MIMF

I recently finished my first scratch-built electric. As a kid, I built one from parts and always planned to come back and do more. I finally got around to it, and I'm very happy with both the process and the results. It was one of those projects where I learned a lot -- i.e. I survived my mistakes, and I made a bundle of them. Some I think I resolved pretty well, some are passable, some are, at best, hidden. I can see a bunch of my errors when I look at it, but, for a first guitar, I'm treating it as charm rather than failures. I do have a couple of steps left to finish (side dots and a cover for the control cavity). In the end, my impatience to play it got the better of me.

I'm pleased with how it turned out and am already working on another.

here are the details, with a lot of construction pictures to follow.

Body: African mahogany
Neck: African mahogany and maple
Headplate: Ebony w/ MoP
Fingerboard: Indian Rosewood w/ MoP laminate strips, 12" radius
Frets: 21, nickel
Scale: 25"
Knobs: Ebony w/ maple
Tuners, bridge, tailpiece: Gotoh
Pickups: Seymour Duncan
Finish: Tru-Oil

The finished guitar A view of the belly carve

For my build process, it was a combination of hand tools, power tools, and CNC -- I started on the CNC. It's a machine that I built from basic materials and a set of plans I bought online, so frankly, I'm pretty pleased with that, too

Getting ready to start CNC routing the back Control cavity routed Top carved and ready for sanding Neck pocket. This was my first big mistake -- a fundamental design error. When I was planning the body, I loved the look of the graceful curve from the bass-side upper bout winding its way down to the treble-side cutaway. Particularly for a first effort, this was both pretty and stupid. Getting the heel of the neck to mate cleanly was really difficult and required some design gymnastics. I'm going to keep those lines straight for the foreseeable future. I had a bunch of templates to help with the power-tool work. I made those on the CNC as well. I always include a CNC-ed center line.

Building the neck was almost entirely conventional woodworking. I didn't use any CNC on the neck except for the templates I'd made on the CNC to help with the headstock shape and the neck tenon.

Neck blank, cleaning up the scarf joint Headplate glued on and truss rod slot routed on the router table I carved the neck entirely with rasps, files, and a spokeshave. By electric guitar standards, I think the neck profile is probably pretty chunky. I did a lot of classical guitar way back when I was in college, though, and the deeper C shape feels familiar to me. I cut the headstock inlay by hand, using an art-deco-ish font I found online as a template.

I made the fingerboard entirely on the CNC as well, cutting a channel for the nut, it's final shape/taper, the 12" radius, and the fret slots on the CNC. This was actually really interesting as a process because I found it pretty difficult to get the results I wanted with CAD tools (I have a few mangled sample fingerboards I turned into kindling). In the end I did all of my shape, radius, inlay pockets, and fret slot calculations on a spreadsheet, then wrote a little program which would take the spreadsheet data and turn it into G-Code for the CNC. I screwed that up once, too (my first try I made a 12" diameter rather than a 12" radius), but once I got the math right it was actually much easier and faster than solving my CAD problems.

Cutting the final shape of the fingerboard Installing the inlay. I'm delighted with the look of the inlay, and even happier that I got it to look good by cheating. I used abalam strips that were already cut to width, and matched my CNC machining to that size. each pocket extends all the way into the fret slot, so I didn't have to worry about cleaning up the corners of tiny rectangles after routing with a circular cutter. I cut the strips to length by hand, but was able to get away with them being a pretty rough length as their ends are hidden under the fret crown. The picture shows little wedges of HDPE I used to make a dam to keep the CA from seeping into the fret slots. Also, the surface of the fingerboard is still very rough from the CNC. I didn't bother machining a super smooth surface, since I knew I'd have to sand a lot anyway. The fingerboard, pretty well completed. I cut my pickup rings on the CNC, too. Frankly, this is one area where I'm disappointed. I started out fine, but got lazy with their finishing process.

Here's the pickup ring before I got lazy. I sanded them against the carved to to ensure I had a matching profile. Headstock with inlay, ready for sanding. I'm sure lots of folks here have had the feeling, but putting my initials into the headstock made me giddy. It was probably my favorite single step of the whole build.
There's also another really serious design error here, possibly my single biggest mistake. I shaped the headstock and positioned the tuner holes so I'd have the strings running straight from tuner to nut to bridge. I staggered the holes enough that the tuner bodies fit around each other, but I failed to account for the little screw on the lug on the body of the tuner. On this headstock, the G string tuner overlapped the body of the B string tuner. I considered filling the holes, repositioning things and solving it, but frankly I'd probably have ended up having to rebuild the whole neck, and I wasn't prepared to do that. In the end, I ground off the little lug. The tuner won't rotate because it's still wedged against the side of the B string tuner, so I think I'm OK. Annoyed, but OK. I absolutely love the knobs. I turned them on my lathe. I used an ebony pen blank I had lying around, cut a slot in it with a hand saw, and glued in a strip of maple veneer to serve as a position indicator. In retrospect, I should have done something to seal the maple veneer before gluing it in. It picked up a lot of ebony dust from the turning and sanding process, and lost some of its pop. Still, I think the knobs are just wonderful.

The body with a half a dozen coats of Tru-Oil. At this point, my wife walked into the garage and said "Wow, it actually looks like a real guitar". I am totally legit.

Also, you can see I added a shim to the neck pocket. This was another big mistake. When I drew up the plans, I determined the neck angle, cutting it into the neck pocket during the CNC process. During my test fits, in retrospect, I had everything correct. At the time, though, I just didn't believe that I had enough angle in the neck to both clear the pickups appropriately and have the bridge at a good height. The shim bought me some room -- too much room. Now that it's assembled, both my pickups and my bridge are, frankly, super high. I should have trusted the drawings and left well enough alone. I glued the fingerboard onto the neck then finished the final neck carve. I did all of my fret work before putting the neck on the body so I wouldn't have to worry about protecting the top's finish. The graceful curve at the heel plagued me for days and days. I just couldn't get the kind of gapless fit that I wanted between the heel of the neck and the body. In the end, I cut off the part of the heel that extended below the neck tenon and I made a rosewood heel cap out of a scrap of fingerboard, sanding it against the body like I'd done with the pickup ring to achieve a final shape and tight fit. Checking to be sure all of my centers were properly aligned. It was dead-on the first time, which I know means I'm very lucky.

A final view of the headstock. I should have made it bigger. I'd have had enough room to fit the tuners in without resorting to an angle grinder and I'd have had a little more wood on top to protect the G tuner from impact with anything on my left side. Also, I lined up my inlay with the centerline of the neck/body/headstock. This was another mistake. Because the tuners are staggered, the visual center of the headstock isn't in its geometric center, so the inlay looks off kilter.
Routing the inlay was, honestly terrifying. It turned out both much better than I'd feared it would and, objectively, pretty darned well, though. And it's my initials, in pearl, in a guitar (squee!) Shielding tape in, wired up, and ready to go. And here it is again, strung up and set. Now I just need to re-learn how to play. And build it an acoustic little brother. And lots of other siblings.

Right on, man! How does it sound? What pickups did you use?

It sounds good, Jason, thought I'm still in my honeymoon period and my not be entirely objective

I used the SD Slash signature bridge and neck, and I like them a lot. Simple 2-wire design, very big and crunchy lead, warm and fuzzy when I dial it back. I think they were a good choice for me.

Looks quite excellent Rich!
I like your unique and original design.
Dan

Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it.

Yeah, that looks pretty nice. I do like the inlay on the neck, and the unique body shape.
How is it for upper fret access?

Thanks, Gordon.

Upper fret access is OK, but definitely not free. The cutaway slopes away from the neck pretty quickly, and my steeper-than-planned neck angle combine to make things a little harder to reach. For me, that's not a big deal, as I don't spend much time that far up the neck