So I play guitar and one day I spoke to someone in a guitar shop who had built their own guitar. "Build your own guitar?" I thought - it was just something which never occurred to me before, like guitars just get made in a factory and that's it. So it got me thinking that it was a great idea and something challenging to do. The idea of choosing your own materials, designing it and hopefully having a decent sounding instrument at the end was enough to make me take the plunge and give it a go, with little previous woodworking experience. Whilst I did initially go on a part-time guitarmaking course for a short while to teach me some basics, I found it too expensive and I've done much of this build at home wherever I could find some space, without overly expensive professional tools (often to the annoyance of my girlfriend in the process, with my tools all over the kitchen or living room table!). Don't get me wrong , it's not cheap and you will need to lay out a fair bit of cash to buy some tools to complete the job, but you don't need to go overboard. I hope it will inspire you to take the plunge and have a go if you're a complete beginner like me or you're just thinking about it.
I also initially thought this wouldn't take me very long and I'd have it completed within a year. How wrong I was - I work full time and did this in my spare time every now and then, so it turned into a much longer term project than I anticipated. If you're a beginner like me, expect that it will take much longer than you think and you will certainly face obstacles along the way, which will extend the time to complete further. However, it is all a worthwhile learning experience in the end and it really depends on how much time and effort you can put in.
This is by no means a definitive guide to building a guitar as there are hundreds of different techniques and methods involved for different styles and types of guitars, each luthier building to different techniques and preferences. This one is for a classical guitar based on my experiences. I hope that although I am very much an amateur luthier and this is my first attempt, that you can still take something away from this and pick up some tips as I have and avoid some of the pitfalls. I really should've started this blog and added to it as I progressed, but I never got round to it until now. I write this blog as I'm getting to the end of the building process and have taken many pictures along the way as a reference - so I will be posting more day by day, with the aim that I'll have completed the guitar by the end of the blog!
As a reference book throughout this project, I can highly recommend this book (£14.99 at Amazon):
It is very comprehensive and clear to read even for a beginner without access to very expensive tools, as well as going into plenty of detail for each stage of the process. It certainly proved invaluable to me when I wasn't sure what to do.
I don't want to go into tremendous detail about every stage of the building process as there are plenty of other resources around and you will really need a book to get the details of measurements etc., but just to give an idea of what it involves with plenty of pictures. Some of the pics are good quality some not as good as it depends on whether I was organised with a camera or just had a poor mobile phone camera to hand at the time, but will give you an idea.
To make it easier to recognise achievements, mistakes I have made or useful tips I have to share during the build, at various stages of the blog you will see:
...when something has gone well
...when I have a helpful bit of information
...when I have made a real mess of things, or something's gone wrong, doh!
Also, I have put a small handy list of luthier suppliers and resources on the sidebar to the right. There is also eBay to consider, which I have found is also a great source of tools and luthier supplies for some items. I am based in the UK, so whilst the blog is more geared to the UK with my references, it shouldn't make a difference and you should be able to find similar tools and supplies where ever you are.
