/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>145424
Luthiers build their own fixtures for building guitar bodies, and to make those you need a decent array of woodworking tools. You also need training in how to be a luthier; good luck finding that for free.

>>145427
I plan on taking a few classes. I just need a list of tools and if you can enlighten me about starting, that would be lovely.

I'm starting on my own as well. Not taking classes, im going true /diy/.

Check out www.stewmac.com. This site can provide you with basically everything you'd need to build guitars. Seeing as how you're asking about tools, i'll assume you don't have any books on guitar building, so i'd look at the list of books on stewmac and google and amazon.

Don't buy tools on stewmac, they're unnecessarily expensive, but you can still get an idea of what you need to do yourself. For example, you'll need a bending iron. Stewmac's iron costs $200, whereas you can see how to build your own for $35 at:

soundsalon.com/Make_a_Bending_Iron.html

I'd also recommend a dremel tool, if you don't have one already.

>>145440
thanks a bunch! I have checked out stewmac before, and I was bummed that it was so expensive. I have some experience in woodworking, but I have a feeling that this is totally different.

There's also LMII.com for tools as well.
I'm a luthier. Check out my blog, if you get a chance.
PenderGuitars.blogspot.com

>>145706
I'll be putting up a post today or tomorrow that reviews a few lutherie books that may be helpful, OP.

be careful that you don't buy into too much of stewmac's tools and jigs, many of them are unnecessary.
I'd say the must haves are:
-Sharp chisels
-sharp plane, get a second hand one if you don't already have one. googlize "how to tune a hand plane" to make it perform properly
-sharp spokeshave
-drill bits
-drill
-maybe a laminate trimmer or a router if you wanted to put binding on (probably a good idea to though as it stops the soundboards from absorbing moisture through the endgrain and potentially expanding/contracting and pulling apart the glue joint from the sides or splitting the top/back)
probably a round surform too, not completely necessary, but makes it faster for profiling the neck.
-Plenty of clamps
-a dovetail saw for fret slots and the neck joint
-a hammer
>>145440
>homemade bending iron
-a coping saw for cutting out the tail piece, unless you get one already shaped
-a good sharpening stone either DMT continuous cut or a japanese stone. a word of warning though, japanese stones don't stay flat for long: you can get a ridiculously sharp edge from them, but you do need to know how to lap them properly so I would say go for a diamond stone. When you have sharp tools they behave themselves and do what you want them to, blunt tools are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. A shit chisel sharpened properly is worth a million times more than an expensive chisel that is blunt.

>>145788
continued:

-Engineer's square, more accurate than a carpenter's square and you can measure from both faces
-a pencil
-a steel rule
-sliding bevel

Yeah, good luck.


oh and don't buy wood from stewmac, it's so overpriced it's not even funny. Seriously, $114.84 for a slab of khaya that's actually only worth about $25 at the most!

one more thing: there is so much fucking bullshit about instrument making, take all advice with a pinch of salt, including this one, and try and listen to advice that sounds credible. Not any johnny fucking know-it-all who's made one guitar but is halfway though his second.

Also, check out Frank Ford's page, frets.com. There's a lot of cool shit there.

Thanks a bunch. Anything that is easily overlooked/important to mind when building an archtop guitar?

>>145952
Archtop guitars are a mission to get right. Also you need very specific tools to do properly, like violin maker's planes, pullshave, scrapers (and knowing how to sharpen them properly) wide throated calipers/hacklinger calpiers etc. going for an archtop on your first attempt is diving into the deep end in a pool full of rays when your name happens to be Steve, I really don't want to discourage you from doing things but unless you have some experience in carving I would steer well clear of archtops for now... unless you know someone with an overhead router and lots of money.

>>146525
I see I see. I have some experience carving, but not on this level of detail. What are the steps in making an archtop vs making an electric?

>>146602
>What are the steps in making an archtop vs making an electric?
You mean a solid body electric? Oh, it's much more complicated. For one thing, the archtop is hollow. Check out my blog, I have a post detailing the building process of the one and only archtop I'll ever build. I used a duplicarver, which made the job much easier. It can be done without one, but it would be even more of a nightmare. For the record, my archtop build, despite being simplified by the duplicarver, still was a lot more work than a regular flat top acoustic build. >>146525
>going for an archtop on your first attempt is diving into the deep end in a pool full of rays when your name happens to be Steve
Now that's just horrible. Hahaha. So true though. My archtop turned out nicely enough, but an educated eye exposes a few glaring flaws.

OP, I'd advise that you read and soak up as much material as possible. I've already recommended frets.com, but on the side bar of my blog, there are links to a few more resources, including William Cumpiano's website. Cumpiano wrote THE book on guitar building. Check it out.