dric said:
dude,
here's a good place to start.
www.projectguitar.com
+1
Learnt a lot of my basic guitar building stuff from that site.. Absolutely brilliant.. My projects are all on my webby (in the signature)..
Cost:
Expect to spend a substantial amount of cash on this, I think.. Yes, I've got one project guitar that cost me less than $500 in total, but that was more opportunistic than anything.. My big project set me back about $2.7k.. Body and neck from
Warmoth, the rest of the parts from this fantastic site called
Guitar and Bass Parts Resource.. I admit that I was a little bit extravagant with the finish, but you can expect to spend somewhere in the neighbourhood of about $1-2k..
Long story short, it'll be more economical to buy an off the shelf guitar and mod it to death.. But there's a great sense of satisfaction in building and designing your own..
(Basic) Skills Required:
First and foremost, you've got to be at least a bit handy.. If you're the sort who can't use a screwdriver without breaking things, you may not want to go through with this.. You've also gotta be confident with at least a hand drill.. And drilling holes in the face of your rather costly aquisition.. If you're unsure or just plain terrified (like I was), practice on a piece of wood first (like I
should have done).. Next, you gotta know how to follow wiring diagrams and handle a soldering iron without killing or maiming yourself.. It's not that hard, really.. Just gotta have a steady hand..
Actually, the skills required aren't that hard to learn.. Just be careful and plan things through before starting..
Parts:
A bit vague, but I'll try..
Neck & body: Places such as
Warmoth and
US Custom Guitars are good places to start.. They'll do everything for you including finishing.. A little bit pricey, but the quality is good.. I've done a couple guitars to date through Warmoth and the workmanship is good..
Hardware: Depends, obviously, on the type of guitar you want.. One way of listing out the parts is to reference an existing guitar and going from headstock to tail, listing out all the parts you see like the tuning machines, nut, pickguard (if any), bridge etc..
Place to get it are
Guitar and Bass Parts Resource(GBPR) (US$5 shipping world-wide) or, locally, Davis.. Just gotta know what you want before hand.. Or talk to the lady there (not sure of her name)..
Pickups: Up to you.. Really..
Electronics: Switches, pots, wire and capacitors.. Switches and pots can be gotten from Davis and GBPR.. Wire and capacitors can be gotten from the third floor of Sim Lim Tower.. That's opposite Sim Lim Sq.. You can also get your soldering iron (40watts is a good rating) as well as the wire (try to get stranded wire instead of single cored, ie many strands of thin wire inside vs one solid piece of wire).. The solder recommended is rosin flux cored solder, also found at Sim Lim Tower.. Mini toggle switches (if you're interested) can be found there too.. The stuff here at Sim Lim Tower tends to be really cheap, by the way.. At least cheaper than other places..
I'm just scratching the surface with this post, by the way, so do read up more about it as well and feel free to ask questions about it..
Sorry for the long post.. Hope it was useful!!
(I think this is in the wrong section, actually.. Wouldn't it be better off in the Guitar-Gear section?)
