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It seems that a lot of people on this forum like the idea of modding or customising their guitars. People are often talking about refrets to change the fret size, pickup swaps, tailpiece swaps, pickguard changes etc etc. I am of similar mind, and often find that particularly at the cheaper end of the market, that not many guitars really look particularly inspiring or have just what I would like at the time.
I recently bought a Chinese guitar "kit". Actually less of a kit, more of a body in white as it just needed lacquering a loom, and bits to be screwed on. Stupidly it had huge f holes cut ( that I reduced in size) and holes all over the place but none were where I wanted them. The general quality was tolerable, it needed a lot of fettling, and I bought quite a few new parts and made a pickguard and bridge base, but at least I was able to make a better guitar for the price than I could have bought fully made I think. However it has left a lot of very cheap bits that came with unused, and pretty much unwanted by anyone.
It got me thinking, wouldn't it be nice if there were better kits on the market, perhaps even just pressed fronts, backs and sides and a decent neck that the buyer could build totally to their spec. Would people go for such a thing, or would people be more likely to want something already guitar shaped, lacquered and fretted but not necessarily with hardware?
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01-11-2018 06:42 PM
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Hello Jerome
You could be onto a winner with this idea. If I could have found better kits I may not have got so involved with building from scratch and endless modifications. Archtops especially! Having said that I do get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from making and modding. When a build or mod is finished and the jack goes into the amp, well the anticipation and satisfaction is equal that of the trout taking a home tied dry fly (I also used to make my own cane rods). Stuff just has to be made! Or am I obsessed?
Despite saying I was not going to make another guitar I have some 10 year old Sapele to carve a top and have just ordered 30 year old European Walnut (from Portugal) for the back and sides oops! Got to do it now. Well the kitchen extension is nearing completion and I have some of the parts required to complete the build so it just has to be done. It will be a slimish archtop with sides of 70mm (2 3/4") more will be revealed later, inspiration is coming from the ES LP and other small archtops. A combination of ideas. I may even give progress reports and photographs on this forum.
I have not forgotten the veneers I promised you. The workshop has been used to store building materials and have not been able to reach them.
Keep in touch
GrahamLast edited by Mellow-G; 01-12-2018 at 07:31 AM.
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Top stuff Pidgey.
I'm always up for modding and fettling. It personalises your instrument to oneself.
Just don't go bludgeoning your L5's
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I do less guitar tinkering than I used to, having made a few "partscasters" and now got all my guitars pretty much how I like them. But it's all been very beneficial to me - one very handy thing I learnt is how to level and re-profile the frets, plus cutting nut slots and making and fitting a new nut if needed. Also just knowing what's goes on with guitar electrics, and being able to fix or change anything I might need to. With the electronics, in the main I've been on a journey which started with me liking circuits with extra switching options for different pickup combinations and so on, but eventually coming to the conclusion that simple, with access to a few good tones, is better.
But along the way, I've also found that I like lower value tone capacitors than stock, what taper pots work best for me, I like a certain kind of treble bleed circuit setup on the volume pot, what type of pickup specs suit my needs, what brands of pots/switches are best, how I prefer to shield a guitar, exactly how I like a guitar set up re action, neck relief etc. - It's great to be in control of things and not reliant on (and having to pay) a guitar tech.
I'm intrigued to know how you reduced the size of the f-holes plasticpigeon? That must have been quite a tricky operation! The results look great anyhow, a terrific-looking guitar you have there.
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I was an auto mechanic for well over a decade before I physically had to change career path and go into IT. I got into IT by way of me hot rodding computers (overclocking/watercooling/etc) and went back to school for it.
I have a natural tendency to want to take things apart and rework/rebuild/restore it. Given my druthers my dream job would literally be a "Mr Fix-It" shop, where I would just hunker down over a workbench and return things to their former glory and/or hot rod them like crazy.
Mod-able kits. Interesting idea. I like it. It to a degree has been done (Precision Guitar kits comes to mind immediately) with solid body guitars, but not archtops (Precision does have a 335 kit, but I digress).
Full on hollow kits, customizable by a checklist during ordering. Hmmmm. Very interesting indeed.
I think the only drawback to this is how many are up to the task of wiring these beasties up? lol
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Maybe something like this?
Archtop Guitar Kit
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The neck is the key to a great playing guitar. The neck supplied with most kits leave much to be desired. You can use them but I often just replace the entire neck and use just the body and some of the hardware. With my last kit, I was able to use all the parts and have a great playing guitar when I was done (see photo) but the tuners were a bit too cheap and will probably get replaced by the new owner. I enjoy building kits because you can experiment with finishing and electronics and you can get good results but there will be worthless parts left over. There are all kinds of kits out there and keep in mind you can not return guitars to China the return shipping is too expensive.
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Most of the work of a scratch build with this kit. It is more like a serviced parts collection than a kit. Most of the parts that are there could be gathered together for less than the cost of this kit but it would simplify a first build.
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Ha ha, yes, like that! However I think pre bent sides at least would be good, and the kit is far too expensive, it needs to be in the hundreds to make any sense. $1300 + tuners + pickups + lacquer + effort > $Gibson Es-175! Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Thanks, reducing the f hole size was a very low tech exercise. I didn't mind the shape, just they were very big, so I bound them with 2mm cream binding. A bit of a pain to bend round the tight corners, but an improvement in aesthetics from my point of view. The dark sunburst was chosen for a reason, it obscures a lot of the little repairs and changes!! I'm sure that was why it was invented! Originally Posted by Meggy
I'm intrigued to know how you reduced the size of the f-holes plasticpigeon? That must have been quite a tricky operation! The results look great anyhow, a terrific-looking guitar you have there.
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One of my pet peeves is the low bar for 'mod' -- the Webz is full of people bragging about 'modding' their guitar with different colored knobs and such. For me, modifying means permanent change, generally by adding or altering holes. Originally Posted by plasticpigeon
Your work, PP, that's modding. Nicely done!
If I were putting in ALL the work to build that kit I'd want solid tonewood. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
In particular, they don't seem to have routed the neck block for the dovetail joint. That is a complex task with zero room for error! Originally Posted by Matt Cushman
Back in the 80s I scratch-built a flat-top guitar. I decided to use a mortise-and-tenon neck joint (with glue) because it's a lot easier to make a square peg and a square hole than a tapered half-blind dovetail. Really!
When I scratch-built that flat-top I used something like this machine from LMI. It added cost but left me with enough confidence to take on the project. Originally Posted by plasticpigeon
Building is much more about enjoying the process and hopefully the result than it is about saving money. Originally Posted by plasticpigeon
Every time I hit the switch on my home-built amp and it doesn't blow up brings relief and even pride. I dig it -- maybe I can't play for squat, but at least I built the shtuff that's making that mediocre noise!
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That is exactly what has kept me from trying to build a guitar. That looks like a really complex, zero-margin-of error step! Originally Posted by Sam Sherry
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They do exist. See ACME-ARCHTOPS.COM. There are a couple of other sources as well, but I can’t remember them. I have seen these used to make beautiful instruments. Originally Posted by plasticpigeon
But if you think you are going to build a guitar for less than a factory, you’re missing the point of a factory. The whole reason factories exist is because it is cheaper to build compared to what a hand built item costs. If you want a guitar built from cheap Chinese parts, buy a guitar from AliExpress. $350 and you are all set. If you want the joy of hand building something you will love the rest of your life, find the best parts. They generally don’t come from China.
BTW you can get beautiful necks from Andy Birko at Birkonium CNC Services. Not cheap, but several respectable builders have raved about them.
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... I can so relate to that ... I had electronics that would have made NASA proud :-) one guitar I made had over fifty different sounds ... all thoroughly mediocre (as Jeff here always says - versatility is overrated). Now , it is just the classic tones. Rather than trying to make a Tele sound like a Les Paul or vice versa, have a nice Tele and a nice Les Paul and be done with it. Originally Posted by Meggy
I also had with with Piezo pickups on my archtops. Just dump them all and be done with it. They always sound awful. Just today I watched a YouTube video with Pilip Catherine and Larry Coryell. PC was playing his 175 and sounded glorious (his playing is also stellar, that helps) and LC had such an awful piezo tone that killed the entire performance IMHO.
... oups, sorry for being OT.
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I'm talking about something that someone can make into a decent guitar but without doing all the donkey work, and then choose what bolt on bits they want, a way of doing something enjoyable, and allowing experiementation in a way one wouldn't want to with a top quality instrument without breaking the bank. Not everything is a binary choice. Thanks for the lesson though. Originally Posted by rlrhett
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The easiest way to cut the body mortise is with a holding fixture and a router setup like this. These are not that hard to make but for one guitar it is a bit more than you need. A good mortise can also be cut by hand with a saw and a sharp chisel or two. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Yeah, I know! Wouldn’t that be awesome. I would love that for a motorcycle too. Wouldn’t that be cool? Someplace I could get a frame, motor, and all the important bits, but be able to monkey with things like the tank, exhaust, and paint job. And without having to order a custom built bike for Originally Posted by plasticpigeon
!
Oh well, maybe some day.
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Actually, the origin of tinkering has to do with working and mending tin. Maybe something like this is more appropriate.
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I made a classical guitar from a Grizzly kit a number of years ago--very basic and not too high quality, but learned a bit about construction and finishing, in particular how not to apply lacquer...
I also modded a Tele, which ended up becoming more or less a partscaster.
Stew Mac has some nice flattop and uke kits, but no archtop kits per se. They do have equipment and parts and books and DVDs for making archtops.
GFS has a number of kits which look very appealing and look to be of decent quality. Haven't tried them though.
Guitar And Bass Kits
I think the problem with high-end kits is that the market for that is very small. People nowadays don't want to make stuff with their hands the way they used to--want everything shrink-wrapped and cheap. With the low price of most foreign-made goods, who can blame them?
Remember HeathKit stereos?
I remember back in the day when owning a computer was literally a hobby. I made more than one from scratch, installed my own boards, wrote code, etc. etc. Nowadays I have to say I much prefer my MacBook Air...
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I enjoy building guitars, doing repairs and customizing. One day, after slotting a ebony board, I compared it to a ‘62 Gibson of the same scale, and noticed the fret locations in the middle on the ‘62 drift back gradually, amounting to around .040” at the worst, and then creep back to match at the final frets. This has caused me to wonder if I should pull the board on the ‘62, which has already seen a couple mods. I have some seasoned ebony and some cocobolo so dark it puts Brazilian to shame. I understand why there is a discrepancy, being gang cut etc...but I never imagined the error would be so great. Thus, I thought I would ask pitch minded persons their opinions on the matter.
The subject drifted up on one of Ed Roman’s Gibson descriptive narrative, and he remarked only that he had never thought of this. (A luthier had brought this to his forum). Otherwise, I have found virtually no reference to this mass produced yet evidently accepted flaw.
On the subject of fret position accuracy, I have read in some old school (pre CNC) lutherie books that .010” is pretty much accepted as typical deviance, and that the ear will accept it etc.... The example I describe is off the mark, at least .040, and I bet most here would hear this.Last edited by 335; 01-27-2018 at 04:19 PM.
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