Electric guitar build - (the birth of the back pain machine)

Not acoustic, unfortunately but hopefully still cool

I finally got around to doing what I've wanted to do for a long while, designing and building my own electric guitars, planning on building a few of 2 different shapes I have but this is the first, the prototype if you will, you'll realise, probably, I don't have the most ideal range of tools available.

The first problem was finding wood, I didn't want to fork out a lot of money on body blanks and the like and I could not find a local hardwood timber supplier, instead, opted for the salvaged wood quirk, in this case, a couple of oak stair treads appeared on my door step and seemed as good a material as anything, laminated 2 together and made it in 2 halves, had a nightmare jointing it with my no.4 hand plane (Which at the time wasn't particularly well set up) but got there in the end










It was about here when the two sides were glued that I realised, oak with no chambering is going to result in a heavy guitar

Had to buy a bandsaw to cut the body shape out, the blade gave out straight after so next time I'll probably try to route the body out, or buy a more substantial bandsaw, still, got through it in the end



Then I got to work on neck number 1 (I'll explain later)






Then used that to get an idea of the neck pocket dimensions









The fretboard is oak too, just because I happened to have a bit of oak, originally intended to be a back and side set before I gave up on building an acoustic, but because I got it cut thick, it was perfect for a fretboard.





this one was fretted with a junior hacksaw... sorry.



Started routing the pickup cavities, I had a set of Duncan Design lipstick pickups that I took out of a friends strat when he wanted them changed, so I intended to use them, I also wanted a simple, stripped back look, I.E no pickguard or anything, just wood and wires





When it came to routing the control cavity, I had a problem that my little router didn't reach deep enough, so I had to partially chisel things out, got there in the end though



Matching oak cover too







Neck carving, took a while with a half blunt file in deficit of a rasp :/



I chose to recess the headstock, rather than angle it (This turned out to be a daft decision), but here it is fretted.



I was at one point going to put a generic bridge, but I decided to make one out of an ebony piano key, I'd salvaged a few of a broken piano last year, then put a bone saddle in it



Here I was test fitting to see how it would look, (nasty) french polish finish which I ended up stripping



The wiring was a nightmare, the lipstick pickups were one of those single coils with the 3 wires, I never know where the extra one goes, found out eventually



Here I thought it was done but wrong I was, the neck was made out of sapele, a very low grade of sapele, it twisted the moment any tension was put on it, in addition, the recessed headstock was not only too small but did not provide enough break angle over the nut, as a result the D and G strings buzzed terribly, I also wasn't happy with the frets (had to epoxy them in) or the heel end truss rod access, so I scrapped the neck and started again, I got one of the salvaged lumps of mahogany out from under my bed and started cutting and planing it down to a blank, this time I gave it an angled headstock with the truss rod accessible by the headstock, also took the chance to make a fancy faceplate, this time around, I was armed with some more appropriate tools



Second time around, more care taken and its a world better, sounds great, the horrible french polish finish was stripped back, instead finished all in teak oil to keep it looking more natural.











And Just for a bit of fun, here it is next to 'The plank' the first guitar I made