The view is more than disgusting. Subsequently, of course, I tore it all clean off.
We can roughly say that I have finished painting, next step I need to revive my guitar! Install mechanics, electronics, adjust the bar height, etc.

Immediately, all internal surfaces were shielded with foil. Literally in the process of writing it turned out interesting thing. Foil reduces sound! It is preferable, although more expensive, to make the screen using graphite varnish.

2 double potentiometers were supplied. Each potts had 2 knobs, one for volume, the other for tone. Here, in principle, everything is simple. You can get the necessary circuit on the Internet and, using a soldering iron, implement it, the main thing is not to overheat the potentiometers.

No matter what they say about pine, I liked the sound!

It's not as low-pitched and a little nasal as on a Les Paul. It's crystal clear with plenty of mids and highs. Whose merit is in this: the ash neck or the good pine boards of the body? I don't know, but this is exactly what I wanted. When overloaded, it doesn’t fart, whistle or squeak, but produces a good sound. Partly even like Deep Purple.

In terms of sound, I was happy with everything, but the neck turned out to be a huge spoon, like a bucket of ointment! Its markup is incorrect. The reason for this is my own stupidity and lack of necessary literature. The interfret distances were taken from another guitar, which resulted in errors that, at first glance, were small, but significantly spoiled the sound.

When I have extra wood and time, I’ll finally make a good neck and put the guitar in the closet. In order to show this miracle to my rare guests, and then also surprise! Because such a miracle can also make sound.

The plans are to create a Strat according to all the canons and rules. Everything has already been purchased, so stay tuned for the next chapter!