Official Luthiers Forum!

At last, I some progress to report on my first ever guitar build. It has some midly curly koa back and sides a mid-grade engleman (I think) spruce top, rosewood trimmed ebony fingerboard, and a mahogony/rosewood 5-piece neck. It's scratch built, because I want to learn how to build guitars properly, all by myself.

I have been doing lots more reading, jig building, screwing/fixing up, etc. and have finally arrived at the point where I have a neck that fits (at the correct set angle!), the back is on, the fingerboard is on, the frets are fitted, and it's actually starting to look like a guitar!!



All I have to do now is:
a) finish sanding the neck
b) make/fit a heal for the neck (does it really need one do you think?)
c) make a nut
d) make a bridge and saddle
e) do some minor tweaks to the neck angle if needed
f) bind the body of the guitar and do the purfling (paua all the way around the front maybe - is it worth it on a first guitar?)
g) sand/scrape everything again
h) fill pores and apply finish
i) glue bridge on then set up with strings
j) play!

Whoa, there's still a lot of work to do! Back to the workshop.....

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Looking great Dave!

Looking good, Dave! Sounds like you're going all out on this one. Can't wait to see the finished guitar!

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Brad Tucker

Whaddya mean made some progress? You're almost done! It looks great, so far.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Nice Job so far Dave ! what body style is that ?? jumbo ?? Jody

Dave,

Looks great! Be sure and let us see it when the finish is on.

Max

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Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan

Thanks everyone. The pictures more than do it justice....if you could only see it close up, you'd see what I see. All the learning features (mistakes) and unorthodox styling (screw-ups) stand out like sore thumbs! Still, I think it will end up okay - good enough for a first, and I have learned a LOT on this first one!

Jody - it's an OM size, but not exactly - I took some liberties with the shape - it's more like the 1930's OM. Also, the fingerboard/neck is much wider than normal (and much thinner), to suit my "sausage fingers" and the way I (attempt to) play!

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Dave - Kudos to you for sticking with it. The guitar looks great to me! Nice rosette, and I love the koa. That should really pop when the finish goes on.