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Upbow on my guitar neck
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@jorgemac said:
“I’ve hand built 20 guitars, 10 electric, 10 acoustic”
WOW!! So awesome and very inspiring! I do want to build at least one.
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A very rewarding challenge. There are online courses but you will find out that you are going to need some tools that you currently don’t probably have. I shaped all of my own necks, made all of my own fretboards, slotted and installed all of the frets, routed and installed all the truss rods, Routed the neck joint pockets and set all of the necks. Mounted of the top X bracing and shaped the braces. Routed and installed all of the bindings and the sound hole purfling. Back then you could use wood lacquer for finishing, On and On and on. If you have the right tools it is fun. if you don’t it can be very challenging. I still have that 1st acoustic guitar build and was so proud after finishing it. It does have a great tone but i look at the quality of the work and cring.
Each build did get better in quality and performance but dealing with customers was not my strong point so I stopped building. If you do it right the amount of hours needed to build a guitar will shock you.
It is a wonderful challenge and I encourage you to approach it with your eyes open and know that there is a heck of a lot of work involved , especially if you build from scratch. Kits are much easier but they still require a great deal of patience.
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I’ve learned a great deal from diving into this fretboard work, so I’m glad I used this cheap guitar to get started. When I do my first build I won’t be completely green and at least have a clue on the interplay between the nut, the saddle and each fret in between.
I had some big issues on the 11th, 16th and 17th frets, but also part of the problem was in the treble area of the saddle. The high E string was too low, so even after leveling all the frets I still had buzzing. I’ve corrected it by fabricating a small plastic spacer before ordering a package of new saddles.
I suspect that the rather extreme temperature and humidity fluctuations have played havoc with the neck on this instrument. I keep it under AC at all times, but never in it’s case. It’s either on a stand or hanging on the wall.
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A friend of mine built a OM guitar from a Stew Mac kit. It looks and plays very nice. This could be a good way to enter the field of guitar building. The kits are pretty complete.
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Stewart Macdonald makes high quality stuff but they’re not afraid to ask 3 – 5 times what everyone else charges. So far I own 1 fret end file from StewMac and nothing else.
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