I'm currently developing a project for building my own self-designed guitar (solid-body electric).

I wonder if any members have experience in guitar building so we could share some knowledge.

Cheers!

Gerard

Hello, Gerard!  I own many fine electric guitars, all factory made except for my Hugh Manson fretless bass! 

I admire you as I've wanted to do exactly what you are discussing! 

One way to do this is to buy components pre made, i.e precut body, premade neck, wiring harness etc.  

This is not terribly creative however, so you may be considering your own body design. 

Selection of building materials is incredibly important.....if you make an electric with a wood body, you have many options.  

I've very fond of this Brit builders guitars, they are close to what I'd consider my own ideal! 

http://www.giffinguitars.com/" rel="nofollow - http://www.giffinguitars.com/

This is me with my handmade Manson fretless bass!!  Have fun! 

Yes I knew about your custom Hugh Manson bass, which looks terrific!

And those Giffin guitars look very very nice too!

I want my own self-designed body and my own self-decided specs, so I discard a "kit build". The guitar will be built from scratch.

I own a '93 Carvin DC-135 which is a pretty good guitar, so my custom guitar needs to be as good as, or hopefully better than, the Carvin. So it's got to be a really high quality guitar, as you can see in the specs below I am choosing top quality components.

This is my design, I'm talking to luthiers to actually build it and it may still get some small modifications but I believe it's already pretty close to final design stage.

I'm calling my custom guitar the "GB Cygnus X-1". Cygnus X-1 is the first black hole discovered and I like physics and astronomy so it fits. It's also a song by Rush, one of my favourite bands, so it fits too. And since it's going to be my first guitar design, X-1 fits too. So triple fit with this name 

The specs so far are:

- Neck-through construction

- 25.00" scale

- 24 frets, in principle in stainless steel

- Fender LSR roller nut

- Neck-through wood: tbc, but in principle maple or walnut

- Body wings wood: tbc

- Fretboard wood: tbc, in principle ebony

- Fretboard radius: 12"

- Dual-Action truss-rod

- Titanium or carbon neck stiffener rods

- 3+3 headstock, straight nut to machine heads strings path

- Sperzel Trim-Lok machine heads

- Original Floyd Rose tremolo bridge

- Pickups: I'm still considering 2 options, HSH passive or HSH active. 

   In case of passive: Bridge: DiMarzio Evolution Bridge, Middle: DiMarzio SDS-1, Neck: DiMarzio Evolution Neck

   In case of active: Bridge: EMG 57 TW, Middle: EMG SA, Neck: EMG 66 TW

- In case of active pickups, integrated "Lo-Bat" low-battery indicator

- Controls: 3 mini-toggle switches, one for each pickup. Bridge: 3-position Off / Single-Coil / Humbucker; Middle: 2-position Off / On; Neck: 3-position Off / Single-Coil / Humbucker

   1 master volume + 1 master tone. Position markers on body.

- Colour: translucent grey including neck and headstock. All hardware in black.

- Finish gloss: Polyurethane

Now I'm at the stage of visiting luthiers, I do not dare trying to build it myself, the risk is too high plus I don't have a workshop space, in live in a small flat in the big city of Barcelona.

I will keep posting any news about the project,

Cheers!

Gerard

No building experience but I know how hard it is to make a really good guitar.  May you have a wonderful & educational adventure.

The updated specs are:

Now the luthier will order the hardware and we will all go to some deserved summer vacation, and I hope that he can start beginning of September.

Some things will be done with CNC, so the first thing will be to develop my computer 2D design (which I made with Inkscape) into a 3D design made in AutoCAD.

The neck-through is 3-piece laminated maple, and the body wings are mahogany

The fretboard is already machined, it's ebony

That's something i've always wanted to do. One of my favorite guitarists, Bumblefoot, has made his own guitars with his own hands. His Swiss Cheese guitar is now legendary.

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I trust the luthier who is actually building it, he seems to know well his trade. 

In terms of playability it should feel very similar to my Carvin DC-135 since we are copying its neck shape. But the pickups are very different so it should sound different, I have never played EMG active pickups so it's a bit of a gamble but I trust that it will be a good choice.

 

I was an early adopter of Carvin, buying a 1976 DC 150!  Odd instrument - VERY short scale length, heavy as heck (solid maple body), but a favorite of mine.  Back in those days, Frank Zappa endorsed Carvin pickups, and a few other rockers endorsed guitars, basses & amps. 

http://kieselmuseum.com/1976/" rel="nofollow - http://kieselmuseum.com/1976/

Yes, actually I don't know the precise sourcing of this ebony fretboard, the luthier had this piece and showed it to me and asked me if I liked it and I said yes, it's more original and special than the typical black fretboard 

What are you thinking in terms of pickups?

I gotta say Gerard, I've been following this build all along and it looks magnificent. I grew up in a woodworking house. My dad was a professional draftsman and master wood worker. Mostly furniture and home reno type stuff. I'm a fair wood worker but I really admire the talent you display here.

How many guitars have you built?

(edit)

I just went back to the beginning of the thread and started reading everything. Suddenly noticed you weren't building it by your own hands. Oops. Nevertheless, a beautiful looking piece of wood.

  

I consider myself a handy man, I have worked with wood and metal and I'm very meticulous and perfectionist, but I did not dare to attempt the build myself, and thank god that I didn't. 

I didn't have any experience building guitars and by following up the work of the luthier I realise that it's a real art. You need quite a lot of knowledge, expertise, practice, access to sourcing good raw materials, besides having the space and all the tools required. You can do a lot with your own hands with limited tools, but proper luthier-specific tools save you a lot of work and allow much more precision. 

And some things you just can't do them in the same way, for the fretboard for example he used a CNC machine and you get a precision which is very difficult to get by hand.

Plus, it's a lot of money. The risk of making some mistake and messing the whole thing up was too high.

But I'm still happy I can say that I did the design and decided all the specs, and apparently I did it quite well, the luthier congratulated me for my choices and he did not have to change practically anything from my original design and specs.

But if I want to paint it translucid, light grey is not an option because of the orange-brown tone of the mahogany. I am limited to warm colours such as red, orange, brown... or either leave it with a natural wood finish.

I need to think about it and make my mind up quickly...

Thanks. Red would surely look nice, but I have already a translucent red one, an Aria Pro-II, even if I rarely play it nowadays. We will see...

Thanks JD, I'm sure it would look beautiful, but it's so different from what I initially had in mind that I need some time to reset my mind about it. And I wanted some contrast with all the hardware, which I already have and it's all black. Perhaps some brown which is not too dark... 

I've got a 12 string... those things take up nearly a whole afternoon to re-string and tune up again 

I've never had a 12-string but I can believe they must be a pain too...

Now installing all the hardware and electronics, it's getting close to finished!

Thanks buddy, I can't wait either!

This was fascinating to scroll through.  I appreciate the photos.  I hope it is the instrument of your dreams.

If you don't mind disclosing, what did this set you back?

A lot of money... I chose all first-class components and selected the best among the local luthiers, at the end of the day it's gonna be close to 4,000 €.

I don't wish to purchase one at this time.

Designing the trussrod cover with the guitar name

And testing the engraving of the name

And it sounds great too! Quite oriented to hard / heavy playing but with a modern sound, and it sounds also great when played clean. I also appreciate that it makes no background noise at all.

Now I just need to re-learn to play, since it's been quite many years without playing. 

I'm posting here a lot of pics 

The guitar came out a bit heavier than I would have liked, the mahogany used for the body wings is very dense, 4.032 kg (8.89 lbs).

And here it is finally in my "guitars wall", now it's time to play!!  

Thanks buddy!

If you check the last pic, my "guitars wall", you can see that it's not that big in terms of body size, compared to the other 2 electrics (the blue one is a Carvin DC-135 and the red one is an Aria Pro-II CS-350, and the bass (A Peavey Fury II).

However the body is somewhat thicker, and the mahogany used for the body wings is surely denser and therefore heavier than the poplar of the Carvin or the ash of the Aria.

I would have liked it to be a bit lighter, because I don't play gigs but sometimes we rehearse for 3 or 4 hours. But now it is what it is, and in any case it's not obscenely heavy, as I said 4.032 kg or 8.89 lbs, around the weight of a PRS or a Gibson ES-335 and even a bit lighter than a standard Les Paul.

Would love to tinker on something too, but don't have access to a decent workspace anymore. Have toyed with kit guitars in the past which was fun... but the current project is kind of on old. Attempting to make a midi guitar since the Misa Kitara died on me lol.

Frets N Worries wrote: Looks amazing! How does it sound?!

The Cygnus X-1 feels and plays very nicely, the action is set very low but there is no fret buzz at all. The frets are nicely polished and the feel is very smooth, also when bending.

I had never played with EMG active pickups and indeed they have a very good output power. I also appreciate that it makes no background noise at all, certainly less than my Carvin. I will need to learn to feel when the batteries start to fade out, which is a little concern. Originally I had thought about integrating a low-bat led indicator but the luthier discouraged me from doing so since he says that they are not really accurate and that I will learn to feel it in the sound.

I still need to discover a lot in terms of sound, especially coupled with my effects pedalboard (a Yamaha GW50). I chose a pickups switching scheme with individual toggle switches for each pickup, the 2 humbuckers have 3 positions off / single / humbucker, and the middle single coil has off / on. This means that selecting a certain combination is a bit slower than with a 3 or 5 way switch, but it allows for many more possible combinations, so I will have to experiment quite a bit with all of them.

I play with 0.009 - 0.046 strings so the tone is hybrid, with bright high frequencies and mid-low bottom.

At first impression it sounds very good, rather oriented to hard / heavy playing but with a modern sound, and when played clean it sounds very nice too, of course it's a superstrat, it will never sound as a semi-hollow guitar, but it sounds pretty nice and warm for this kind of guitar.

I've been following this thread in silence, but with interest. Thanks for sharing this nice project with us, the result is beautiful. I hope you will find a lot of joy playing it!

Thank you! 

Thank you! Yes, the investment in money and time are very significant, but I'm very pleased with the final result