Make Your Own Electric Guitar How To Book - 218 Pages Paperback
Have you ever thought about or dreamed of making your own electric guitar?
If you have, this book might be just what you're looking for. It'll take you through the process step-by-step, from design, to building, to setting up, to playing.
And what could possibly be cooler than making your own personalized statement with the music you play, and with the instrument you play it on! A personalized statement by actually playing on a guitar you thought up, designed, and constructed from start to finish. How awesome! And you can trust that the author knows what he's talking about when it comes to guitar building. He's actually been doing it for over 25 years. In this time he has lectured on the subject, and contributed expert articles to guitar magazines.
So, what's the book like when you hold it in your hands and look through it? This is a large, and detailed book on the subject of home made guitar making. It's loaded with close up photos of all different kinds of guitars being made, and at all the various stages of the guitar-making process. The book also has a lot of diagrams. Schematic diagrams to get you through the procedure of wiring up the electronics of your guitar. The pickups, the switches, the volume and tone controls, etc.
Forward By Brian May
The lead guitarist of Queen, Brian May writes the forward to the book. He recounts good times he had with his own guitar project, the famous Red Special electric guitar, and inspires you to do the same.
A walk through the book.
- After some introduction type information and a definition of what makes a guitar in the front of the book, there is a chapter that teaches you how to design the guitar you want to build. It covers a wide assortment of sub topics including: The scale length, pros and cons of popular guitars, body shape, frets, cutaways, the Les Paul neck-join method, different bridge heights, neck angle, body thickness, guitar weight, wood selection, nut width, location of the controls, etc. All the details you'll get into as you decide on the design specs of the guitar you plan to build. At the end of this chapter is a design check list for you to work with that covers all these points in one place.
- There's a chapter on the tools you'll use for your guitar project. The work place environment, the work bench, and all the individual tools you'll want to have on hand are discussed.
- Since the wood an electric guitar is made from is such an important consideration, a chapter is devoted to teaching us about it. Lamination, book matching, wood types, what part of the world the wood comes from, soft woods versus hard woods, different woods suited for the neck, body, and fingerboard of the guitar.
- Next up is an interesting chapter on the truss rod of the guitar's neck. Going beyond just telling you how to put one in the guitar you make, the author gives good background information about the history of guitars before the truss rod, its purpose, how it works, string guiages, and more.
- There's a large chapter on frets and fretting the guitar neck.
- The book takes you through the steps of building a guitar. They use 3 example guitar types: a custom, a guitar like a Fender Telecaster, and finally a through-necked guitar like a Gibson Les Paul. There are three separate chapters that give you the details that are specific to the steps of building each of these guitar types.
- There's a chapter on guitar finishes and the process of putting a finish on the guitar you're making. You'll learn about the different finishes you can do, the common lacquer finish, different ways you can apply the finish to the guitar, how many coats to apply, buffing the finish, etc.
- There's a chapter that teaches you how to install all the electronic parts into your electric guitar. Learn about all the different types of guitar pick ups that are available. How to choose the pickups that are right for you. Then you get all the details you need to select, wire up, and install everything else including switches, volume controls, tone controls, and the cord jack. All the schematic diagrams and circuits you need for single coil and humbucker pickups are also supplied.
- Also included is instruction on doing a proper setup on the new guitar you make so that it plays perfectly.
