Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello to you all olf users.

I recently joined the community so I'm really new at this.

As I said in my subject, I'm a total beginner in carving instruments (although I have a lot of experience with power tools working as a panel beater)

As a newbie, I need all the help I can get. My ultimate goal is to built my dream 8 string fan fretted electric guitar. I have everything for the job even a well drawn plan.

I have 2 questions I need to ask you.


Firstly,

as a beginner, do you think it is a good idea for me to start with my 8 string fan fretted or I should stick with more common( 6 string fender..etc.) type ?

And my second question

Should I go to learn fundamentals from a luthier or I can pull it off by gathering info such as videos, tutorials etc?
Ps.
I bought some expensive rare tone woods for my project and I'm scared to ruin them by trying.

Thank you in advance to you all and have a wonderful new year.

Vaner

That is an ambitious project for the first one . You may want to get one "normal one under your belt , just so you can experience all the challenges we face .

That being said , if you take your time ( it is always worth it!) and follow your plan , you should be successful .

The one thing I've learned over the past 15 years of lutherie is patience is a virtue.

Good luck an enjoy the adventure!

One value in making a normal one, is you will receive a lot more options for support as you go along. That is support from forums, the lutherie supply stores for components and templates and even from youtube videos. If you can find a lot of good information on a 8 string fan fretted electric go for it.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I started from scratch without any wood working experience carving a Les Paul, just by reading build threads and the occasional Youtube video here and there.

However, if I had to do it all over again, I think I would've built my very first one out of pine/whitewood purchased from Home Depot. Now,
remember, I had zero experience in woodworking. So, if you're already comfortable with all the tools you'll be using, then I'm not 100% sure that's
the same advice I'd give you. As to the different between building a fan fret vs. a standard scale; there really isn't much, assuming you're
going to be building your own neck & fretboard, outside of the fact that there may not be as much available reference to go on.
The good thing about building a standard six string to get started is, if you mess up say a neck, you can always purchase one and continue.

Also, building a kit guitar is not a bad way of getting your feet wet either. Not sure how much experience one gains assembling a partscaster, etc., but again, it's all based on what your'e comfortable with.

Welcome, Vaner. Only you can decide whether your experience in other areas will be good enough to help you build a guitar, but I'll try to give you a few guidelines. First, get Melvyn Hiscock's book - he covers all the basics - tools, materials, wiring and finishing on three classic designs - a set neck (like a Les Paul), a bolt on (Fender) and a through neck bass. He talks about all of the geometry that makes an electric guitar playable - neck angle relative to pups and bridge. Yours will be further complicated by the multiple scale lengths and different string gauges. I don't know if you have drawn your plans or if they are of some existing instrument but you will need to buy or make bridge and pickups for your configuration. If you have to make an 8 string angled bridge with the correct intonation can you? In fact, if you have drawn the plans yourself, do you understand scale length, string tension, and intonation?

The body is usually pretty simple - you cut it out with a band saw, route various cavities for the neck, pups and wiring, and carve the top to shape. Whether you want to try this on an expensive piece of wood is up to you - if you haven't done much routing or three dimensional carving you might want to practice. Binding the body is always tricky for a new builder - channels need to be routed, bindings bent and glued in place. There are special tools that make this easier and certainly practicing on scrap is advisable.

Carving the neck is another task that newbees find tricky. It is helpful to make templates from a neck that you like - but that is going to be hard for your configuration. Setting the neck angle into the body is critical for playability - that relates back to the design geometry I discussed in the first paragraph.

Next critical operation will be mitering the fretboard - again made more difficult by your fan frets. The thing to remember here is that if one fret is a few thousands off your guitar will play out of tune and there is no simple way to fix it. Hammering in frets is pretty straightforward, binding the fretboard adds another layer of difficulty. Again, not impossible for a first timer but also not easy.

OK, you get the wooden parts all made, the next thing to consider is any inlay or special touches. Fretboard markers can range from simple dots to exotic pearl or wood inlay, as is the headstock inlay.

For the home builder it is almost impossible to get a finish that looks as good as a commercial guitar. There are dozens of different finishes available - in general the better they look the harder they are to apply (and/or take special equipment). I happen to believe that beautiful wood deserves the best finish that you can apply. Are you prepared to do this?

For me wiring is a snap, but I'm an engineer by training. If you use a common wiring scheme you can buy all the pots and caps and switches - if you want something special you need to understand how that stuff works. Again, soldering and shielding aren't hard - just gotta be done right.

Last, and far from least, is the final assembly and setup. Frets need to be dead level and crowned, relief adjusted just right, bridge saddles set for height and intonation, and nut slots cut for the string gauges you will use. There are some special tools here - fret and nut files in particular.

Can you do all of this? Of course you can. Should you expect perfection on your first? Probably not. You are going to make a significant investment in tools - why not build a conventional guitar with the same kind of neck and body (ie set neck or whatever you are going to use on the 8 string and drop top or carved top or whatever). Play that guitar as a backup or give it away, then build your dream.

FWIW - here is a very long thread on my first and only electric build. It is a pure clone of a 57 LP. Remember that I had built a dozen acoustics up to this point so necks, fretting, finish, setup, etc were known and I had a pretty good collection of tools. Think about doing each step in this thread - are you ready to do it to your nice piece of wood?

http://www.harmonycentral.com/t5/Electr ... p/31808721

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Yo, Vaner...

the first thing me gonna say is welcome to the forum.

The second is "get rid of your fear."

Third...don't bother trying! Do or don't do. But please, don't waist your or our time by trying.

Lot of us have offered up and committed our first, second or even tenth or 20th build to that bonfire of sacred purification.

Now if you ain't prepared to do that and is still scared of ruining wood...may me most
humbly suggest taking up knitting or stamp collecting, you know sumpthing way
less stress full.

non the less
blessings
?adma

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


.

Hi, Vaner,
I can't give any advice about a fanned fret neck. I agree that you might find more help if you start with a conventional neck.
As far as carving goes, it came very easy to me but I know that some people struggle with it at first. Why not get a real cheap piece of practice wood and learn your carving skills on that? Then you can move on to a nicer piece of guitar wood.
Best of luck to you.

Patrick

Hi there, i'm also a begginer, and my advise after my third sucessfull build is take your time, and aim for perfection. The setup is not voodoo magic but is a skill that will take some time to understand.
Woorking with wood you will allways make an error or some tool will ruin something the beauty of it is that its almost allways possible to fix or change things.

As someone said earlier do pratice a bit on scrap wood to get a feel of how a tool woorks.

Also be sure to read the instructions of all power tools they offer really good advices.

My first Bass was built using a router, a jigsaw, a bench drill, wood rasps and lotas and lots of sand papper.

Happy building

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The sharpest the tool, the fastest it will find its way to my hands :p
https://www.facebook.com/capricornbasses?fref=ts

Do you know how fanned fretting works? Do you know the differences between fanned frets and standard frets, etc? Can you play a fanned fret guitar? Can you play an 8 string guitar? Can you tune it? Do you know enough about an 8 string fanned fret guitar to make an accurate assessment of the build quality, intonation, playability and accuracy of the finished instrument? If you cannot answer yes to those questions, you might want to start with a basic 6 string. MHO.
Which is why I don't build 8 string, fanned fret guitars.

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Mike

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

Mike Snider of Snider Guitars just launched an online electric guitar building course where he shows how to build a tele type and a les Paul type guitar from beginning to end with all the details. If you are looking to get started building electrics you will find it very useful. www.obrienguitars.com/courses He even shows how to inlay and also wind pickups.

I thought about building a guitar for 25 years.
When I decided to build a guitar, I hemmed, and hawed, and sweated every little detail and it prevented me from cutting wood for nearly 2 1/2 years.
One day I decided that the worst thing that could happen (severed digits aside) was that I'd end up with a pile of wood that wasn't a guitar. Well, I already had a pile of wood that wasn't a guitar.

That first guitar came out better than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. I'm now nearing the end of builds #2 and #3 (basses #1 and #2), while "coaching" two friends through their own first builds.

First, build a guitar exactly like your dream design but out of low priced woods. Use whatever real guitar woods you can lay hold of cheap, it might come out sounding great. You'll think through the whole process, build some jigs and patterns, find out what your tools can and can't do, etc. You may decide to simplify some of your design. Then the build with the expensive wood will go faster and look better than if you did it first.