Building an Electric Guitar

Hello! We're high school students in the Project Based Learning program at NOVA Tech High School. We want to teach you how to make a guitar from scratch. Our names are Marvin & Lyrikal.

We wanted to do this project because music is a motivation for both of us, and we love music. Also, we thought it would be pretty cool to build our own guitar. We had a very low budget and limited tools, so we had be creative about how we made our guitar. We hope to inspire other young people to try building a guitar. The whole project took us about three weeks.

Step 1: Take Apart Teacher's Guitar

We took apart our teacher's guitar to learn about the different parts and how they fit together.

Step 2: Gather Tools

We gathered all the tools we would need to build the guitar.

These included:

drill

router

sander

screwdriver

chisel

hammer

wood glue

sandpaper

wood filler

clamps

Step 3: Materials for Guitar

We got our wood from Menard's. It was two planks of wood that we glued together to be 1.5" thick.

Step 4: Tracing Guitar Body

We traced our teacher's guitar body for the template. Then we cut the cardboard template using an X-acto knife.

Step 5: Making Body Shape

We cut the wood using the template and a jigsaw.

Step 6: Dimensions of Guitar

Measure dimensions of guitar body to make sure it works.

Step 7: Guitar Shaping

We shaped the guitar using sandpaper and a rotary sander.

Step 8: Route Body

We used the drill and router to cut the neck pocket and pick-up cavity for the electronics.

Step 9: Make Sure Neck Fits

We measured to make sure our teacher's guitar neck fits our guitar body.

Step 10: Find Parts/electronics

We found a source for the guitar electronics and parts and placed our order.

Step 11: Install Guitar Electronics

We installed the guitar electronics into the pickguard that we cut from a sheet of plastic.

Step 12: Painting the Guitar

We put on two coats of primer and then sanded. Then we added three coats of gold paint.

Step 13: Final Assembly

After the final coat of paint dried, we attached the neck and screwed on the pickguard with electronics attached. Finally, we installed new strings.

We will need to do some final adjustments, but the guitar is now finished!

Comments

[StanT736]

Hi, This looks ace, and I have to do a similar project for college. Out of interest, did you make the neck and headstock as well as the body? or did you just construct the body? Cheers

[NOVATechDIY]

Thanks! For this project, we only made the body from scratch. The neck is from a Squier strat. Building the neck requires many specialized tools that we did not have access to.

[ChemicalBurn]

Good job guys, onto the next. You'll need a bas
e guitar for the band.

[seamster]

That's a great looking guitar! Very nicely done.

Now who gets to keep it? :)