Anyone Made Guitars Entirely by Hand?

[D_W]

When I say that, I mean from rough stock. There are a LOT of options to buy pre-made, pre-sawn/planed/sanded parts for guitars, which isn't what I'm talking about. Nor am I talking about the common method of buying a pattern and then roughing all of the parts out with a router.

I'm going to start making guitars to go with the tools, because there are some elements in guitars (archtops and acoustic guitars) that are on 18th century clocks, and I'd eventually like to make a couple of those, perhaps in a decade or so, including making the clock movement and face.

I don't see a musical instrument forum here, but most of the places where there is one, the work being discussed is very commodity-ish (making les paul and fender telecaster/stratocaster copies, etc) and CNC oriented. I'm looking more for like hand thicknessing guitar tops, etc, and hand making necks out of solid stock.

 

[Tasky]

Not watched any of it yet, but I know Matt Eastlea on YouTube is doing a guitar-making video series of some kind... Might be a good starting place?

 

[D_W]

I already have materials to go from. Not sure if he's a guitar maker (the guy you're talking about), but that's who I'm starting with - luthiers. Someone here told me that if I was going to cap off the making with an archtop to get a book by Benedetto (a famous luthier who was nice enough to write a book about making guitars).

I'm sure there are a lot of woodworkers who could make a decent guitar, but it's sort of like if I made a video about making clocks. I don't make clocks. I could make an "OK" one to make a video, but there's probably no lack of information from pros.

 

[profchris]

Me, for one!

This current thread:

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/a-slightly-oddball-guitar-t111602.html

is documenting the build I'm doing at the moment.

I've described it as oddball for two reasons:

First, I have no plans but am designing it as I build it. It's loosely based on pre-1945 parlour guitars, and will have a floating rather than a fixed bridge.

Second, it is built freehand rather than by making moulds and then using those to line everything up. So if you are thinking of a series of one-off instruments, it might give you some ideas.

I have around 50 ukuleles and a tenor guitar under my belt, all of which play pretty well, so I have reasonable hopes of this one.

I also wrote a very detailed thread on building a ukulele last year, but it was destroyed by the great Photobucket scandal which means the pictures have disappeared. I made a .pdf - if you'd like that, PM me an email address.

There are two online sites which discuss acoustic guitar making in depth:

http://luthiersforum.com

http://www.mimf.com

Full of more information that you could digest in a year, and worth registering for.

 

[D_W]

Thanks, Chris! I like the idea.

I did buy one kit (from stew mac here in the states) for a D-28 style guitar so that I'd have the parts to look at loose in hand and learn the ropes with that. But nothing else after that.

I like the idea of a parlor guitar (that was what I actually intended to make first - spruce and cherry once I get to it), but I chickened out and got the kit first.

I've never seen a parlor guitar with a raised bridge (though I'm sure there are many). Hopefully, you'll post a video of it when you're done so that we can hear it.

I have spent a lot of money on guitars in my lifetime, but all before or right around when I started woodworking. I got the "dream guitars" that I wanted and realized that what I really want is just to play and have a guitar that I don't care if it gets beat, so I'm going to swap out my remaining "dream guitars" for guitars I don't feel like I have to play in the center of a carpeted room.

 

[thetyreman]

there are some classical luthiers that still make them entirely by hand as far as I know, but obviously they are in the higher end bracket for sure, including the price tag, if it's a first guitar then don't expect it to be incredible, I've heard it takes building many instruments to become great at it...

 

[D_W]

I expect the first kit to be playable, and the rest to be, too. I'm sure the guitars that I've bought in the $3-$4k range are better than anything I'll ever build, but they're a liability to have around kids. Or, I guess I should say, the kids are a liability around them.

Hopefully, building tools and a lot of other things entirely by hand will help. I have access by phone to a good luthier if I get stuck.

This is all part of my grand plan to avoid building boring furniture!! (not boring furniture sounds attractive at some point, but i'm out of space in the house.

 

[profchris]

As a furniture maker you have all the essential tools. Soundholes can be cut with a scalpel blade in a batten, other tools you can make or improvise (look up gramil, used for cutting binding channels).

I'd say the hardest parts are:

Developing a feel for how the wood will behave, for thicknessing the top and bending the sides.

Building in scope for humidity changes. 2mm thick plates will crack if you don't.

Believing that this impossibly light structure will hold up to the string pressure, and then daring to make it lighter still.

Getting neck, top and bridge all lined up. Or it won't play at all.

Finishing - we all curse about this.

Some things are easier - almost all joints are simple ones, glued up oversize and trimmed back to a perfect fit.

And you might want to think about hot hide glue, if you don't already use it. I will be glueing the back on once the humidity drops, and HHG will let me do it in easy stages rather than as a one-shot operation. Though Titebond Original works as well for everything except, maybe, glueing the bridge.

You'll have fun, as well as getting swearing practice!

 

[D_W]

Thanks, Chris. Fortunately, I'm more of a toolmaker than furniture maker. I've pained over grain orientation, shrinkage considerations, and making little one-off tools than most probably have.

what I'm missing here is the sense of what's doable and what's not, but that seems to be best learned through experience (and I'm OK with that).

I've noticed over the years that the bad guitars that I've had (which includes Gibsons new from an authorized dealer) have errors that really are inexcusable, and I can avoid those. Errors of ignorance, maybe not so much.

I've also had guitars with the bridge in a place so that the guitar can't intonate, or with a bias to one side of the fingerboard or another - fortunately, seeing the consequences of those will help for error avoidance.

I've got the skills to do the finish work by hand, but one of the things I'm hoping to do on the acoustic instruments is actually go with very thin finishes. The best sounding acoustic guitars I've ever had have had minimal finish (as a matter of cost level), and have been boomers.

I don't expect that I won't make significant mistakes regardless of any of the above, that's part of the fun (the risk). It means that there's an opportunity to learn. Making bad tools taught me to make really good ones. Making ugly designs taught me to seek help in learning what makes good ones. Making bad guitars....let's just hope they're no worse than mediocre, and that the problems are fixable!

And....jeez....why is 3a red spruce so expensive? I have guitars with red spruce on them. I thought they were just yanking my chain with a $300 upcharge. It looks like I was lucky that it wasn't more.

 

[profchris]

Red spruce I can't help with - I mainly recycle wood.

But if you think it through, guitar wood is going to be expensive. Structurally you need, for the top, wood which is as near perfectly vertical grain as possible with no defects. Maybe one board in 20?

Resawing wastes a lot of wood and some boards yield nothing usable. It eats blades.

Then guitar tops are graded on appearance. I'd guess yours is AAA or equivalent which means very tight and even grain - maybe one in 20 of what's left?

And red spruce is in high demand.

All the selection, cutting and grading is pretty time consuming too.

But I'd suggest building your first top from a $30 A- piece. If that goes brilliantly you can choose whether to use it or to swap for the red spruce. But if your rosette cutting destroys it you'll be glad you started on a cheap top.

And the cheap top could even sound better (or worse, sound is a lottery if you don't select yourself) - all the extra money pays for is appearance and scarcity!

 

[profchris]

I forgot to add, thin finish is the way to go. If you can cope without full gloss and don't mind visible pores, a few coats of shellac rubbed our and buffed works very well.

 

[richarddownunder]

Hi - just in the process of making my second. The first was done with minimal investment in jigs etc, but it plays remarkably well. This new one, I'm doing 'properly' so it'll be interesting to compare - making jigs, radiused dishes, moulds etc is a big part of the effort. At this end of the world there is another forum: http://www.anzlf.com/ which I have found really helpful as a newbie.

I've recently invested (and I mean invested as they are expensive!!) in a pair of books: http://www.goreguitars.com.au/main/page ... _book.html that are very detailed and cover most aspects of guitar making that you'd wish for - although the sequence of topics takes a bit to follow.

Whether it is really practical to make everything without the use of power tools is debatable I suppose. Cutting the rebate for a truss rod by hand could be done with a rebate plane but a router is easier. Cutting the steps for bindings would be very difficult without a router I'd think, but folk do similar on violins. However, I have done all my thicknessing from rough stock to 3 or 2.2 mm by hand, all the bracing and neck shaping. That is covered well in the books. There are plenty of other books as well (Kinkead's for example which is a good place to start IMHO) but most don't stand alone - you have to consult several to get the combination of techniques that suit you. There are many important things to think through with guitars such as humidity control, how you'll bend the sides and so-on. I have found making guitars (1 and a half so far... and harps) has presented the biggest challenge to my woodworking ability and has developed my use of hand tools quite a bit. It is also very satisfying to play them (even though I'm pretty hopeless).

Cheers
Richard

 

[Nico Adie]

Check out TK Smith guitars - he makes everything except the machine heads himself and his guitars are stunning.

Also there's a guy called Elisha Weisner on the Electrical Audio forum who's been making acoustics for a while, and his are also stunning. Go to the Electrical Audio forum, Tech Room sub-forum and look at the woodworking thread from about page 120 onwards.

 

[D_W]

Hi - just in the process of making my second. The first was done with minimal investment in jigs etc, but it plays remarkably well. This new one, I'm doing 'properly' so it'll be interesting to compare - making jigs, radiused dishes, moulds etc is a big part of the effort. At this end of the world there is another forum: http://www.anzlf.com/ which I have found really helpful as a newbie.

I've recently invested (and I mean invested as they are expensive!!) in a pair of books: http://www.goreguitars.com.au/main/page ... _book.html that are very detailed and cover most aspects of guitar making that you'd wish for - although the sequence of topics takes a bit to follow.

Whether it is really practical to make everything without the use of power tools is debatable I suppose. Cutting the rebate for a truss rod by hand could be done with a rebate plane but a router is easier. Cutting the steps for bindings would be very difficult without a router I'd think, but folk do similar on violins. However, I have done all my thicknessing from rough stock to 3 or 2.2 mm by hand, all the bracing and neck shaping. That is covered well in the books. There are plenty of other books as well (Kinkead's for example which is a good place to start IMHO) but most don't stand alone - you have to consult several to get the combination of techniques that suit you. There are many important things to think through with guitars such as humidity control, how you'll bend the sides and so-on. I have found making guitars (1 and a half so far... and harps) has presented the biggest challenge to my woodworking ability and has developed my use of hand tools quite a bit. It is also very satisfying to play them (even though I'm pretty hopeless).

Cheers
Richard

Thanks, Richard. I have routers to do the work, but generally don't use them for much (I've got to install a corian countertop soon, though, so they'll get used for that).

I intend to make purpose-built tools for cutting the step on the binding, and will probably cut the truss rod recess with a flooring saw and chisels/gouges. It can be done faster with a router, but there's not a whole lot in volume in terms of joint work, so it'll probably cost me an hour or so.

If there is a different look for a guitar made completely by hand without sanding, it's what I'm looking for.

Practical in the sense of economically doable for someone making money - I'm definitely out on that count, already.

(that guy is proud of those books!!!! They're about the same price as gold waverlies here in the states!)

I'm in dry (as in never water intrusion) basement with decent humidity control (at least where the materials are). My shop is in a partially underground garage, and for all but the coldest days, the humidity is high and controllable easily with a dehumidifier (easier than the other way around). if the temperature stays near zero overnight, the garage will get a bit dry and I'll be forced to put the whole setup in a box with some wet sponges and a cigar hygrometer, but that should be seldom (I wouldn't be able to build guitars at that point, anyway, because the shop will be too cold for hide glue).

I can always build planes in the winter!

 

[D_W]

Red spruce I can't help with - I mainly recycle wood.

But if you think it through, guitar wood is going to be expensive. Structurally you need, for the top, wood which is as near perfectly vertical grain as possible with no defects. Maybe one board in 20?

Resawing wastes a lot of wood and some boards yield nothing usable. It eats blades.

Then guitar tops are graded on appearance. I'd guess yours is AAA or equivalent which means very tight and even grain - maybe one in 20 of what's left?

And red spruce is in high demand.

All the selection, cutting and grading is pretty time consuming too.

But I'd suggest building your first top from a $30 A- piece. If that goes brilliantly you can choose whether to use it or to swap for the red spruce. But if your rosette cutting destroys it you'll be glad you started on a cheap top.

And the cheap top could even sound better (or worse, sound is a lottery if you don't select yourself) - all the extra money pays for is appearance and scarcity!

Torriefied sitka looks like a good starter option here. 3a sets of it from a local supplier are about $50. I see a lot of engelmann spruce (which is presumably more of a thing for classical guitars or something with a softer top), and there are low grade red spruce tops for about the same price as torriefied sitka (and yes, the guitar that I have with adirondack spruce - a bourgeois - probably has higher grade wood than I'll buy unless I think I've got the process nailed and build a guitar that would warrant it. I think cheap is more appropriate in my case for a parlor guitar. I'm hoping to make everything but the tuning machines. If a guitar looks good, I'll put waverlies on it. If it's not great, that's sort of like putting ferrari wheels on a chevy celebrity. There have been periods of greater than a year that the bourgeois has sat under the bed in favor of getting out junkier guitars around the kids, and it's still always in tune when it comes out. I love the waverlies (and elixirs) if there is a justification for their cost.

 

[richarddownunder]

Practical in the sense of economically doable for someone making money - I'm definitely out on that count, already.

I'm also just doing it for the 'fun' ... I wonder if it can be called that sometimes as there is a big investment of time and the slightest slip can result in disaster when you are dealing with 2 mm thick wood. I just use power tools when I think they can result in a more precise result. I'm not a purist in that sense. Each to their own...

(that guy is proud of those books!!!!

To be fair, there is a heck of a lot of work in the books. The first one is a fairly academic treatment of the physics of guitar making, sound harmonics and so-on, interesting but not that helpful in a practical sense. The second tome is very comprehensive instructions for building - they also describe a removable neck joint well. I started with Kinkead's book and then got the others to fill in the gaps. Whatever the case, as mentioned, there is a bit of set up cost for guitars with or without books.

 

[thick_mike]

I’ve made one (r*ckenb*cker copy), using a combination of hand and power tools.

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/for ... 1/1128796-

I had done next to no woodworking at that point and feel like I would do a much better job now. I would love to build a big ugly G*bson O style at some point.

There’s a great arch top build thread on harmony central by ajcoholic , but it looks like some of the photos have bitten the photobucket dust...

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/for ... 1/1228621-

I have salvaged a couple of pianos from skips with mahogany carcasses and spruce soundboards that provide plenty of suitable wood species for building guitars. You get a good appreciation of how strong hide glue is as you disassemble them! It’s not a straightforward job, but it’s a real learning experience.

 

[D_W]

Practical in the sense of economically doable for someone making money - I'm definitely out on that count, already.

I'm also just doing it for the 'fun' ... I wonder if it can be called that sometimes as there is a big investment of time and the slightest slip can result in disaster when you are dealing with 2 mm thick wood. I just use power tools when I think they can result in a more precise result. I'm not a purist in that sense. Each to their own...

(that guy is proud of those books!!!!

To be fair, there is a heck of a lot of work in the books. The first one is a fairly academic treatment of the physics of guitar making, sound harmonics and so-on, interesting but not that helpful in a practical sense. The second tome is very comprehensive instructions for building - they also describe a removable neck joint well. I started with Kinkead's book and then got the others to fill in the gaps. Whatever the case, as mentioned, there is a bit of set up cost for guitars with or without books.

Unfortunately, there's little that I can do better with power tools (due to lack of exposure), and I don't want to jinx myself, but it's exceedingly rare that I mess something up terminally with hand tools, but quite common that I'm throwing away an appreciable percentage of stock with power tools. I just think more like a hand tool user.

I think I may make an MDF form with aluminum or steel edges and run it with light bulbs (to bend the sides). George told me that some of the archtops and acoustics have the same side profile (like the SJ-200 and the Super 400 gibsons).

In terms of the books, i figured as much. I think no matter how good your book is, if the subject is intense, the buyers will be relatively few and you'll never make much off of it. Organizing an effort like that is as difficult as reciting the material (probably more difficult, it would be for me) and if you skimp on editing, they end up being difficult to follow (but to be fair, someone looking for the eggs in it will do the work to read it and find them).

 

[richarddownunder]

Sounds like a good plan for bending - can you bend the bindings that way? The other thing I skimped on first time was the radiussed dishes. I have made them this time and they have made things more precise - easier to be sure of geometry when gluing. I guess I'll find out in the end whether they were worth the time to make (and you do really need a router to make them )

Cheers
Richard

 

[profchris]

I think I may make an MDF form with aluminum or steel edges and run it with light bulbs (to bend the sides). George told me that some of the archtops and acoustics have the same side profile (like the SJ-200 and the Super 400 gibsons).

I really wouldn't bother. Light bulb benders take a long time to heat up, and the waist (which is the hardest bend) tends to be too cool.

You could just make a bending form and buy a heat blanket. Heat the wood and use cauls to clamp it into the form.

Cheapest is a steel pipe and a heat gun on its hottest setting. Once you get the feel of it you'll break less wood, because you'll feel the spots which don't want to bend and thin them some more.

Either way, use a metal backing strap to reduce the risk of cracking on the outside of the bend (my thread, linked earlier, shows what can happen and how I recovered it).