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hey guys and gals,

just joined and i need a little help about building my first solid body guitar. i am going to purchase some cnc templates for my body and neck, but i have a few questions about resources. since i have never done this before can anyone recommend a good book i could use as a guide? the other question i have is that my friend gave my a solid piece of hard maple 2 1/2" thick x 15" wide x 20" long. i was wondering if this would be a good wood for a solid body electric. i have ready that hard maple is extremly bright. i was hoping to build somethign that will resemble an ibanez rg model, with hsh pickup configuration.

nothing is better then a jigsaw and google i am not familiar with any good books, but if you hit stewmac's youtube page or the videos on the lmii page those are amazing

i have been watching tons of youtube videos and i am not worried about the body design, or the electronics. my main concern is the neck. i have found were stewmac sells fingerboards that are already layed out with the saw cuts for the frets so i am not worried about that either. just mainly on how is the best way to form the radius proflie on the back of the neck. is there a right or wrong way to do it? or is it just what ever feels right? i have seen a youtube video wear the luthier used rasp to cut the neck back radius in. is this the best way for a beginner?

measure the width of the neck pocket on your temlate.
figure out what nut width you want.
figure out the scale length you like.
draw it out on stiff paper.
cut that out.
trace that on your wood.
cut that out, but leave the line.
use a rasp to shape it.
route the body and fit the neck.
oh, sorry, i thought i was answering dave olds question.
mac book pro too racy for me!!

ok thanks. the one thing that everyone has stressed to me is be patient. the worst thing you can do is rush through a build.

You certainly have enough maple there to make the body or several necks for a solidbody. As for the tone, yeah, "they" say maple is bright(whoever they are), however, I think that if you're careful with your choice of pickups and electronics you could get just as good a tone out of maple as you could anything else.
With maple, the thing I'd worry about is weight. I imagine it would be on the heavy side. But then again, so are most Les Pauls, and it doesn't seem to hurt their popularity.
Me, I should have been so lucky to have it for my first guitar. Or my second, which is already in the works. If it were mine, I'd use it. Especially if it was my first. But then again, anytime good wood falls into my lap, I tend to use it.
And, yeah, don't get in a hurry. Take your time. Measure and think before you cut. Then when you get ready to cut, think about it some more. Then measure again.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

i have done multiple bodies out of maple, keep the bodies smaller and fairly thin and weight is not a real big issue. as for tone, i personally the the voice that maple has, although the stuff i am using is old growth maple out of a 150 year old barn of friend of mine, i dont know if that would have any impact on the sound but i think the stuff sounds great.. depending on what you want. for heavy rock and stuff its wonderful, lots of midrange, very aggressive and extremely clear under high distortion. although it will vary depending on what pickups you are using.

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~shad peters

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Melvyn Hiscock's book is the one I would recommend.

Darrin

Also, although books are good to have (epecially the Melvin Hiscock book, which comes highly recommended all over the place), I would suggest visiting the Tele Home Depot section of the TDPRI. There is such a wealth of information there that IMO it is practically a full fledged course on building solid body electric guitars. Yeah, they build a lot of teles, but the techniques fit all types of guitars, and there's more than enough other builds there as well. Again, IMO, you could learn practically everything you need to know about building solid body electrics from that site alone.

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/index.php

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

When I started building my guitar (about 6 months ago) I bought Hiscock's book and found it a bit lacking. It gives you all the information you need, and he demonstrates how to build three different guitars, but generally there were details missing that I would have liked to know, even if they are a bit complex. After I read through that book, I purchased Koch's "Building Electric Guitars" (found here: http://www.amazon.com/Building-Electric ... 3901314075 ) and I personally found it more complete and with better information. It unfortunately has black and white and mostly small pictures, but nearly all are discernible. Also, where Hiscock often states that beginner guitars can't do certain things and thus should buy premade parts, Koch often describes how to make useful jigs to solves those same problems. Whichever one you buy, I'm sure you'll have enough information, but I highly recommend Koch's.

no, that's the second worst thing.

the WORST thing is to cut off a finger in making a guitar that you now wont be able to play.

be CAREFUL!!

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My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

+1,000,000,000

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.