I’m not fancy enough to call myself a luthier. I simply enjoy making guitars.
I have been playing music for a long time.
In 2022 I built three guitars.
LEFT:
My first effort was a kit. It was a “paint and bolt together” project. I don’t like the Tele pick guards and wanted to leave it off. There was already a space routed out for the neck pickup. I decided to make a cage that fit that hole and held the neck pickup. I also swapped the included bridge, cover plate, and pickups. It plays great.
CENTER:
Once I saw how easy it was to put a guitar together I decided to make a body for the “extra” Tele style neck I had. I took a 100 year old cedar 2x8 beam salvaged from a demolished warehouse and turned it into a guitar body. Without a template, measuring and routing the cavities freehand, I built the body. Trying to keep the front of the guitar “clean” I wanted to mount the neck pickup from the back. I didn’t want the cavity to be wide and have the height adjustment screws visible. With the help of Fusion360 I designed a system to mount the pickup from behind and still be able to adjust the height. I learned a lot from this guitar build. It also plays and sounds great.
RIGHT:
After I built the cedar body I figured that I should attempt to build a neck. Not sure if the tools (or skills) I had would amount to anything usable, I opted to build the neck out of an old scrap of 2x4. I put a truss rod in, a maple fingerboard, frets, and used glow-in-the-dark google eyes for fret markers. Ridiculous, I know. Crap. The neck turned out great. Now I had to build a body worthy of the google eyed neck. Laminating scrap 2x4s with pieces of the 100 year old cedar beam I made a body. A body with a black stained “pupil” and glow-in-the-dark glitter filled resin “eyeball”. I mounted the pickups from the rear and used an audio fader pot instead of a switch to pan between the two pickups. Again, it plays and sounds great.
Next?
It is time to get a guitar out in the world and get feedback from players.
While these guitars play and sound great, I’m still ironing out the bugs, upgrading some tools, and working on my woodworking skills.
I can’t afford to build and give away guitars, but I can raffle off the next four or five builds.
This will cover my costs for materials and upgrading a tool or two. It will also give a lucky person a custom guitar for $25.
Click the link for more information.