Hi Folks,
I thought I would try and detail (some of ) my first guitar build here on the forum - and hoping that it will be of interest.
I am a complete guitar building novice, but have enjoyed woodwork all my life and have a reasonably good set up and power in my workshop (i.e. garden shed)
I've been playing guitar most of my life - from age 15 to 57 - and have been lucky enough to own a good selection of guitars which I have acquired along the way, as well as many I have owned and sold on. My favs are a 94 PRS McCarty Goldtop, and a '76 Firebird.
All through my time as an amateur musician I have been interested in electronics ( I took everything apart as a kid ! ) and have built many amps from scratch, including making the cabinets, chassis and electronics. I eventually sold all my existing amps because I was able to build my own. I built myself a home studio in what was my garage and most of the outboard gear I built myself, using the experience I had gained from making valve amps and effects pedals and the like.
As far as DIY amps go, my "pride and joys" are my clone of a Park 1210 Rockhead (I owned and sold two of these fabulous amps), a 50watt Plexi copy, a 50watt Dumble ODS copy and a copy of a 50w Silver Jubilee combo I owned back in the 80s.
A couple of years ago I started thinking it would be nice to have a few self made guitars to go with these DIY amps so that I owned the whole "signal chain". With the home studio being mainly self built outboard gear there would be something special about having the guitar, amp, effect, signal processing all done myself. I even built a very high spec tube mic ( using Gyraf;s excellent plans ) and ribbon mics to record my guitars with.
So now its about trying to fashion a decent guitar or two ( or more ) from scratch, myself.
To make this achievable I decided to go with a DC Junior as a first build. I have always loved Juniors and having seen some of the threads here ( Ivison, Daniels etc ) I was so inspired I knew I had to try...
Illogically, I started by making a myka jig for the neck pocket.
Then a scarf jig ( using Fletchers design )
Then the templates ( using these plans )
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gxzbb6524doqtn0/Double%20Cut%20LP%20Jr.pdfmore to follow.....
Cheers
Pete
Comments
Then built a Mitre box ready for fret slotting...
And then made a radius gauge from old oak worktop offcuts ( which didn't turn out perfect but has worked OK so far )
Some nice wood ( what I now know to be mahogany after all courtesy of helpful replies to another thread on the forum )
Some Panga Panga blank being planed to 6mm for the fretboard, which seemed to give me a very interesting allergic reaction - breaking out in itchy sore spots on my lower arms and legs !!!
A couple of slotted fretboard fresh from the jig ( I used a bought laser cut steel template for the Gibson scale )
Starting to look like it might be possible to make a neck .......!!
To be honest this is where I realised the DIY radius block was a bit deficient - the ends of the fretboard came out very slightly thinner than the middle of the board and I realised that the sanding block was slightly concave , and not 100% true along its length. I tried to compensate for this by shimming the centre of the fretboard up on the bench with a couple of layers of sandpaper to offset this , and its worked to a degree, but I still worry that the fretboard isn't as perfect as it could have been. I am hoping that I will be able to compensate for any variation in the depth of the board when I install and level the frets ( hoping so anyway ).
Then over to the cheap, shitty , must get a better one....Aldi bandsaw for a bit of neck shaping..
Cheers
Pete
Pete
Edit - now sorted , I just needed to includ a space after pasting in the direct link code - and ten the pics appear. Just in case anyone else has the same problem.
I'm attempting to build my first guitar too, which won't be half as good as any of the ones on this forum, but I'm all for trial and error and enjoying the process.
I'm using a mac too.
Myka jig.
Copy this link:
Then paste into this box:
Don't even need to press enter, it automatically appears.
Hope that helps!?
Pete
Pete
Regarding the P90 route, you route the deeper/middle section first and then the outer 'recess/ledge' second.
(formerly miserneil)