An electric guitar!
How did I manage to build one? Read below for the whole process!
How did I manage to build one? Read below for the whole process!
[September 2018]
I used to have the idea of building a guitar myself for a long time now. Somewhere in September 2018, I still had the idea to actually build an electric guitar. It became October, then it somehow went to November, and I still had that exact same idea. So I thought: 'Why not?'. I can learn new skills, and get to research things even more! And I still have some free time that I am able to spend, so it only has got positive sides. Let's get started!
[October 2018]
Well, if I will build a guitar, let me first do some research. What will I need? Well, ehm.. Let me think. I will need wood for the neck and body. I will need cables for the electronics. I will need so much more! So let me sum it up, instead of making it a way too long story.
Summed up, this is what I needed:
- Frets (I used 24, it's also common to use 21 or 19, depending on what guitar and what preferences)
- One input jack (I wanted mine at the side of the guitar, not on the front, so I had to order a specific one)
- A 5-way switch (electronics)
- Potentiometers (for the volume and tone knobs) (in this case I needed 3 of those)
- Volume knobs (1 piece) and Tone knob (2 pieces)
- 6 Tuning pegs
- Single Coil Pickups (I needed 3 of those)
- String locking system and a whammy bar for it (I definitely wanted a Floyd Rose Tremolo system, luckily I managed to get one)
- A bridge (for on the neck, to keep the strings in place)
- Truss rod (for the inside of the neck)
- Backplate for the string locking system
- Guitar Strings
- Cover for the electronics
Optional:
- Guitar strap
- Guitar strap holder (extra piece, connected with the neck instead of body)
- 2 Rubber safety blocks for the strap for the end buttons
- End pin strap buttons (2 pieces)
- String retainer bar (watch out: with small screws it is fragile and can break easily!)
- Inlay decals for the fretboard
- (veneer for on top of the neck/fretboard)
- Paint for the guitar
- Cover for the neck-body-connection
- Insulation tape (for the electronics)
Besides all these parts and materials, I will also need tools. The tools I will definitely need are:
- Milling machine
- Sander machine
- Lasercutter
- Soldering iron (with tin alloy)
- Saw (manual or machine)
- Saw (manual or machine)
And, of course the materials for the actual build:
- Birch Plywood (for the body)
- Pinewood/Spruce (for the neck)
- Polystyrene (white) for the cover on the front and the back (to ''hide'' the locking system and screws for the assembly of the neck with the body)
[November 2018]
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| Global shape of the guitar |
Well, I decided I will just go for it. Time to start buying and ordering these parts and preparing the build process!
But let me also make a plan. What will the guitar look like? What kind of shaped do I want? Do I want to make it more of a standard guitar or more of a weird, abstract or different shaped guitar? Do I want open or closed contours? Do I want holes?
Well, no. I was (and still am) quite a bit obsessed with the Fender (especially with the Stratocaster) shape, with some changes.
For instance, not every Fender has got three Coil Pickups, and not all of them are single but some are two-in-one. Then, I wanted specific one kind of Control Knobs for the potentiometers. Somehow they look quite a lot like the knobs from most Fender amplifiers, which I discovered later.
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| Shape of the Cover with parts |
I kinda want the strap to go up to the neck instead of almost on the top of the body. And the top is very inspired by the Fender Stratocaster.
The string locking system - well, as mentioned before, I definitely wanted a Floyd Rose Tremolo system. So that is also a difference.
And, next to all these clear differences, there are a lot of details and other things not the same. In the end, it's a self made guitar, and I want to give it a twist. Not an exact replica of a guitar, but also with my preferences and choices in it.
[Beginnig of December 2018]
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| Electonics scheme |
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| Electronics (5-way switch, potentiometers, and a small jack-in that has been replaced) |
Here you can see the scheme I made. And some of the electronics. The loose cable I am holding shouldn't be loose, but connected. Because I had to solder anyway, I fixed this at the same time.
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| Not soldered yet, but all the parts are placed correctly |
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| All electronics being soldered |
Now that everything is soldered, time to lay out the parts and electronics so far! (I am still waiting for some parts, so this is not everything yet. But well shit, I did not realise that I am already this far! (well, not actually quite far, but I made some steps, so there really is progress.)By the way, I measured all of the frets (I want all 24 on the guitar) and marked them with a little bit of tape, with the number of the fret written on it. Just to make it a lot more easy for myself.
Just some time after buying the parts, I went to the shop to buy some wood. There I also found grey veneer which I absolutely loved for the neck! I really NEEDED to buy it.
Oh, by the way, I am planning on making the guitar matte black with silver, grey and white details.
In the shop I also found insulation tape, which I almost totally forgot about. To protect the electronics and make the sound deeper, or something like that. To be honest, I do not exactly know why. And I didn't feel like doing too much research for that. People and other guitar builders recommend it, so let's just add it. And I ordered some decals! Oh well, if I like them I will need to engrave holes for them, but if I do not like the decals, I will use round slate/asphalt nails (actual use for roofing, but I don't care about that).
[January 2019]
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| Fretboard |
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| Neck |
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| Body with the sketch of the cover |
Time to finish the 3D file (in SolidWorks)! Here you can see some pictures of the pogress so far. I haven't added the roundings and edges yet, because I will make those with a sanding machine.
This 3D file will be sent to the milling machine, so that makes it less work for me, hahaha!
The body will be built up from 3 parts (all three are the same size, and all are 18 millimeters thick. So that makes the guitar 54 millimeters thick in total).
The neck will be made from two parts: the fretboard and the neck. The neck has got a long small hole for the truss rod. This thing makes it, simply said, possible to adjust the bending of the neck.
[Wednesday January 09th, 2019]
Controlling all the settings and making everything right was quite some work in the programme used for the milling machine. Here you can see a little fragment of how the milling goes when using a 2D file(it goes in layers from 3 mm, or at least I used those settings) :
https://youtu.be/IFYmh9UA1RA
And let's add a picture of the lasercutting for the front cover as well!The lasercutting went quite fast once the machine and software has been programmed well. Due to one wrong setting, it took me over one hour before the machine was ready to work well, because it could not be cut with that one wrong setting. After two phone calls, lots of WhatsApp messages and some discussions and setting changes and try-outs, it was one little value for engraving that was set wrong. After changing that one value it worked!
In the end, I got a nice white cover for the top of the body, and I already cut two caps for the back of the body (neck-body connection and Tremolo back).
[Friday January 11th, 2019]
Besides a 2D made file (technical drawing), I also used a 3D milling file which was a lot more work. All these settings, and the errors, and the program randomly stopped, wel.. In the end, it worked!Definitely worth all the time and effort in my opinion. Because there will be a guitar in the end! And here you can see a little fragment of how the 3D milling works:
https://youtu.be/WEMO-ihkDF8
The 2D file for milling went faster and easier, but that is because of the software. All I had to do is ungroup all components/parts within the body, select thing for thing that needs to be the same depth, put it in a new layer, select if it needs to be milled inside or outside contour or in the middle, change the depth settings (and maybe the milling bore if it needed to be thinner), do that with all parts, set the zero point and press start.
After all the 2D-milling, 3D-milling and lasercutting, here are some pictures of the progress so far:
After all the milling, I still needed to finish the wood. Let's start with sanding, just the wood that came out weird because of the milling. Here on the left (on top of a brown/green bag) I started to sand the body. I finished the right part of it, but on the left you can see the loose parts of the wood. That left side that still needed to be done, is noot just the front side but also the back/bottom of it. It took me no more than 30 minutes to sand this whole part of the body.
Next to that image you can see the body (made out of 3 pieces wood, all of them 18 mm thick). I still need to make an opening for the plug-in for the 6.5 mm jack so the guitar can be connected to an amplifier) and I need to fix some small details because it almost fits, but it has absolutely no space and needs to have a little space. But that is for later.
The body still needs round edges, I still need to add some details and there needs to be some other work done, I am by far not finished with it. After all the machine work is done, I need to finish it, add a primer on it, apply paint, and inbetween the paint layers there will be alcohol/cleaning stuff and sandpaper needed. And a bore will also be needed, to make all the holes for the cover (they were too little for the milling machine, but that is no problem because I can do it myself too).
After the milling and sanding was done, I decided that I wanted to see what the guitar body so far would be starting to look like. So, time to get back to the electronics, get the cover, and look for the parts that need to be on the front (Since I have almost all parts already except for the truss rod, I keep them in a big box all safely protected, but I need to search quite a lot for it.. It's slowly becoming one big mess!).
On the left a picture of the wood and the cover, with above it the two covers for the back as mentioned before. The picture on the right is almost complete: the electronics are mostly in it, the Floyd Rose Tremolo locking system is laid on the body (the milled opening for the system is a litte bit too small due to a round bore mill and a square needed hole, so I will go and fix that soon) and the control knobs and 5-way switch being on top of the body and cover.And here the electronics: what a mess! I had to remove 3 cables because they go all the way inside the body, and I will need to apply those cables first, then I have to make the body one whole part (connecting, glueing, et cetera) with those 3 cables in it, and after that I have to solder them back on the parts where they are needed to be. But since I first need to fix the body a bit, I can not apply those cables already.. So that too is for later.
[Tuesday February 5th, 2019]
Oh, oh, what a mess on the floor.. But whatever. In my mind it was organized, I could perfectly find everything I needed.I had to get back to the Dremel again, so I could make everything fit well. Some holes were too small, some needed to be deeper, others weren't visible so I had to add them.
It took some time, but there was some progress. In two days I had all the holes on the front (except where the screws need to be) all fixed.
[Wednesday February 6th, 2019]
Aaaaand it is time to make a start with the neck! I received the truss rod last friday, so I wanted to start by then with continuing this project. But work, rain and other appointments came in between.On this picture you can see the start of the neck (I still need to shape the top of it) and twice the fretboard, because I was afraid I could make mistakes with it or one might break if I was not careful enough, so it is just to be sure it will definitely go well.
[Thursday February 7th, 2019]
Time to solder again! Oh, why did I ever use cables this long? You can see in the picture on the left that I taped the cables that were too long, so I would know how much I would have to shorten them. I had to un-solder them, shorten them, re-solder the end of the cable wires together, and re-solder everything back to the 5-way-switch, pickups and potentiometers. The ground of the Trem0lo is left behind, I will fix that later, just like the cable for the plug-in. Those cables need to be inside the body. When I am going to glue the body parts together, I will add those cables on the inside of the body.
[Friday February 8th, 2019]
Time to work on the neck!
As you can see in the pictures above, the fretboard includes frets (the little pink notes are tape with a number on it (numbers 1-21 for the frets) because they are all no more than 15 millimeters different in size). The second picture shows the truss rod in the neck, it finally fits! And the picture next to that shows the body, with all electronics under the white cover, with everything on top fitting perfectly fine!
[Thursday February 14th, 2019]
More work on the neck. Oh well, a lot of things still need to be done. But I still am positive about everything. With a positive mindset, you can get quite far!
Sanding is quite a lot of work. I thought it would take less time and be finished earlier. But oh, how I was wrong!
But after quite a lot of sanding, the base form is a bit better. Not square and angular, but a bit more round. It still needs quite some work but that is for later. The rough lines are done, refining and detailling is for later.
[Saturday February 16th, 2019]
And I found more time today to work on the guitar!
To start with the sanding, using a Dremel. First a rough sanding of the cover plates. After that, time for polishing. On the picture below (left) you can see the difference between polished (the left corner) and not polished (the front cover). Soft and well detailled or hard and outsticking pieces, also some still visible from the lasercutting where the plastic melted and spreaded on the cover. After the sanding and polishing, the covers plates were even more beautiful. Soft, round and well looking. I am happy with the result of it.
And after the sanding I had a lot of time left. Time to glue some body parts together so I can let it dry and continue later on. I won't have a lot of time tomorrow, so more time to let the body dry is even better.
The bottom and middle part glued together, with some wood and several clamping screws on it (for as far as possible, due to little space.. But I did my best and that's all I can do). Smart usage of holes on the inside is quite a smart way to use more clamping screws.
And after some hours of drying, time to remove the clamping screws, get the cables that need to be on the inside done, glue the top of the middle part, place the top part on top of the middle part, place the wood again and reuse the clamping screws again. And let dry. Time to let it dry for some days (at least 24 hours) and finish the edges later on. I still need to sand all of the edges, but I wanted to glue it all together first so I won't have to do things twice or even more.
And one of the last steps that still needed attention and work is the top of the neck. I started sketching some forms on a piece of paper. Quite fast I decided to make it a sharp but round and circular-likely form. My eye fell on it and I decided to finetune the idea. After some more sketching on some paper, I tried it on wood. And well, oh, how will I say this..? It's definitely going to be something that looks like this! Maybe a little bit different, but something based on this.
[Monday February 18th, 2019]
Time to continue again! Cover the electronic wires with tape and let's go sanding! And continue on the neck. I decided to go with the half circular form, because it attracted me and it got stuck in my mind. I had to make it like that - or, well, my brain wanted it like that.
And after the sanding removing the tape. No way I am going to show the tape removement.
[Wednesday February 20th, 2019]
Time to start fixing the hole on the back. To keep the Floyd Rose Tremolo in place, there need to be feathers locked to the side up. My bad for making the hole wrong up to the bottom. So it is about time I will make the hole above it, and after that close the hole underneath it. Time to start drilling! First trying out how the drilling machine reacts and how heavy or light it is.
[Friday February 22nd, 2019]
New day, new chances. Time to continue on the neck, since I did not feel like continuing on the hole I still had to fix. That is for later this week, or next week, or even later.. Anyway, back to the neck. The top of it needed to be quite a bit thinner, so that the tuning pegs would fit. Sanding took me way too long, so using the Dremel in the highest setting and using some force went actually quite fast. In no more than three hours the top was well-looking, only needed a light sanding finish and still holes for the tuning pegs. But anyway, here you can see the result halfway. Luckily the tuning pegs would fit well. 
And after the top continuing and sanding, it looks waaaaaay better.
To keep the body in place while drilling and working on it, I did not want the body to slide away. Using two pieces of wood and some clamping screws worked perfectly fine for me.
[Sunday February 24th, 2019]
Another day, another bit of work. Using a flashlight, two workmates and some wood to keep everything in place, I started drilling holes in the neck for the tuning pegs.Working in the dark is quite relaxing, but also tiring. I did not have perfect sight but it for sure was good enough for the milling.
Oh, what was it cold in the evening! After the milling, I stopped working on the guitar. I do not like the cold, especially in the winter.
But anyway, I fixed the hole. And I glued it. And I also fixed some other minority mistakes or holes. Using a bit of wood glue and wood splinters, mixing it and applying it on the area that needs to be fixed. The only disadvantage is that I will have to sand it again and remove the glue that was applied too much. But if that is all and will give a nice result, let's do it!
Time to let everything dry well. For the hole, I made some pieces of wood which I put onto each other and glued together in the wrong hole, made it a bit smaller, and after that I put some glue with wood rests and splinters on top of it, so I will be able to sand it later.
[Monday February 25th, 2019]
More progress! Oh wait, what? No, not really. I put aluminium isolation tape on the front cover, for isolation and soundproofing. Due to a mistake with the lasercutting machine, the inside has some engraved contours of the back cover and some picks. Anyway, that doesn't matter because it is not visible when the cover is on top of the guitar so there is no reason to not use it. And I don't feel like 'spilling' more material when this is also good.
And after that, I did not do much. I could (finally!) clean up most machines. I would not need them anymore. Today was a productive day, as in finally organizing the machines and cleaning up. What a mess, and so much dust! But sometimes, that's needed. Today was one of those days.
After the cleaning, I wanted to see what the guitar would look like. Sooooo.. I layed all the wooden parts together. And then took a picture. And then I picked up all the elements and electronics and cover, frets, tremolo, and what else, and took another picture.
Okay, that's the front. Now the back.
Nothing special to me. It kinda annoys me that I made the hole for the tremolo earth the wrong way up, but I tried to fix it and there is no more I can do about it.
[Tuesday February 26th, 2019]
Paint, paint? Paint! Time to start painting! First a layer of primer. It has to dry quite some time, so maybe tomorrow it's time for a second layer of primer, or even later. Depends on whether or not I have time and if the primer looks well or needs to dry more.
[Wednesday February 27th, 2019]
A second layer, but then on the other side of the guitar. The neck is half painted, because some of it needs to be glued and therefore does not need any paint.
A second layer, but then on the other side of the guitar. The neck is half painted, because some of it needs to be glued and therefore does not need any paint.The weather is a bit shitty, so I will not paint today. Time to sand the paint a bit.
Now it is time to let it all dry. Maybe tomorrow a new layer of paint, unless it starts to rain. Forecast of the weather for the upcoming days does not look well, so I am afraid I can not paint the next few days.
[Friday March 1st, 2019]
Today started with quite some rain until 9 or 9.30 A.M, and then it got dry. Looked up the forecast, and it would stay dry until around 7 P.M., so I was lucky. I could spray a third time with the primer today.
I hope that I can finish with the last layer of primer tomorrow, so I can start with spraypainting it all matte black. I can't wait to finally finish the guitar!
Hahaha nevermind! I was able to spray paint the last layer of primer today. It was still dry and light, and I managed to empty the spray paint bottle right exactly. I re-did the sides another time and after that the bottle was empty. Now the primer is all finished!
[Saturday March 2nd, 2019]
There is sun outside? Yesterday the forecast said rain all day. I feel lucky with all this sun!
I might need a second bottle of the matte black spray paint, because I want a great layer that does not immediately break when touching it or hitting it with a nail or something.
After all the painting is done, I still have to apply the screws, nails, and all components and elements. And I gotta glue the neck together with the truss rod on the inside. But that is for when the painting is finished, otherwise the truss rod would also be painted black, but I want it to be silver and a little bit visible.
The second layer is also already done!
This spray paint is absolutely amazing - it is dry very fast, it covers and protects the surface very well, and I really love the color.
[Monday March 4th, 2019]
In the late afternoon, well, it was dry again. And there was still some daylight left. So it was time to get my stuff together and place it all outside, and spraypaint again.
This time I got my hand a bit nasty because of the paint. Accidents sometimes happen, you know?
And, if you're reading the whole progress because you're also interested in building a guitar: if you want to spraypaint it in whatever color, do not wear any jewelry on your hands (and wrists) because if there is a bit of wind, or the spraypaint just happens to flow a bit away, well, you can go and clean the jewelry up. It is not a lot of work, but it takes a bit of time. But who would wear jewelry while making a guitar, anyway? Haha, just kidding. Also, wear old clothes that may get nasty and dirty. I am not saying that they actually will get dirty, but there is a chance. And protect the floor or whatever you spraypaint on. Otherwise it might become a huge mess!
[Friday March 8th, 2019]
Time for the very last layer of paint. Only one part, because the other parts are already finished with paint. The neck had a little scratch so I used some waterproof sanding paper and had to re-do the paint on and around that spot.Well.. nevermind. I redid the paint and it got scratched again, on a different spot but quite an ugly scratch. Now I will have to sand it again and re-paint it.. I don't know what happened and how the scratch got there, but if for sure aint nothing nice..
[Monday March 11th, 2019]
Some more time to work on the guitar!
First of all, now that all the paint had quite some time to dry, let's fit. I was afraid that the paint would be a bit thicker and that would make it impossible for the body and neck to fit well, but I was wrong. Luckily though, so I did not have to work on that anymore.
After the fitting, time to start the circles on top of the neck (the fretboard, to be precise). I used long and different nails (asphalt nails), which I had to grind after hammering them all in. Using the Dremel again, but with a grinding wheel.After all the hammering, there started to get a little scratch. The wood started to expand a bit.
And after all the grinding, there finally was a nice fretboard. But I will try to paint the scratch from the wood a little bit, hoping it will be less visible. And if it does not work, I have tried my very best and I can live with that.
Some more soldering work! Well, actually it was finishing it all. The body is all painted and dried very well, so I wanted to solder everything together. Now I will only have to apply the last components, and drill some holes, and put everything together, and.. Well, still some work to do (for later though!)
Finally, the last layer of paint (or at least I hope so). Now it has to dry for some time, or maybe more time. At least 24 hours is what they say, but I want to let it dry for (if possible) at least 3 days, maybe even a week or more. But in my enthusiastic moods, I might not be able to fulfill that hope. So let's just keep it for letting it dry more than 24 hours, and as much time longer as possible. 
Time for glueing the very last part of the guitar. The fretboard and the neck. Well, this project went quite fast so far! (or at least that is how it feels to me..) And now there is more time to dry! Not just the glue, but also the paint (yeah, if possible I want to keep it smooth so it really needs to dry all up for as long as possible before actually trying to use the guitar).[Friday March 15th, 2019]
And here is the neck glued together.
Oh, how I love the matte black. And with those silver details.
I absolutely adore the color choice, in combination with all the details and other elements that will be added soon when all is dried up and I can (almost) finish the guitar.
Tiiiiime.. Forrrrrrr.. Adding some more elements. Frets! For the fretboard!I wanted to use a hammer and slam them into the fretboard, but I was unlucky since that did not go well. So, after thinking for some time, and trying some stuff out, I decided to try 3seconds-glue. And it worked! I hoped that it could just be hammered into the fretboard, I really hoped so, but since that was no option at all I came up with an okay-ish alternative option.
And it actually worked. The frets are still in place. I hope they will stay in place, but I will have to find out later after finishing it. Nothing to worry about right now.
Besides all the hard work, there was also some detail work that still needed to be done. Soldering, again, since one component was not connected anymore due to a broken cable, and the cables from the in/output jack to the other components were way too long, so I had to shorten them and re-solder. Not a big issue, but it for sure had to happen. Since I had time and wanted to continue on the guitar, I also soldered today after getting the frets all into the fretboard.[Saturday March 16th, 2019]
Well, now that almost everything is finished, I started cleaning as much as possible. Most machines won't be needed anymore (sanding, Dremel, and whatsoever) so it was time to get them back to the storage.
And after the whole floor was cleaned, well, I decided it was time to go and fit if the guitar (wooden parts) would still fit well, and how it would look altogether so far.
I AM ABSOLUTELY STUNNED!
Yes, there is still some work that needs to be done. No, I don't know whether or not it will work. No, I don't know if it will sound great. But yes, I did get quite far, and yes, I am very impressed.I never knew I would actually start building a guitar. And I never knew I would love doing that so much.
I am still thinking about maybe building a second one... Oh, but let me finish this one first! If I will build a second one, well, I first want to know more about this one, and what to improve. I know that this selfbuild guitar is not the best, but I could have done worse. And I am very happy with everything so far.
[Tuesday March 19th, 2019]
A little bit of progress!One cable broke, so I fixed it. Attaching a little piece of a cable is quite some work - more than I expected! But luckily it all went well.
And I used nails for the side - I will upload a picture later of that (lots of details!), and I plugged the 6.35 mm jack-in, and used screws for it. Also, the body is attached with the body now.
[Friday March 22nd, 2019]
Adding the cover plate.. Almost ready for testing!
And here we see a guitar, ready to be tested. Let's do this!
Oh well.. Nevermind. Something with the electronics is wrong.(Later it turned out to be two cables that had been soldered apart from each other, but they made contact. That probably was the cause. After fixing that, there was an actual sound coming from the amplifier.)
No, still not ready for testing.
Those rings? I removed them. No, I did not like them so I got rid of them.
And I had to fix this: the strings should never touch the pickups. So.. Time for deeping the holes. Again.
And here you can see the first deepened hole.
Now it's time to re-do the other two.
And soldering a cable (again..) because the solder broke in all of a sudden? It was weird but it is fixable so no worries.
[THE RESULTS OF ALL THE WORK AS DESCRIBED ABOVE]
Here you can see the finished guitar. Plugged in and out of the amplifier, and ready to rock! Unfortunately the highest E string broke when I applied the strings, but I can buy a new one.
Yes, there are some mistakes. I am aware of that. And it is by far not the best guitar, neither the sound nor the look, but I can be proud of it.
Starting with barely any knowledge, I managed to make a working electric guitar!
[Total amount of costs]
Curious about the payments I made? Or do you want to build a guitar, and are you looking at the possible amount of money you need? This is a quite detailled sum of my payments.
!!! Things can go wrong and you might need to buy spare parts !!! (Wood, knobs, strings, electronics, etc.)
DIY shop:
- fire wood €7.55 (neck)
- birch wood €22.99 (body)
- paint €9.49 (neck and body primer)
- paint (black) €18.98 (2 bottles, neck and body)
AliExpress:
- guitar string €1.00
- guitar frets €1.54
- 6mm jack output €0.80
- 5 way switch €2.30
- tuning pegs €9.93 (I needed 6 of the same pegs instead of 3 left and 3 right ones, so 2 sets)
- 3 single pickups €10.51
- floyd rose tremolo €10.03
- rubber blocks €0.31 (for the neck strap)
- strap button locks €0.63
- strap €2.29
- control knobs €3.48 (Due to a broken knob I had to use, I ordered a second set for a good knob)
- thruss rod €6.14
TOTAL SPENT ON USED PARTS AND COMPONENTS: €112.56
(excluded: some shipping costs (no more than €10), machinery since I had access to it, sanding paper)
Bought but not used:
- guitar bridge €3.22
- saddle and nut €1.22
- saddle €0.53
- mounting ferrules €0.86
- roller saddle €3.94
- strap holder €0.64
- peg puller €0.68
- nut and saddle €0.51
- string retainer bar €0.73
- whammy bar €0.98
- pickguard cover €0.76
- fretboard decals €0.45
- thruss rod short €2.78
TOTAL SPENT ON ALL PARTS, INCLUDING NOT-USED: €112.56 +€17,30 = €129.86
I did not have a maximum amount of money as a goal, but I kinda wanted to get around €100 and not spend too much on it. I think I did quite well!
DIY shop:
- fire wood €7.55 (neck)
- birch wood €22.99 (body)
- paint €9.49 (neck and body primer)
- paint (black) €18.98 (2 bottles, neck and body)
AliExpress:
- guitar string €1.00
- guitar frets €1.54
- 6mm jack output €0.80
- 5 way switch €2.30
- tuning pegs €9.93 (I needed 6 of the same pegs instead of 3 left and 3 right ones, so 2 sets)
- 3 single pickups €10.51
- floyd rose tremolo €10.03
- rubber blocks €0.31 (for the neck strap)
- strap button locks €0.63
- strap €2.29
- control knobs €3.48 (Due to a broken knob I had to use, I ordered a second set for a good knob)
- thruss rod €6.14
TOTAL SPENT ON USED PARTS AND COMPONENTS: €112.56
(excluded: some shipping costs (no more than €10), machinery since I had access to it, sanding paper)
Bought but not used:
- guitar bridge €3.22
- saddle and nut €1.22
- saddle €0.53
- mounting ferrules €0.86
- roller saddle €3.94
- strap holder €0.64
- peg puller €0.68
- nut and saddle €0.51
- string retainer bar €0.73
- whammy bar €0.98
- pickguard cover €0.76
- fretboard decals €0.45
- thruss rod short €2.78
TOTAL SPENT ON ALL PARTS, INCLUDING NOT-USED: €112.56 +€17,30 = €129.86
I did not have a maximum amount of money as a goal, but I kinda wanted to get around €100 and not spend too much on it. I think I did quite well!
Wow, this blog provide complete information on building an electric guitar. It is not a easy process to build a great guitar. Thanks for sharing great information.
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