I've known about this channel for about two days now and every video I keep learning about this. Before that I've been watching videos of people making guitars and I would learn quite a bit from them but I'm learning way more watching these. Thanks
Very true! I like to work on things but when I get tired and to where things are a bit blurred, taking even a short break or even a nap is like rebooting your computer or defragment your brain a bit. Did you know that when you sleep your brain actually organizes itself. Usually after your rest you see even a nagging problem in a different light.
This is so true, Ben missed this one. I do wood turning and I would say nearly all my mistakes occur when I am tired and just try to do a bit more. You dont want to know how many perfectly good lumps of wood i have ruined - a lathe is not very forgiving!
I got one... When you're drilling holes for machine heads, clamp a board under where the hole breaks through so you don't chip away half of your headstock
Very helpful video. Around the year 1500, a noble man from italy is visiting a sculptor to see his progress. He finds him sitting in front of a huge block of marble, staring at it. Friends and family were worried, he did the same thing for 4 months. What are you doing? the noble man asked. He turned around and whispered "I am working." Three years later the work was done. Michelangelo had finished the statue of david. I love that story. Sometimes you have to lean back and comtemplate what you do, how you envision something, what you learned from previous work before you're going to do something similiar. Good planning is the base for every success. (Unless you land "a homer" ^^) What i learned in engineering very quickly is that most of the time the 80/20-Rule really applies. The first 80% of the work takes 20% of your time and you'll need 80% of your remaining time to get the last 20% to finished. Ben talked about the finishing process before. Lots of luthiers just want to play the guitar and don't put in the time that is needed for a good finish, what every sees looking at your work. One of my professors told me, that one of the main qualities of a good engineer is to make the decision to start all over again, to not hang on to the previous ways and work too much to let it go. With lots of planning, timetables etc. you can reduce the chance of unexpected fuckups immensely.
Everyone I know or have met says they dislike sanding. I must be weird, I love sanding wood. It puts me in a very serene place. I've a nice piece of very old English oak as for my hand sanding block. This is like an old friend to me. Stick me in a corner with my oak block, different grades of sandpaper, some music, (maybe Red, or Three of A Perfect Pair) some good headphones and I'm as happy as a pig in shit. Bring me a good cup of coffee every now then and I'm a super happy bunny.
Andy Mitchell I like it too, sometimes. I switch back and forth. I wish I had better luck with sharpening scrapers (hit and miss, for me), they work great, better than sanding sometimes, especially with hardwood.
Ditto, I like long, arduous, monotonous and/or repetitive task that I can almost switch my brain completely off. I actually enjoy washing up , although I can only do these tasks for a while, I begin to get deathly tired when bored. I was crap at gaurd duty in the army, kept falling asleep lol.
I agreed with you until I read oak, I have a very serious hatred of oak because I made an oak and alder top for a large nightstand it was a b**** to get flat because of the difference in hardness
I for myselve love sanding and polishing work, wood or metal doesn't matter. Probably because of the visual process it's going though..getting nicer and shinyer each step. Damn my bad english..
I'm hip deep into building my first four guitars and I'm loving making mistakes. The next 4, or 40 (if it ever comes to that) will be the better for these early errors.
Ha! Something you said at the beginning of the video reminded me of something my figure drawing professor used to say in college... "The difference between a student, a good artist, and a master is that the Student makes mistakes, the good artists know how to hide their mistakes, but the masters make the mistakes work for them!" :)
"Just crack on and do it." Best thing I've heard about building guitars in quite some time. Thanks for putting value into figuring things out by.....figuring them out. Cheers!
I have messed up trimming the edge on a neck to shape by routing the neck such that the blades of the router bit tore into the grain --- this led to a sizeable tear out at the 12th fret. To fix it, I decided to make the neck bound. This covered up the problem and classed up the guitar a little. Trying to make mistakes into features is something I am becoming used to.
I bought a JEM kit (Which turned out to be stunningly good). Reshaped it etc etc. After reading for days on painting i decided on bright blue lacquer covered with a tin blue metallic auto lacquer.. sunbursty. The blue ended up being dark. I had to paint outdoors and its HUMID here and 80 daytime 40 nighttime. The metallic crackled HARD mostly near the edges. so i .. sanded that part off. And it's BEAUTIFUL! Has sortof a faded jeans look its absolutely stunning :)
Greetings from Texas! Great video Ben. I've been building guitars for most of my life but I've taken about 15 years off. I'm getting back in to it and this has helped remind me of all sorts of things that I have pushed out of my brain. Thank you for taking the time to do these videos. This is my favorite UA-cam channel by far.
One mistake I made the first time I tried to rebuild a guitar was that I didn't know anything about scale length at the time & didn't know why I couldn't tune the guitar again. I was 17 & lucky I knew some older guitarists who helped me fix it. I learnt a lot just from that first attempt & Books are very helpful. Now I'm 50 & still playing around. I believe if It's something you love , keep doing it. Cheers Y/All.
Thanks for an ever useful topic! You asked us to add our mistakes in the comments- here are several: 1. Label the top and bottom of your guitar sides before cutting the purfling channel on the top, or be prepared to add purfling to the channel you just cut on the back. 2. When cutting channels for binding and purfling, cutting the binding channel (side) FIRST so you have more of the top surface to index to when cutting the purfling (top) might be a good idea. Its an EXCELLENT idea if your using an indexed router like TrueChannel Binding Router Jig by StewMac. If you don't, your little dish shaped bearing surface won't be able to ride on the top as you cut the binding channel on the side (you just routed the top bearing surface off). 3. Always, always, wear a respirator approved for solvent vapors if you are applying lacquer or lacquer sanding sealer (even a puff from a rattle can). One puff locked me up for a week twice. 4. Open up the acoustic neck tenon pocket AFTER you cut your bindings and purflings. Otherwise, when you get to the hole you just opened, you will have no reference surface for your cutter to sit on. That is, provided you have learned your lesson about cutting all those channels with only a chisel, provided that you you DID design for binding and purfling. Too much? Then just use #3. And you DONT what to know what "locked me up for a week" means. "Twice" means I didn't learn the first time.
I really enjoy these videos. I have been building for 15 yrs and have made about 40 instruments. I was lucky enough to be able to do a paid apprenticeship during some of that time, and one thing I learned was that there are very few things that cannot be fixed, and by learning to fix your mistakes you learn some solid repair and restoration techniques. On the tool front I would say to follow Ben's advice - you really don't need as many tools as you may think. You can make many of the things you need as you go. Scrapers - save the sandpaper for finishing. Buy old tools and learn how to sharpen them. My teacher once told me that you don't buy a plane - you buy a plane 'kit' and you learn how to complete it so that it is useable. Finally, my favorite tool is a fancy french hand cut rasp that I bought years ago. For general carving I find it indispensable.
Point 3, so true!! I started out with the notion that only hand tools would do; using power tools is cheating. 7 guitars in and I now have a bandsaw, belt sander, router, pillar drill, table saw...and so on. It's all good!
The man that taught me to build had a simple philosophy that I've followed and preach to everyone. If you're building a custom, build two just like it, or even better three. If you can't afford to make it 2 times, you can't afford the mistakes you're bound to make on the first one, and why not have a spare? If you get good enough, you'll always have a couple examples of every good build you do, and that has its own reward. I've done that almost without exception, and have kept dozens of good builds for myself or sold the 2nd as a spare or backup to a client, or even a new customer. I highly recommend it as a practice.
Ben, I’m building my first guitar - a relatively cheap kit, bought online - and I think I’ve been bitten by the luthier bug. Been playing guitar for 40 years and the experience of seeing my own custom instrument come together (however awkwardly) has been an absolute blast. Then, in the process of trying to learn how to fix mistakes or figure out the next steps, I discovered your channel and WOW, what a window into the world of both guitar building and the creativity and skills behind your creations! As i struggle to bring my Les(s) Paul into being, I know that I will build another. I need to. I want to apply what I’ve learned and to grow into this hobby I’ve discovered. Thank you for sharing your craft, your artistry and your sage advice. When I am finished with this current guitar and am sitting here with a fistful of fret buzz and 60 cycle hum, I shall remember your wise words and crack straight on with the next one. Cheers! Leighton Vancouver, BC
hello. for sometime now i've been watching you. im 54 yrs old. iv done so many projects involving wood. and even tin artwork, and your right you really don't need schooling because you yourself are the artist and or maker. i've been think now about getting into guitar making. and i really like your advice. and it something all just dive into and along the way all learn very fast all what i need to do.
I've been at a vocational school in Minnesota, US, for a few years learning how to build instruments, I've built two violins (not proud of either, most like to be burned soon) two guitars last year both of which are not great but at least one is playable, and now this year I'm building 3 guitars and 2 ukuleles. All I can say is that you get better at this at an exponential rate and that you WILL make mistakes, you just need to learn from them and remember to not do it again. "Half of our job is fixing our mistakes, hell maybe 75% of our job is fixing mistakes" - said by one of my teachers in my first year.
Always enjoy and learn from your videos. Started out buying a cheap electric just to disassemble/reassemble and modify. Learned soldering, setups and minor repairs. Put guitars together from parts. Now in the process of building a guitar from a pre planned block of wood, starting with making a template. Each step a process and learning experience, but such an interesting rabbit hole.
I built one guitar back in 1982. It was a Christmas gift for my best friend. I took a humbucker, a neck, a bridge and electrics from an Aria Pro 2 and slapped them on an old wooden toilet seat. He tuned it up and loved it. I think I'm ready to start a new build.
On my 3rd build, I set the neck angle too shallow. to compensate, I ground down the bottom of the TOM bridge on the belt sander so I could get tje action low enough. Worked great.
I have watched this tutorial few times over the last year (since I started with my very first guitar body) and honestly, couldn't agree with you more , especially on #1 and #7. I do hope to start with necks by the end of 2021 and until then I will concentrate on bodies and finishing methods. Thanks for this one and for all other tutorials - it is a great help for me
I am a craftsman of a different field and I can say that the number one quality of a professional is to know how to improvise solutions to the unexpected and how to craft your own tools.
I don't believe I would ever attempt to build my own guitar. I know exactly what your talking about when buying tools. I thought I really wanted to learn wood carving. Went out purchase great tools at high prices, Started but never finish one project. Tools sit now unused for my wish to learn has ended. I thought it would be much easier then I found it to be in the end. Excellent video Ben!
I've started this year using a cheap workmate on the porch. Of course there was a figure in the basswood, making the planing harder but I enjoy the effort in the handwork.
I have found a nice way to support a neck while putting in frets, and it does not cost a single penny. A thin and long slice/wedge of pine, or a slice of linoleum, which one I find at the moment. I just put that under the neck at the fret I'm hammering, and it works perfectly. Works for bolt on necks like a charm and requires no effort of making.
Yup. I’m one who loves electronics and soldering, and hate sanding. Problem is, I prefer acoustic instruments and without pickups, LOL. Really enjoy the structural part of building things, as well as setup and repair. I’m getting better at zenning on the filing, sanding and finishing. Recently shaped a neck, and truly enjoyed doing that. An addition to your measure twice cut once. Always cut on the outside of your line so can sneak it up to a perfect fit. Never cut to finished dimensions.
This was lovely. Masses of passion, which is what it's all about isn't it. Making mistakes is the best thing you can do. You'll think about them every time you're about to make them again. Make 10 Strats. Burn first 8. Repeat.
So glad I decided to watch this video. I’m a recent customer and am on my third build (first two came out as expected…). I needed to hear “know when to quit”. While I learned a lot trying to over due it on my first two, hearing know when to quit has influenced the direction of this current build.
I started building electric guitars in 1983 , All I had was a router Porter Cable with a D handle , one old Baily smoothing plane handed down , some files and scrapers . To glue the body didn't have bar clamps I used 2x4's to make a clamp with bolts on one side and had a few small c clamps. Made my fret saw out of an exacto that I reduced the teeth to fit the fret . I worked . Later I got more clamps C and pipe clamps and bar clamps , I cut out bodies with a coping saw and hand sanded the final shape. Later I got a table top drill press and a decent jig saw to cut out necks and bodies. I made templates with router guides to route out the truss rod slot. always measuring the guide bush to make certain the route whether a rod slot or pu cavity was the proper size . The worst one was a finger board I spent days hand sawing to shape and slotting and didn't have any idea of using pins to prevent the board from slipping , I always lucked out before. Had to plan it off and start all over. I knew wood working at 7 my father was a carpenter building custom homes and made cabinets as well , I was always around wood. I did help . I still work with the same basic tools some are better and have more of them yet basically ever body and neck is still besides a router and jig saw done by all hand tools. When I glue up a 2 piece body the joint is the center line and I hand plane the top and back flat by this method as well as the finger board and neck . I use a router for any round over , never had a router table. I have chisels and spoke shaves all are old stanley or sears . Most were all set necks with home made truss rods. 5 were bolt on neck 4 strat copies and one tele . The tele was just a shape I tried to copy from a photo and the strats I was given a 59 strat trace from some one who once worked for fender and he traced it out for me and I made a template from it using 1/4" thick veneer . Each pick up route was from one template I moved along referencing the center line and spacing on that template factoring it the router guide. It was time consuming yet they did come out proper. Now at 70 I want to build just one more strat neck because I don't like the way one turned out , I bought a spray gun in 85 to paint my car and a touch up gun and air brushes and learned how to paint from books as well as how to build a guitar from three old books / Last strat I used a # 3 passche air brush and stew mac water based lacquer and it turned out the best of all others . I began with a brush and hand sanding to lay down lacquer. For this new neck if I get the desire going I will make a template off a 2001 plan I have sitting since 2001 and for once be able to at least do the neck shape off a template using my old router. Route out the rods slot before the neck blank is tapered as I always did yet at least have the necks shape and tuner holes and center line all there then I can glue on the finger board and then flush rout it to the routed out neck rather than planing and sanding for days . I dislike making templates yet this time I will give it a shot . William
Just that "you bit off more than you can chew" by itself is really important. I completed my first guitar back in late June, and it was very different from the initial idea I had in January when I started building (I only had a few hours a week and limited access to tools). Right from the start, I knew I wasn't going to make my own neck, so I bought one off of ebay with a paddle headstock and no tuner holes drilled into it. I was initially going to have some transparent pieces of acrylic with leds behind them, just above the control cavity, but I gave up on the idea because I didn't have a router. I had to make quite a few compromises along the way simply because I lacked tools, time and experience, but still managed to build a guitar I was proud of.
A very humble video! We all make mistakes: Mine among the worst, to be honest. I thoroughly enjoy your videos. You are instructing a new generation of Luthiers!! Your easy going style lures hobbyists into the dark craft lol!! Aside from that, you are a true Luther and thank you for sharing your expertise with the masses!!
I would say 'knowing when to stop' is the most important lesson to learn but people do need to realise that it is not the same a 'giving in' or 'quitting'. Learning to recognise that a mistake can sometimes be rectified and sometimes not is a crucial skill. People quit when they don't know how to proceed or are disappointed with their results due to bad choices.
+Ian Clarke YES. That is something I still have trouble with after building for two years. It's also in a different way: you should stop when you get too tired and are not focused enough. And realising that building something is 90% measuring and drawing up plans, making jigs, and 10% actual work on the guitar itself.
Trying to remember what I was doing on Jan 29th, 2016, instead of watching your video. Thanks for your courage to open up such vital insight on guitar building...!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the process of building a guitar for myself out of black walnut wood inherited from my grandfather. Won't be worth anything to anybody except myself as a sentimental piece. Your lessons and videos in addition to others I've watched, have been invaluable. Thanks for the time and effort.
Hi Ray here from across the pond thank you so much for taking the time to share what you have learned,It’s great to see people spreading knowledge about a skill they have learned.
I recently built an electric guitar for my senior project from scratch. The neck was the hardest part, by far to make, but it sounds as great as the $25 pickups can sound.
Measure , Measure, Cut. I'm building a kit guitar for the first time. I have rebuilt some old guitars in the past & made my own electric bodies. I'm installing a floyd rose trem on a tele kit so I bought some offcut hardwood pieces for $4 AU at the hardware scrap bin. Enough to make 4 bodies & practiced on these before routing the kit body. I also realised I could use the practice pieces to build some one off customs later ( they just look like slabs atm.). Thank You also Ben for the awesome vids.
Im just Starting out learning about repairs, So I'm just refinishing a Peavey Patriot and am waiting for the Stain from you. The Purple looks sick !!! Going to change the tone knob to a cut off switch and swap the pick up. Im really excited to work with the Stunning Stains I watched a few videos you did and decided to tackle it. Keep your fingers crossed for me lol
Measure, measure, and cut! Measure, measure and cut! You brought me down in hysterical laughter and then tears. Years ago, I was fabricating a pattern for an O gauge commuter train (yes I do trains too), with a possible production deal. I was doing the front end, making corners sharp and adding nice details rivets and all, and suddenly something wasn't right because it was 5mm short!!! This perfectly killed the project, and took me a year to recover from it. Oh how I know to measure, measure, and cut.
Just finished my first guitar build, there are definitely a couple of these tips I wished I'd seen before making it. I over sanded the neck pocket (or the neck itself) and had to come up with a way to salvage the build. I ended up routing the neck pocket a fraction wider and then surrounded the pocket with brass bar stock. I was frustrated with myself for the mistake (and for the extra couple of tedious hours it added to the build) but the results ended up beautiful. I'm already planning my next build. Now I just need to learn how to play guitar.
Great video, Ben! I also have a tip for beginners: Start by setting up guitars in need of repair. Understand how to modify/repair unplayable guitars. They are cheap and sometimes free. Experiment with those. If you can make a poorly set up or unplayable guitar playable, you are well on your way.
The advice you give in this video is the best, the absolute best. This advice can be applied to so many fields of interest. I really appreciate hearing such crucial advice from an expert in his field.
Ben.... you say your not the best, be that as may.... you are so the most entertaining and personable of all I have viewed on UA-cam. Thank you for all of your videos. I wish I lived in the UK in order to take a course there. Maybe someday.
Thank you for your information I am learning all the time from wonderful people like you. It is just so great to be able to see an hear you telling us what you have learned and now pass on to the public so we can learn from your experiences. You rock man.
First custom build I did, one of the frets was a little high so I tapped it down with a hammer, dented the fretboard and didnt realize I had a scraper on the bench and put a dent in the back as well ! Had to completely redo the neck... Same build I polished the back of the guitar and wasn't happy with the gloss so decided to put more lacquer on and ended up with fish eyes all over it, so had to restain and lacquer the entire back... as you said know when to stop...Sound advice!
Before trying to cut an angled neck pocket in a nice piece of very vintage mahogany, I decided to practice on an old lump of building pine, that was hanging around. I find that the rough finish complements the cat-food tin scratch plate on my Rattycaster.
Guitar building books are expensive but i was fortunate enough to get a good book as a gift, I also have a book on finishing, woods, hand tools, the history of guitar devlopement. Don't regret reading a single one.
Great channel, great delivery-I'm learning and I love it! I have the wood and all the tools I need so am about to embark on my first guitar, watching this channel makes me even more enthusiastic about the challenge-and challenge it most certainly will be but I am relishing it!
I'm about to start on the journey of making a guitar for myself. I found this video very encouraging, so thank you for the benefit of your experience and whatnot.
Brilliant video. Watch your videos all the time and they really do inspire you to think "right I'm going to build a guitar,I'm just going to do it". Everything you touched on though is the exact things those starting out need to hear. I think everyone has wanted to start out complicated,or think they need every tool because a specific builder uses one(guilty 😅). I've really wanted to build one for quite a while because of watching your videos but realistically it's very difficult as I don't have a suitable work space(just a back porch) and very limited funds,every tool or material is pushing my limited funds 😅. I think the problem with most of us is we might watch a video online and as cheesy as it sounds you just get so inspired. Taking on board "don't bite off more than you can chew" and that each area is a skill in itself. For someone who can barely make a box maybe I should perfect the basics to save the headaches. Sorry for the long message 😅 great stuff as usual 😁
Wow - there are some good points for everyone (all levels of wood working) in this vid. I specifically appreciate that you tell about your own mistakes. It gives your message some weight :)
Truly! Thank you for everything. I will be beginning my journey as a novice luthier and will be buying your tools as a courtesy of all the knowledge you've shared with me. THANK YOU!!!!!
Ben, I can't thank you enough for this video, some of you points I'm following through already. I'm about to start building guitars myself and will need to watch this video more than once, cheers.
Measure, measure, cut. Something my dad taught me when I was a teenager. Love you videos dude. This one was so spot on. Looking at building my first one from scratch very soon. You've been an inspiration and an encyclopaedia of craftsmanship knowledge. Keep up the great work at crimson guitars 👍
It took me 2 weeks to finish my first strat body to put it in perspective of how long getting something precisely right can take. I'm a mechanic so disassembling and reassembling is something I do daily, the foresight of error is something I professionally try to avoid but I am quick to recover from errors if they occur. This helped quite a bit with my strat body, it gave me the ability to see if a tool was going to cause an error or not, other things I was going to try I deemed impractical as a consistent result was not possible. A good example of where consistency was lacking and I had to figure out a better way to do it was doing pickup pockets which I attempted to hand chisel,the inconsistency happened in the area of the tool itself where I could not chisel the wood in a manner that allowed for a flawless result. The work around to this to avoid wonky pockets was to use Forstner bits to take a good chunk of the wood out and tidy it up with a router, this worked so well I used it for other pockets. I respect this work because through my own experience I understand how much work is actually involved. Also I found good wood at a thrift store that were maple and ash, for the first build of a body. It worked out well.
Thanks for all the tips!. I’ve just finished my first guitar kit, I’m very happy with it, and I finished it with just nitrocellulose with no stain on the maple top. I now wish I’d done it in black, so I’ve given it to Sarah my partner as she really likes it, as do I, and I can’t wait to do another one. So I am getting another to do in black for me with some improvements to my skill set. It will be nice to have ‘his n hers’ guitars. My kits were from Gear4music in UK, and I would recommend these as a good starting point in building a guitar
quite accurate, i started with strat body just because im unsure with my abilities to make proper neck that won't disappoint me, even with a laser cut plexiglass template i did few little mistakes, even tho i had huge experience with woodwork..so, that is a good tutorial.
Thank you. One valuable competent video after some time. Do not clamp without a caul on both sides, the pressure marks destroy your work. Do not lay your workpiece on a dirty table, not even on a dirty cloth or anti-slip mat. A chip of wood or a hard edge of a table makes divots and scratches that show when you least need them, usually too late to repair.
A recent mistake was using a glass plate and floppy sandpaper to get a reference surface. The sandpaper must be glued down. I had it taped at one end so it was flappy at the other, which then rounded over the edges of the work. It was ok because I hadn't yet cut the wood to shape, but if I'd been levelling the underside of a finished bridge it wouldn't have been a good thing
I am fascinated by your videos. Bing watching. You have a great ability to teach. I really wished I lived in the UK just to spend a day or 2 watching and learning your craft. Hell I don't even play guitar. I will one day learn to play. I wish it would be with one of your guitars but that wont happen for years to come. Thank you so much for sharing.
Remember to check the grain of the wood while routing and look out for cracks or abnormalities. I once had a beautiful neck in solid mahogany that i just whacked away at with the router and it splintered right at the joint. I managed to fix it with wood dust and super glue but i would have preferred a solid non cracked piece
I've started modding my guitars and learning how to maintain them. Making every rookie mistake in the book so far but learning from them. Spent hours soldering my EMGs into a Squier telecaster...hours of troubleshooting only to find i had poorly soldered the lug onto the pot and that was the sole reason it wasn't working. Just stripped, sanded and repainted a guitar...so far so good. Plenty of fuckups along the way but nothing I couldn't solve. The most important lesson I have learned is to give yourself as much time as you need and stop when things aren't going well and try again another day. I think i've been 6 weeks on this repainting job but it's been worth it. Had I known 6-8 weeks from the start I might not have bothered but patience is the most important thing to learn. I've had plenty of paint drips to sand down...not letting it dry properly before wet sanding and taking chunks of paint of the guitar etc. I'm already eyeing up cheap guitars to work on and practice with. Will do some fret work on a cheap strat copy ....maybe by next year i will buy a kit guitar and sort that out. One thing I will remind people who have (like my myself) little or no experience is about resizing holes and splintering the edges if you don't drill in incremental steps or use a pillar drill.
a good friend of mine made amazing guitars as a hobby. but of the 12 builds he made. he forgot 11 times to put the truss rod. at least he used the good glue to get it off with relative ease with heat. But he cursed at himself. it happens Ben. it does happen
He doesn't do the glueing anymore. Not the smartest guy. Smart enough to see his mistake and he has another doing the gluing for him. Marvelous guitars. Too bad he only wants it as a hobby
What a fantastic video, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. I'm just starting out, I've bought a few bits from you recently for my Stingray bass build including one of your spanky precision levelling blocks that came in a giant Toblerone box and I've got some of your Stunning Stains winging their way to me too. I'm a former engineer but my areas were classic motorcycles and vintage cars, I did mechanical and electrical work predominantly but I also did machining and fabrication so I'm turning what skills I've got onto LuthI..Luther..luthier... making noisy shapes out of wood. I find it very rewarding and so far even with mistakes I'm finding that the results are paying off...
This is a great introduction to building guitars. I'm in the middle of my second build and really enjoying the processes - many helpful tips and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Old video revival comment but thanks, this is good to hear and I’m at the body only stage and bought in neck. My mistake is always the same, and partly explicable (having so little time) but not forgivable - rushing and ending up with an inferior finish.... Thanks Ben and team
I'm glad I'm not the only one to make mistakes! I think if you are starting out, it is important not to set your expectations too high. The important thing is to learn from them, and as you say, look on you failures as 'student pieces' or part of the learning curve. It's frustrating though if you make them twice!
1. Get a few kit bodies to play with and learn what they screw up ..... you now know the bugbears to avoid. 2. Learn to use a basic CAD program so you can get a company to CNC for you....mainly templates until you want special body blanks 3. Find a timber yard that will square and thicness for you at a cheap rate.....generally involves alcohol and end of day visits 4. Once you have templates the rest is experience and experimenting. 5. Spend money on things that are special like decent pickups, Hardware & specialty tools, Crimson,stewmac etc etc for guages and a slotted strait edge. Follow these 4 points and then you can begin your adventure into sanding and finishing. Necks are the biggest hurdle to a newbie. I would suggest that buying necks and accompanying templates for pockets be your best move early in the piece as they are the cornerstones to a good build and the part that takes the most custom tools like saws,slotting plates carving tools, neck angles etc. Learn to level and setup but buy the necks until you can afford to burn some cash on learning that part.
thank you very much, I've watched this video and another of fretting I am very thankful for your information. have a wonderful day yourself I will be checking into more of your work
Ben thank you for this video. Part of these videos is helping to demystify the entire process, finally you've addressed what is probably the most important--mistakes!
thank you for sharing your knowledge. I wish I lived close enough to follow you around but I guess I will just have to learn through you tube. Thanks again!
Just want to let you know these videos are definitely appreciated man, I'm in the process right now building my first it's going to be cigar box, I'm starting off slow, but I'm trying not to follow in the tradition of using nuts and bolts and nails are frets on a piece of 2x4! your videos are definitely helping me put a little more of an actual guitar touch to it. Just want to say thanks man!
Here's a tip to minimize the frustration and risk when building a guitar, furniture, etc.: Practice on scrap wood until you have a technique, application, etc. solid before trying it on a real guitar, expensive wood (AAAAA figured maple?), etc. First time putting a binding on a neck? Make a few test sections and do it until you've encountered, and overcome the problems. Want to try getting the figure on some awesome flame maple to really pop using dyes? Practice on test pieces until you're comfortable with the process and satisfied w/ the results. No sense in trying it on the finished guitar. If you screw it up royally, all of that time (most expensive part of building), and materials, are in the bin.
Great video, thanks. I stripped and refin'd a Gibson S-1 that had sentimental value. The electronics had been hacked pretty bad back in the 80's and it had been dropped a couple of times over it's life. I found a small piece of copper mesh in the neck pocket used as a shim and when I reasembled it, the action was way off, playable, but definitely not optimal. I had no desire to try and calculate a neck angle change using high school geometry or pay 8 bucks play shipping for pre-made neck shims, so I measured the action at the twelfth and last fret, figured how much it had to move and glued up piece of maple veneer and hand sanded a wedge that tapered from .010 to .060 in the exact size of the pocket. When I popped that in the action was perfect, completely different playing guitar. That was when I knew I could do this. Digital calipers should be one of the first tool purchases. Most used tool after the sanding block.
Lol. I’m 15 months into my first build. 5 piece multi-laminate thru-neck with padauk wings, stainless steel frets, and a Hannes bridge. Should’ve watched this first. Still having a blast, though
I did the finger sanding mistake to a guitar I've been touching up recently, luckily (sort of) I realised what I was doing and fashioned a sanding block out of a couple of bits of an old table (block with a handle) a couple of screws and sandpaper :) had to sand over the whole back and only lost about half a millimeter of depth and an hour or so of my time
Hi. Just been cruising around your vids after a recommendation from a mate. I have just started making my first guitar (Tele style) under the watchful eye of a friend and luthier. He has been full of praise of my attempt so far. One mistake I have made is to fail to check the depth lock of the router was engaged and managed to dig a hole right through my block of Mountain Ash (Australian hardwood). Easy fix, the guitar went from natural finish to a painted. Unfortunately this guitar is not for my, it is for my Nephews 18th birthday.
I definitely tried to make a multilam neck through for my first guitar, it was a Jerry Garcia style Wolf guitar. I figured after working in a cabinet shop for a little while and learning how to use some tools it would be no problem. Was I wrong!!!! I learned A LOT even though I had to bring all of the parts and materials to a professional builder to finish the project. I was able to glue up the wings and layer the maple and purple heart. After the wings were all glued, I realized that if I made a mistake I was going to throw those hundred dollar pieces of wood right in the trash. Realizing I had taken it as far as my knowledge and talent would allow was very humbling and enlightening. I wish I could post pictures here because in the end the guitar turned out amazing. What I learned: I don't know anything about making guitars. Next time I'll start with a much simpler design, build the body and get a bolt on neck. Build one out of cheap plywood first and get the techniques down a little bit before cutting into expensive hardwoods. Get tools as I need them. Your videos are tremendously helpful and inspiring. Thank you.
I have the first neck I ever made, 45 years ago, hanging on the wall of my music room. It reminds me of why I was meant to be a programmer ...
Haha I am a programmer who is just starting out with guitar building. Looking forward to have a 45 year old neck in the future :)
8. Learn to recognise when you've done enough each day and tired. When you're knackered, you WILL make mistakes.
I've known about this channel for about two days now and every video I keep learning about this. Before that I've been watching videos of people making guitars and I would learn quite a bit from them but I'm learning way more watching these. Thanks
CountryHouseGent this is also a great rule, rest is important
Oh most definitely! Nothing like blowing away 12 hours work because you are too knackered to think clearly.
Very true! I like to work on things but when I get tired and to where things are a bit blurred, taking even a short break or even a nap is like rebooting your computer or defragment your brain a bit. Did you know that when you sleep your brain actually organizes itself. Usually after your rest you see even a nagging problem in a different light.
This is so true, Ben missed this one. I do wood turning and I would say nearly all my mistakes occur when I am tired and just try to do a bit more. You dont want to know how many perfectly good lumps of wood i have ruined - a lathe is not very forgiving!
I got one... When you're drilling holes for machine heads, clamp a board under where the hole breaks through so you don't chip away half of your headstock
_Now_ you tell me...!
Also brad points
Also, start with a small bit, drill through with that, then drill halfway from each side with the final bit.
Now that is the most excellent tip anyone can get... thanks, Mark..................
Use a reamer running backwards and and come in from both sides .
A great teacher once told me, "Amateurs practice till they get it right, professionals practice until they DON'T get it wrong."
If it ain't broke, fix it until it is!
Measure once..cuss twice!
The difference between an amateur and a professional is pay rate.
"Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something."
―Jake the Dog, Adventure Time
This comment hasn't gotten the appreciation it deserves. Thank you for laying the Jake Wisdom down.
Very helpful video.
Around the year 1500, a noble man from italy is visiting a sculptor to see his progress. He finds him sitting in front of a huge block of marble, staring at it.
Friends and family were worried, he did the same thing for 4 months.
What are you doing? the noble man asked.
He turned around and whispered "I am working."
Three years later the work was done.
Michelangelo had finished the statue of david.
I love that story.
Sometimes you have to lean back and comtemplate what you do, how you envision something, what you learned from previous work before you're going to do something similiar.
Good planning is the base for every success. (Unless you land "a homer" ^^)
What i learned in engineering very quickly is that most of the time the 80/20-Rule really applies. The first 80% of the work takes 20% of your time and you'll need 80% of your remaining time to get the last 20% to finished.
Ben talked about the finishing process before. Lots of luthiers just want to play the guitar and don't put in the time that is needed for a good finish, what every sees looking at your work.
One of my professors told me, that one of the main qualities of a good engineer is to make the decision to start all over again, to not hang on to the previous ways and work too much to let it go.
With lots of planning, timetables etc. you can reduce the chance of unexpected fuckups immensely.
"If you have never read a book.....first of all, you've made some very poor life decisions." hahaha......love the color commentary.
This comment alone got me to subscribe to the channel. :D
If you have never read a book..
you probably go around telling people the earth is flat.
Everyone I know or have met says they dislike sanding. I must be weird, I love sanding wood. It puts me in a very serene place. I've a nice piece of very old English oak as for my hand sanding block. This is like an old friend to me. Stick me in a corner with my oak block, different grades of sandpaper, some music, (maybe Red, or Three of A Perfect Pair) some good headphones and I'm as happy as a pig in shit. Bring me a good cup of coffee every now then and I'm a super happy bunny.
Andy Mitchell I like it too, sometimes. I switch back and forth. I wish I had better luck with sharpening scrapers (hit and miss, for me), they work great, better than sanding sometimes, especially with hardwood.
I don't hate or dislike sanding but it's one of my least favourite parts of work.
On the other hand, I love scraping and filing
Ditto, I like long, arduous, monotonous and/or repetitive task that I can almost switch my brain completely off. I actually enjoy washing up , although I can only do these tasks for a while, I begin to get deathly tired when bored. I was crap at gaurd duty in the army, kept falling asleep lol.
I agreed with you until I read oak, I have a very serious hatred of oak because I made an oak and alder top for a large nightstand it was a b**** to get flat because of the difference in hardness
I for myselve love sanding and polishing work, wood or metal doesn't matter. Probably because of the visual process it's going though..getting nicer and shinyer each step. Damn my bad english..
I'm hip deep into building my first four guitars and I'm loving making mistakes. The next 4, or 40 (if it ever comes to that) will be the better for these early errors.
''Cuz I'm an asshole, basically..'' hahhaa this guy is HILARIOUS. love his brand of humour and his sharing of knowledge is excellent
Ha! Something you said at the beginning of the video reminded me of something my figure drawing professor used to say in college...
"The difference between a student, a good artist, and a master is that the Student makes mistakes, the good artists know how to hide their mistakes, but the masters make the mistakes work for them!" :)
Awesome advice! Thank you!
"Just crack on and do it." Best thing I've heard about building guitars in quite some time. Thanks for putting value into figuring things out by.....figuring them out. Cheers!
"Loose & sloppy is not fun" - Ben Crowe, 2016. Amen
+JH Scofield ..sometimes loose and sloppy can be fun. heh :)
If it is loose, it means 1 of 2 things, either: the thing you want to put in the hole is too small or the hole is too big. Both things are not fun.
I cannot begin to understand how in the world he did not burst into intense laughter right there. :P
If it doesn't fit you must acquit!
There are only two kinds; loose & sloppy ones, and sloppy & loose ones!
I can so relate to number 1. hollowbody les paul isn't the best thing to choose as your first build...
Might as well build an acoustic
I think one of the biggest mistakes one can make is to be afraid to make a mistake.
A mistake is just an opportunity to learn.
And lose money
I have messed up trimming the edge on a neck to shape by routing the neck such that the blades of the router bit tore into the grain --- this led to a sizeable tear out at the 12th fret. To fix it, I decided to make the neck bound. This covered up the problem and classed up the guitar a little. Trying to make mistakes into features is something I am becoming used to.
I bought a JEM kit (Which turned out to be stunningly good). Reshaped it etc etc. After reading for days on painting i decided on bright blue lacquer covered with a tin blue metallic auto lacquer.. sunbursty. The blue ended up being dark. I had to paint outdoors and its HUMID here and 80 daytime 40 nighttime. The metallic crackled HARD mostly near the edges. so i .. sanded that part off. And it's BEAUTIFUL! Has sortof a faded jeans look its absolutely stunning :)
Greetings from Texas! Great video Ben. I've been building guitars for most of my life but I've taken about 15 years off. I'm getting back in to it and this has helped remind me of all sorts of things that I have pushed out of my brain. Thank you for taking the time to do these videos. This is my favorite UA-cam channel by far.
A "rabbit hole down which you will fall"! I love it! SO VERY TRUE!
Make sure you're following the right plans, I once started making a guitar and it was only near the end I realised it was actually a chair!!!
think i laughed too hard at this lol
gerbutt Everything was going great until you tried tuning it!
Slap some strings and a pick up on, you've got a chair that doubles as a guitar.
That's a new keyboard you owe me. Another thing to avoid, don't read the comments while drinking a cup of coffee!
I made a cricket bat once. It started as a violin bass.
One mistake I made the first time I tried to rebuild a guitar was that I didn't know anything about scale length at the time & didn't know why I couldn't tune the guitar again. I was 17 & lucky I knew some older guitarists who helped me fix it. I learnt a lot just from that first attempt & Books are very helpful. Now I'm 50 & still playing around. I believe if It's something you love , keep doing it. Cheers Y/All.
Thanks for an ever useful topic!
You asked us to add our mistakes in the comments- here are several:
1. Label the top and bottom of your guitar sides before cutting the purfling channel on the top, or be prepared to add purfling to the channel you just cut on the back.
2. When cutting channels for binding and purfling, cutting the binding channel (side) FIRST so you have more of the top surface to index to when cutting the purfling (top) might be a good idea. Its an EXCELLENT idea if your using an indexed router like TrueChannel Binding Router Jig by StewMac. If you don't, your little dish shaped bearing surface won't be able to ride on the top as you cut the binding channel on the side (you just routed the top bearing surface off).
3. Always, always, wear a respirator approved for solvent vapors if you are applying lacquer or lacquer sanding sealer (even a puff from a rattle can). One puff locked me up for a week twice.
4. Open up the acoustic neck tenon pocket AFTER you cut your bindings and purflings. Otherwise, when you get to the hole you just opened, you will have no reference surface for your cutter to sit on. That is, provided you have learned your lesson about cutting all those channels with only a chisel, provided that you you DID design for binding and purfling.
Too much? Then just use #3. And you DONT what to know what "locked me up for a week" means. "Twice" means I didn't learn the first time.
I really enjoy these videos. I have been building for 15 yrs and have made about 40 instruments. I was lucky enough to be able to do a paid apprenticeship during some of that time, and one thing I learned was that there are very few things that cannot be fixed, and by learning to fix your mistakes you learn some solid repair and restoration techniques. On the tool front I would say to follow Ben's advice - you really don't need as many tools as you may think. You can make many of the things you need as you go. Scrapers - save the sandpaper for finishing. Buy old tools and learn how to sharpen them. My teacher once told me that you don't buy a plane - you buy a plane 'kit' and you learn how to complete it so that it is useable. Finally, my favorite tool is a fancy french hand cut rasp that I bought years ago. For general carving I find it indispensable.
Point 3, so true!! I started out with the notion that only hand tools would do; using power tools is cheating. 7 guitars in and I now have a bandsaw, belt sander, router, pillar drill, table saw...and so on. It's all good!
The man that taught me to build had a simple philosophy that I've followed and preach to everyone. If you're building a custom, build two just like it, or even better three. If you can't afford to make it 2 times, you can't afford the mistakes you're bound to make on the first one, and why not have a spare? If you get good enough, you'll always have a couple examples of every good build you do, and that has its own reward. I've done that almost without exception, and have kept dozens of good builds for myself or sold the 2nd as a spare or backup to a client, or even a new customer. I highly recommend it as a practice.
Nice theory but for an amateur it’s biting off more than you can chew.
Ben, I’m building my first guitar - a relatively cheap kit, bought online - and I think I’ve been bitten by the luthier bug. Been playing guitar for 40 years and the experience of seeing my own custom instrument come together (however awkwardly) has been an absolute blast. Then, in the process of trying to learn how to fix mistakes or figure out the next steps, I discovered your channel and WOW, what a window into the world of both guitar building and the creativity and skills behind your creations! As i struggle to bring my Les(s) Paul into being, I know that I will build another. I need to. I want to apply what I’ve learned and to grow into this hobby I’ve discovered. Thank you for sharing your craft, your artistry and your sage advice.
When I am finished with this current guitar and am sitting here with a fistful of fret buzz and 60 cycle hum, I shall remember your wise words and crack straight on with the next one.
Cheers!
Leighton
Vancouver, BC
Don't curve over the edges before you have measured everything... Have you ever tried taking an accurate measurement from a curved edge?
hello. for sometime now i've been watching you. im 54 yrs old. iv done so many projects involving wood. and even tin artwork, and your right you really don't need schooling because you yourself are the artist and or maker. i've been think now about getting into guitar making. and i really like your advice. and it something all just dive into and along the way all learn very fast all what i need to do.
Really nice, Mr. Crowe. Didn't see the other golden rule besides MEASURE MEASURE MEASURE CUT...Never forget PRACTICE ON SCRAP!!! :D
Cheers!
I've been at a vocational school in Minnesota, US, for a few years learning how to build instruments, I've built two violins (not proud of either, most like to be burned soon) two guitars last year both of which are not great but at least one is playable, and now this year I'm building 3 guitars and 2 ukuleles. All I can say is that you get better at this at an exponential rate and that you WILL make mistakes, you just need to learn from them and remember to not do it again. "Half of our job is fixing our mistakes, hell maybe 75% of our job is fixing mistakes" - said by one of my teachers in my first year.
Always enjoy and learn from your videos. Started out buying a cheap electric just to disassemble/reassemble and modify. Learned soldering, setups and minor repairs. Put guitars together from parts. Now in the process of building a guitar from a pre planned block of wood, starting with making a template. Each step a process and learning experience, but such an interesting rabbit hole.
I built one guitar back in 1982. It was a Christmas gift for my best friend. I took a humbucker, a neck, a bridge and electrics from an Aria Pro 2 and slapped them on an old wooden toilet seat. He tuned it up and loved it. I think I'm ready to start a new build.
While I find myself seriously tempted to replicate your build myself! B
I've been doing this for 15 years and this is the best common sense video I've seen. Took the same route and have been learning daily.
On my 3rd build, I set the neck angle too shallow. to compensate, I ground down the bottom of the TOM bridge on the belt sander so I could get tje action low enough. Worked great.
I have watched this tutorial few times over the last year (since I started with my very first guitar body) and honestly, couldn't agree with you more , especially on #1 and #7.
I do hope to start with necks by the end of 2021 and until then I will concentrate on bodies and finishing methods.
Thanks for this one and for all other tutorials - it is a great help for me
I am a craftsman of a different field and I can say that the number one quality of a professional is to know how to improvise solutions to the unexpected and how to craft your own tools.
I don't believe I would ever attempt to build my own guitar. I know exactly what your talking about when buying tools. I thought I really wanted to learn wood carving. Went out purchase great tools at high prices, Started but never finish one project. Tools sit now unused for my wish to learn has ended. I thought it would be much easier then I found it to be in the end. Excellent video Ben!
This may be the best guitar building video I have seen and no guitars were even built! Thank you for the honest video!
I've started this year using a cheap workmate on the porch. Of course there was a figure in the basswood, making the planing harder but I enjoy the effort in the handwork.
I have found a nice way to support a neck while putting in frets, and it does not cost a single penny. A thin and long slice/wedge of pine, or a slice of linoleum, which one I find at the moment. I just put that under the neck at the fret I'm hammering, and it works perfectly. Works for bolt on necks like a charm and requires no effort of making.
Yup. I’m one who loves electronics and soldering, and hate sanding. Problem is, I prefer acoustic instruments and without pickups, LOL. Really enjoy the structural part of building things, as well as setup and repair. I’m getting better at zenning on the filing, sanding and finishing. Recently shaped a neck, and truly enjoyed doing that. An addition to your measure twice cut once. Always cut on the outside of your line so can sneak it up to a perfect fit. Never cut to finished dimensions.
This was lovely. Masses of passion, which is what it's all about isn't it. Making mistakes is the best thing you can do. You'll think about them every time you're about to make them again. Make 10 Strats. Burn first 8. Repeat.
So glad I decided to watch this video. I’m a recent customer and am on my third build (first two came out as expected…). I needed to hear “know when to quit”. While I learned a lot trying to over due it on my first two, hearing know when to quit has influenced the direction of this current build.
#7 I have always heard it as "Measure twice, Cut once" but YES! This is VERY important!
I started building electric guitars in 1983 , All I had was a router Porter Cable with a D handle , one old Baily smoothing plane handed down , some files and scrapers . To glue the body didn't have bar clamps I used 2x4's to make a clamp with bolts on one side and had a few small c clamps. Made my fret saw out of an exacto that I reduced the teeth to fit the fret . I worked . Later I got more clamps C and pipe clamps and bar clamps , I cut out bodies with a coping saw and hand sanded the final shape. Later I got a table top drill press and a decent jig saw to cut out necks and bodies. I made templates with router guides to route out the truss rod slot. always measuring the guide bush to make certain the route whether a rod slot or pu cavity was the proper size . The worst one was a finger board I spent days hand sawing to shape and slotting and didn't have any idea of using pins to prevent the board from slipping , I always lucked out before. Had to plan it off and start all over.
I knew wood working at 7 my father was a carpenter building custom homes and made cabinets as well , I was always around wood. I did help . I still work with the same basic tools some are better and have more of them yet basically ever body and neck is still besides a router and jig saw done by all hand tools. When I glue up a 2 piece body the joint is the center line and I hand plane the top and back flat by this method as well as the finger board and neck . I use a router for any round over , never had a router table. I have chisels and spoke shaves all are old stanley or sears .
Most were all set necks with home made truss rods. 5 were bolt on neck 4 strat copies and one tele . The tele was just a shape I tried to copy from a photo and the strats I was given a 59 strat trace from some one who once worked for fender and he traced it out for me and I made a template from it using 1/4" thick veneer . Each pick up route was from one template I moved along referencing the center line and spacing on that template factoring it the router guide. It was time consuming yet they did come out proper. Now at 70 I want to build just one more strat neck because I don't like the way one turned out , I bought a spray gun in 85 to paint my car and a touch up gun and air brushes and learned how to paint from books as well as how to build a guitar from three old books / Last strat I used a # 3 passche air brush and stew mac water based lacquer and it turned out the best of all others . I began with a brush and hand sanding to lay down lacquer.
For this new neck if I get the desire going I will make a template off a 2001 plan I have sitting since 2001 and for once be able to at least do the neck shape off a template using my old router. Route out the rods slot before the neck blank is tapered as I always did yet at least have the necks shape and tuner holes and center line all there then I can glue on the finger board and then flush rout it to the routed out neck rather than planing and sanding for days . I dislike making templates yet this time I will give it a shot .
William
Just that "you bit off more than you can chew" by itself is really important. I completed my first guitar back in late June, and it was very different from the initial idea I had in January when I started building (I only had a few hours a week and limited access to tools). Right from the start, I knew I wasn't going to make my own neck, so I bought one off of ebay with a paddle headstock and no tuner holes drilled into it. I was initially going to have some transparent pieces of acrylic with leds behind them, just above the control cavity, but I gave up on the idea because I didn't have a router. I had to make quite a few compromises along the way simply because I lacked tools, time and experience, but still managed to build a guitar I was proud of.
A very humble video! We all make mistakes: Mine among the worst, to be honest. I thoroughly enjoy your videos. You are instructing a new generation of Luthiers!! Your easy going style lures hobbyists into the dark craft lol!!
Aside from that, you are a true Luther and thank you for sharing your expertise with the masses!!
I would say 'knowing when to stop' is the most important lesson to learn but people do need to realise that it is not the same a 'giving in' or 'quitting'. Learning to recognise that a mistake can sometimes be rectified and sometimes not is a crucial skill. People quit when they don't know how to proceed or are disappointed with their results due to bad choices.
+Ian Clarke YES. That is something I still have trouble with after building for two years. It's also in a different way: you should stop when you get too tired and are not focused enough.
And realising that building something is 90% measuring and drawing up plans, making jigs, and 10% actual work on the guitar itself.
Trying to remember what I was doing on Jan 29th, 2016, instead of watching your video. Thanks for your courage to open up such vital insight on guitar building...!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the process of building a guitar for myself out of black walnut wood inherited from my grandfather. Won't be worth anything to anybody except myself as a sentimental piece. Your lessons and videos in addition to others I've watched, have been invaluable. Thanks for the time and effort.
Hi Ray here from across the pond thank you so much for taking the time to share what you have learned,It’s great to see people spreading knowledge about a skill they have learned.
well said
I recently built an electric guitar for my senior project from scratch.
The neck was the hardest part, by far to make, but it sounds as great as the $25 pickups can sound.
Measure , Measure, Cut. I'm building a kit guitar for the first time. I have rebuilt some old guitars in the past & made my own electric bodies. I'm installing a floyd rose trem on a tele kit so I bought some offcut hardwood pieces for $4 AU at the hardware scrap bin. Enough to make 4 bodies & practiced on these before routing the kit body. I also realised I could use the practice pieces to build some one off customs later ( they just look like slabs atm.). Thank You also Ben for the awesome vids.
Sounds very enterprising. Thank you for watching and support. DC
Im just Starting out learning about repairs, So I'm just refinishing a Peavey Patriot and am waiting for the Stain from you. The Purple looks sick !!! Going to change the tone knob to a cut off switch and swap the pick up. Im really excited to work with the Stunning Stains I watched a few videos you did and decided to tackle it. Keep your fingers crossed for me lol
Measure, measure, and cut! Measure, measure and cut! You brought me down in hysterical laughter and then tears. Years ago, I was fabricating a pattern for an O gauge commuter train (yes I do trains too), with a possible production deal. I was doing the front end, making corners sharp and adding nice details rivets and all, and suddenly something wasn't right because it was 5mm short!!! This perfectly killed the project, and took me a year to recover from it. Oh how I know to measure, measure, and cut.
Just finished my first guitar build, there are definitely a couple of these tips I wished I'd seen before making it. I over sanded the neck pocket (or the neck itself) and had to come up with a way to salvage the build. I ended up routing the neck pocket a fraction wider and then surrounded the pocket with brass bar stock. I was frustrated with myself for the mistake (and for the extra couple of tedious hours it added to the build) but the results ended up beautiful. I'm already planning my next build. Now I just need to learn how to play guitar.
Great video, Ben!
I also have a tip for beginners: Start by setting up guitars in need of repair. Understand how to modify/repair unplayable guitars. They are cheap and sometimes free. Experiment with those. If you can make a poorly set up or unplayable guitar playable, you are well on your way.
The advice you give in this video is the best, the absolute best.
This advice can be applied to so many fields of interest.
I really appreciate hearing such crucial advice from an expert in his field.
Ben.... you say your not the best, be that as may.... you are so the most entertaining and personable of all I have viewed on UA-cam. Thank you for all of your videos. I wish I lived in the UK in order to take a course there. Maybe someday.
Thank you for your information I am learning all the time from wonderful people like you. It is just so great to be able to see an hear you telling us what you have learned and now pass on to the public so we can learn from your experiences. You rock man.
First custom build I did, one of the frets was a little high so I tapped it down with a hammer, dented the fretboard and didnt realize I had a scraper on the bench and put a dent in the back as well ! Had to completely redo the neck... Same build I polished the back of the guitar and wasn't happy with the gloss so decided to put more lacquer on and ended up with fish eyes all over it, so had to restain and lacquer the entire back... as you said know when to stop...Sound advice!
Before trying to cut an angled neck pocket in a nice piece of very vintage mahogany, I decided to practice on an old lump of building pine, that was hanging around. I find that the rough finish complements the cat-food tin scratch plate on my Rattycaster.
Guitar building books are expensive but i was fortunate enough to get a good book as a gift, I also have a book on finishing, woods, hand tools, the history of guitar devlopement. Don't regret reading a single one.
Great channel, great delivery-I'm learning and I love it! I have the wood and all the tools I need so am about to embark on my first guitar, watching this channel makes me even more enthusiastic about the challenge-and challenge it most certainly will be but I am relishing it!
I'm about to start on the journey of making a guitar for myself. I found this video very encouraging, so thank you for the benefit of your experience and whatnot.
Brilliant video. Watch your videos all the time and they really do inspire you to think "right I'm going to build a guitar,I'm just going to do it". Everything you touched on though is the exact things those starting out need to hear.
I think everyone has wanted to start out complicated,or think they need every tool because a specific builder uses one(guilty 😅).
I've really wanted to build one for quite a while because of watching your videos but realistically it's very difficult as I don't have a suitable work space(just a back porch) and very limited funds,every tool or material is pushing my limited funds 😅.
I think the problem with most of us is we might watch a video online and as cheesy as it sounds you just get so inspired. Taking on board "don't bite off more than you can chew" and that each area is a skill in itself. For someone who can barely make a box maybe I should perfect the basics to save the headaches.
Sorry for the long message 😅 great stuff as usual 😁
Brilliant presentation Ben, great bullet points. Yes, measure twice and cut once, one of my favourites. Thank you so much, awesome!!
Wow - there are some good points for everyone (all levels of wood working) in this vid. I specifically appreciate that you tell about your own mistakes. It gives your message some weight :)
Truly! Thank you for everything. I will be beginning my journey as a novice luthier and will be buying your tools as a courtesy of all the knowledge you've shared with me. THANK YOU!!!!!
Ben, I can't thank you enough for this video, some of you points I'm following through already. I'm about to start building guitars myself and will need to watch this video more than once, cheers.
Some of the best advice given! Cheers from Tasmania
Glad it was helpful! B
Measure, measure, cut. Something my dad taught me when I was a teenager. Love you videos dude. This one was so spot on. Looking at building my first one from scratch very soon. You've been an inspiration and an encyclopaedia of craftsmanship knowledge. Keep up the great work at crimson guitars 👍
Hey Allan, thank you for your support! I couldn't even stop if I wanted to, and I really don't want to! B
It took me 2 weeks to finish my first strat body to put it in perspective of how long getting something precisely right can take. I'm a mechanic so disassembling and reassembling is something I do daily, the foresight of error is something I professionally try to avoid but I am quick to recover from errors if they occur. This helped quite a bit with my strat body, it gave me the ability to see if a tool was going to cause an error or not, other things I was going to try I deemed impractical as a consistent result was not possible.
A good example of where consistency was lacking and I had to figure out a better way to do it was doing pickup pockets which I attempted to hand chisel,the inconsistency happened in the area of the tool itself where I could not chisel the wood in a manner that allowed for a flawless result. The work around to this to avoid wonky pockets was to use Forstner bits to take a good chunk of the wood out and tidy it up with a router, this worked so well I used it for other pockets.
I respect this work because through my own experience I understand how much work is actually involved.
Also I found good wood at a thrift store that were maple and ash, for the first build of a body. It worked out well.
Thanks for all the tips!.
I’ve just finished my first guitar kit, I’m very happy with it, and I finished it with just nitrocellulose with no stain on the maple top.
I now wish I’d done it in black, so I’ve given it to Sarah my partner as she really likes it, as do I, and I can’t wait to do another one. So I am getting another to do in black for me with some improvements to my skill set.
It will be nice to have ‘his n hers’ guitars.
My kits were from Gear4music in UK, and I would recommend these as a good starting point in building a guitar
quite accurate, i started with strat body just because im unsure with my abilities to make proper neck that won't disappoint me, even with a laser cut plexiglass template i did few little mistakes, even tho i had huge experience with woodwork..so, that is a good tutorial.
Thank you. One valuable competent video after some time.
Do not clamp without a caul on both sides, the pressure marks destroy your work.
Do not lay your workpiece on a dirty table, not even on a dirty cloth or anti-slip mat. A chip of wood or a hard edge of a table makes divots and scratches that show when you least need them, usually too late to repair.
A recent mistake was using a glass plate and floppy sandpaper to get a reference surface. The sandpaper must be glued down. I had it taped at one end so it was flappy at the other, which then rounded over the edges of the work. It was ok because I hadn't yet cut the wood to shape, but if I'd been levelling the underside of a finished bridge it wouldn't have been a good thing
I am fascinated by your videos. Bing watching. You have a great ability to teach. I really wished I lived in the UK just to spend a day or 2 watching and learning your craft. Hell I don't even play guitar. I will one day learn to play. I wish it would be with one of your guitars but that wont happen for years to come. Thank you so much for sharing.
Remember to check the grain of the wood while routing and look out for cracks or abnormalities.
I once had a beautiful neck in solid mahogany that i just whacked away at with the router and it splintered right at the joint.
I managed to fix it with wood dust and super glue but i would have preferred a solid non cracked piece
THANK YOU BEN for the down and dirty! You give us soooo much insight! Thank You!
My pleasure! B
i love your videos, and thank you so much for posting what you do on youtube. It's so much help!
My pleasure, I love doing it! B
I've started modding my guitars and learning how to maintain them. Making every rookie mistake in the book so far but learning from them. Spent hours soldering my EMGs into a Squier telecaster...hours of troubleshooting only to find i had poorly soldered the lug onto the pot and that was the sole reason it wasn't working. Just stripped, sanded and repainted a guitar...so far so good. Plenty of fuckups along the way but nothing I couldn't solve. The most important lesson I have learned is to give yourself as much time as you need and stop when things aren't going well and try again another day. I think i've been 6 weeks on this repainting job but it's been worth it. Had I known 6-8 weeks from the start I might not have bothered but patience is the most important thing to learn. I've had plenty of paint drips to sand down...not letting it dry properly before wet sanding and taking chunks of paint of the guitar etc. I'm already eyeing up cheap guitars to work on and practice with. Will do some fret work on a cheap strat copy ....maybe by next year i will buy a kit guitar and sort that out.
One thing I will remind people who have (like my myself) little or no experience is about resizing holes and splintering the edges if you don't drill in incremental steps or use a pillar drill.
Very good advice Ben. I'm sure I've made all of those mistakes, and some you would never think of. All part of the process.
a good friend of mine made amazing guitars as a hobby. but of the 12 builds he made. he forgot 11 times to put the truss rod. at least he used the good glue to get it off with relative ease with heat. But he cursed at himself. it happens Ben. it does happen
+Danny Wijnsema 11 times? wow! that's got to be a talent :D
He doesn't do the glueing anymore. Not the smartest guy. Smart enough to see his mistake and he has another doing the gluing for him. Marvelous guitars. Too bad he only wants it as a hobby
What a fantastic video, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. I'm just starting out, I've bought a few bits from you recently for my Stingray bass build including one of your spanky precision levelling blocks that came in a giant Toblerone box and I've got some of your Stunning Stains winging their way to me too.
I'm a former engineer but my areas were classic motorcycles and vintage cars, I did mechanical and electrical work predominantly but I also did machining and fabrication so I'm turning what skills I've got onto LuthI..Luther..luthier... making noisy shapes out of wood. I find it very rewarding and so far even with mistakes I'm finding that the results are paying off...
This is a great introduction to building guitars. I'm in the middle of my second build and really enjoying the processes - many helpful tips and thoroughly enjoyed it.
wow.... intelligent approach for the beginner guitar maker (luthier... such an huge word...) thank you!
Old video revival comment but thanks, this is good to hear and I’m at the body only stage and bought in neck. My mistake is always the same, and partly explicable (having so little time) but not forgivable - rushing and ending up with an inferior finish....
Thanks Ben and team
I'm glad I'm not the only one to make mistakes! I think if you are starting out, it is important not to set your expectations too high. The important thing is to learn from them, and as you say, look on you failures as 'student pieces' or part of the learning curve. It's frustrating though if you make them twice!
1. Get a few kit bodies to play with and learn what they screw up ..... you now know the bugbears to avoid.
2. Learn to use a basic CAD program so you can get a company to CNC for you....mainly templates until you want special body blanks
3. Find a timber yard that will square and thicness for you at a cheap rate.....generally involves alcohol and end of day visits
4. Once you have templates the rest is experience and experimenting.
5. Spend money on things that are special like decent pickups, Hardware & specialty tools, Crimson,stewmac etc etc for guages and a slotted strait edge.
Follow these 4 points and then you can begin your adventure into sanding and finishing.
Necks are the biggest hurdle to a newbie.
I would suggest that buying necks and accompanying templates for pockets be your best move early in the piece as they are the cornerstones to a good build and the part that takes the most custom tools like saws,slotting plates carving tools, neck angles etc. Learn to level and setup but buy the necks until you can afford to burn some cash on learning that part.
thank you very much, I've watched this video and another of fretting I am very thankful for your information. have a wonderful day yourself I will be checking into more of your work
Ben thank you for this video. Part of these videos is helping to demystify the entire process, finally you've addressed what is probably the most important--mistakes!
i fully admit that i bought a shinto rasp because of you ben. don't regret it for a minute and it only cost me 20 bucks!
thank you for sharing your knowledge. I wish I lived close enough to follow you around but I guess I will just have to learn through you tube. Thanks again!
Just want to let you know these videos are definitely appreciated man, I'm in the process right now building my first it's going to be cigar box, I'm starting off slow, but I'm trying not to follow in the tradition of using nuts and bolts and nails are frets on a piece of 2x4! your videos are definitely helping me put a little more of an actual guitar touch to it. Just want to say thanks man!
Here's a tip to minimize the frustration and risk when building a guitar, furniture, etc.: Practice on scrap wood until you have a technique, application, etc. solid before trying it on a real guitar, expensive wood (AAAAA figured maple?), etc. First time putting a binding on a neck? Make a few test sections and do it until you've encountered, and overcome the problems. Want to try getting the figure on some awesome flame maple to really pop using dyes? Practice on test pieces until you're comfortable with the process and satisfied w/ the results. No sense in trying it on the finished guitar. If you screw it up royally, all of that time (most expensive part of building), and materials, are in the bin.
Agree. I've done this with furniture building. As a DIY'er I expect I'll have to do certain tasks a few times before I get it right.
Great video, thanks.
I stripped and refin'd a Gibson S-1 that had sentimental value. The electronics had been hacked pretty bad back in the 80's and it had been dropped a couple of times over it's life. I found a small piece of copper mesh in the neck pocket used as a shim and when I reasembled it, the action was way off, playable, but definitely not optimal. I had no desire to try and calculate a neck angle change using high school geometry or pay 8 bucks play shipping for pre-made neck shims, so I measured the action at the twelfth and last fret, figured how much it had to move and glued up piece of maple veneer and hand sanded a wedge that tapered from .010 to .060 in the exact size of the pocket. When I popped that in the action was perfect, completely different playing guitar. That was when I knew I could do this. Digital calipers should be one of the first tool purchases. Most used tool after the sanding block.
Lol. I’m 15 months into my first build. 5 piece multi-laminate thru-neck with padauk wings, stainless steel frets, and a Hannes bridge. Should’ve watched this first. Still having a blast, though
I did the finger sanding mistake to a guitar I've been touching up recently, luckily (sort of) I realised what I was doing and fashioned a sanding block out of a couple of bits of an old table (block with a handle) a couple of screws and sandpaper :) had to sand over the whole back and only lost about half a millimeter of depth and an hour or so of my time
Hi. Just been cruising around your vids after a recommendation from a mate. I have just started making my first guitar (Tele style) under the watchful eye of a friend and luthier. He has been full of praise of my attempt so far. One mistake I have made is to fail to check the depth lock of the router was engaged and managed to dig a hole right through my block of Mountain Ash (Australian hardwood). Easy fix, the guitar went from natural finish to a painted. Unfortunately this guitar is not for my, it is for my Nephews 18th birthday.
I definitely tried to make a multilam neck through for my first guitar, it was a Jerry Garcia style Wolf guitar. I figured after working in a cabinet shop for a little while and learning how to use some tools it would be no problem. Was I wrong!!!! I learned A LOT even though I had to bring all of the parts and materials to a professional builder to finish the project. I was able to glue up the wings and layer the maple and purple heart. After the wings were all glued, I realized that if I made a mistake I was going to throw those hundred dollar pieces of wood right in the trash. Realizing I had taken it as far as my knowledge and talent would allow was very humbling and enlightening. I wish I could post pictures here because in the end the guitar turned out amazing.
What I learned:
I don't know anything about making guitars.
Next time I'll start with a much simpler design, build the body and get a bolt on neck.
Build one out of cheap plywood first and get the techniques down a little bit before cutting into expensive hardwoods.
Get tools as I need them.
Your videos are tremendously helpful and inspiring. Thank you.