Building A Guitar Body - Making A Guitar From Scratch Part 1

This is the first video in my guitar series. I've built several guitars before, but only from kits. This will be my first guitar built entirely from scratch. I'm literally starting from the tree. This video covers how I made the body. Stay tuned for more!

[NikonErik]

That's not "Bookmatching." That's just gluing consecutive boards side by side. Bookmatching would require you to take one of your boards and cut it like a sandwich roll so you are opening it like a book. You glue those two halves together and you have a bookmatched body.

[stylianoscourtney]

In these times we need the return of this legend

[Ibaneddie]

You can use the off cuts from when you cut the body out on the bandsaw as stabilizers when routing out the body. You really only need them around the horns but it works great if you don't have a table router, gives the router a surface to ride so it won't tip.

[billkaroly]

Part Two? I'd love to see the final results.

[Gabe]

You had me at “Im a big Van Halen fan”

[brianramseur]

That yoga mat trick is so smart. Totally stealing that. Thanks and subscribed!

[memematt]

I think its time for a eddie van halen tribute

[andrewjeffries]

Peter, thank you for this video. I respect a man who uses what he has on hand to create something special. I've been wanting to make a new body for my Jazz bass and, as far as neck cavity depth, I have an old Jazz bass body that I routed too much. I can use that. But I appreciate how you figure out how to make the 5150 work. Thanks again, Peter!

[wbartist]

Nice work. One thing that can really help with routing around the horns of the guitar is to put a 1 foot by 1 foot square of 1/4 inch plexi glass on the base of the router so you can distribute the weight of the router over more of the guitar. I wrote this as I was watching. The other option would be to put the template on the bottom of the body and use that router table that you have.

[MrSonnyProductions]

Really keen to see more, I am in the research stages to my own build and thought this was extremely helpful

[manny]

As soon as the router tipped I mumbled "fuck" to myself as if I was the one routing the wood at that point haha.
Looks great so far. I'm going to watch pt. 2 right now.

[bluesbubba]

Great demonstration on the steps for building this strat style guitar. I learned a lot. Love your signs and t-shirt messages as well. Seems to be a lot more of us out there who love working with wood, building and playing guitar. What can we say, He also loved working with wood.

[MikeT]

Awesome video. Cant wait to see the rest

[slappyfist]

The best way to get the neck pocket perfect is to make the guitar neck 1st.
Then you can hold the neck up to the front of the soon to be pocket and measure the bottom of the neck heel. At least it worked better for me that way.

[stewiegriffin]

Almost four years down the line you’ve probably already learnt this, but for curious viewers: Kramer guitars use Fender specs for their neck joints. If you’re curious about how deep you should route the neck pocket, it’s the same as any Fender Guitar: 5/8 inches (16 mm)

[ky_ari]

Dude! When are u gonna make another video on this

[JohnDoe-htvq]

Where’s part 2? I hope you continued with your progress!

[tabularasa]

Got some nice ash, spruce and birch slabs drying out in the shed, gonna give this a go next year with hand tools. I have loads of reliced bits left over from old strats i used to have . I'll probably just buy a neck to bolt on

[alewis]

I’m here a year later asking for a part 2 lol great job!

[crgaillee]

On the collar of your router, look for a spiral line that goes all around the device. Then, notice there is what looks like a peice of metal or plastic that set around the device and scrolls in the grooves. Kinda like a collar. Turn that collar either clock wise or counter clockwise, and you will notice the bit going up or down. It extends and pulls in the bit into the frame so you can adjust the depth of your routing bit. It turns the whole thing into an adjustable depth router. You don't need to get creative when setting the depth doing a job.