Guitar Building Made

Simple
By Trevor Eichelberger

Sculpting the Guitar

Select the fret board, neck, and body, depending on the wood type, grain, and general shape.
Roughly sand out and dents or blemishes, the fine sanding will be done later on
Decide on a headstock shape and cut it out using the band saw.
(Use relief cuts when cutting harsh angles to prevent breaking the band saw blade)
Using a router, you can apply a rounded contour to your body. (Seen in the image below)
Use a bladder sander to sculpt a belly cut and arm rest. (Optional)

Preparing the Neck

After sculpting the body and head stock, its time to glue the neck together
Using a sanding board, sand the neck and fret board flat
Align the fret board with the neck and use the drill press to drill holes for the placement pins
Smear the wood glue evenly over the entire face of the neck
Apply the fret board and align it using the two pins
Finally clamp the neck and allow it to dry
Before fully drying, use the truss rod to clear any excess glue from the neck cavity

Neck: Fret Dots and Radius

Now the neck is glued together and you can measure where to place the fret dots
This is done by making two lines from one corner of the fret to the opposing corner
This creates an x and by drilling at the intersection point you will have a centered fret dot
Its best to mark all the fret dots before drilling to compare how straight they look vertically
After drilling the fret holes on the drill press, use super glue to place the plastic pegs
Saw off any extruding plastic, leaving only the inlayed fret dot (animated below)
Clamp the neck down and use a radius block to apply a radius onto the fret board

Fretting the Neck

Roll out a piece of fret wire using the fret wire mill
(This will give the wire a curved shape to match the radius.)
Using a fret saw and triangle file prepare each fret slot to correctly fit the fret
Lightly set the fret wire into the fret board leaving about 1/8 hanging
Use the plastic hammer to softly hammer the fret and snip the end off leaving another 1/8
Continue this pattern to set the frets for the rest of the neck
After setting the frets, use the fret press to fully secure each fret in place and snip off the ends
Use a fret file to file down the over hanging ends
Using the same file, apply a 45 angle to the edges of all the frets for additional comfort

Leveling the Frets

After installing all of the frets, the next step requires us to level the frets
Measure the frets in groups of three using a straight edge, this is known as rocking the frets
When rocking the frets, Crown the frets by using a concaved fret file to file down the taller frets
(Although this process is long and tedious, leveled frets are crucial in building a good guitar)
Go through and rock the frets one final time to check for any uneven frets still remaining

Drilling Hardware Holes

Now that your neck it mostly finished, we can start drilling holes for all of the hardware
For the Neck we need to drill
1. Six tiny screw holes for the tuners on the back of the headstock
2. Four back screw holes to connect the Neck and Body

For the Body we need to drill

1. Four routing holes for the wiring and electronics
2. Four holes for the neck plate screws
3. Two holes for the back plate cover
4. Two holes for the output cover
5. Four holes for each pick up (8 Total)
6. Five holes for attaching the bridge
7. Two holes to attach the shoulder straps

Soldering Electronics
Start by tinning the Potentiometers and leaving a solid bead of solder
Solder one of the three prongs back onto first pot leaving two available prongs
Connect the first pot prong to the hot output and use the final prong to attach the second
pot
Attach a wire from the 3-way selector using the same prong that connects the two pots
(Soldering can get tricky, but if you take it step by step it isnt too bad)
On the back of the second pot connect a ground wire, a capacitor, a output wire, and a wire
connecting the 3 way switch
Connect the output wire to the fuse and then attach the output to the fuse
(Remove the fuse from the fuse box when soldering)

Finishing and Setup

Once your neck and body are fully sculpted, you can start in the finishing process
The first layer sprayed on is the primer (Be sure to focus on the hard to reach cavities)
After priming use a scrub brush to smoothen out any imperfections
Depending on the thickness, a second coat of primer might be needed
After priming is fully complete, spray paint the guitar to your desired color and allow it to dry
Once dry, you can connect the neck and body start attaching all of the hardware
Attach your ferrules, bridge, nut, tuners, strap holders, pickups, controls and output plate
Finally just solder your pickups to the controls and screw the back plate closed
Finally connect the pickups by soldering both bare wires to the back of the first pot and each black pickup wire to their
respective prongs on the 3- way switch

Now you have to just plug it in and jam out on your new electric guitar!

Thank You!