The Mistakes I Made On My First Guitar Build

I built my first guitar 20 years ago. This video will explain the mistakes I made and how I overcame them.

[ZLLoVeR]

This video doesn’t dissuade, it inspires 😊 thank you for this 🙏🏽

[MichaelGotiashvili]

This is a very important experience to share and very valuable for those of us who build our first guitars! Thanks so much for sharing it!

[KennethCrickmore-sljl]

My first guitar build was a Mod/rebuild of a cheap Starcaster Strat into an extreme Strat based guitar that I went all out with .. painted the body and head stock in a stars and palnets space theme done with spray cans and airbrushed details finished with 2K semi gloss clear coat. I hand made the custom extended brushed stainless steel pick guard loaded with, count them, 3 quad rail/coil humbuckers wired Like a 50's les Paul with coil splitting. P/P potn for the vol. pots 2 of the tine pots regular style and the bridge tone a P/P to activate the bridge and neck Pick ups together regardless of the other controls.. I retained the Fender 5-way Blade switch and used .047 orange drop tone caps. with this custom wiring scheme I get all 3 pickups together as i want them. added roller saddles and a silid brass replacement Trem block to the bridge. the neck got a titanium nut and the headstock got roller string trees and locking tuners. strung with 9-46 styrings and froated the bridge then tuned it to E-Flat standard like any good Strat should be. Soldering all those connections in the control cavity was really fun. lol I ttook a lot of time getting it all working as designed.. using smaller wire to save space and the fact that the current from the Pick ups is so little( in Milliamps) that traditional wire size is really to big anyway.. My guitar looks good, feels plays and sounds great. I did a few little tweaks. like rolled the finger board edges and polishing the frets. it all works great. I added strap locks to keep it where it belongs. Yes I am very proud of this, my very first guitar project. the first of many more i intend to hand build as I make my collection with my own hands.. next will be a classic style Esquire. with original style wiring. then classic stuld SG JR. with P90's... lol Wanna Play??

[douglassloan]

Man, this video made me feel SO much better about the mistakes that I've made. Thank you so much for posting this. I shall overcome!

[robkennard]

This is my exact journey Chris - I'm keeping a diary of mistakes! My skill level and ambition is improving so the mistakes keep on coming...

[carlosfelipecoygomez]

I am now in my 5th build, and you have just make a precise description of my own experience! Love your chanel man! Best energy from colombia!

[lumberlikwidator]

My first build was started in 1987 and not finished until 1993! Built entirely with hand tools, except for an electric drill. The body and neck were cut from cherry and the top was carved maple. I cut out the body with a coping saw, and I ran into some of the same problems you did with the narrow, flexible blade tilting, requiring a lot of work with a rasp and sandpaper to get the sides perpendicular to the top. Cherry is about as hard as maple. Carving the top was really hard too, and many times I got discouraged and set the project aside for months at a time. The neck was set into the body, and I got the neck angle right just by sheer luck. But I didn't cut the holes for the pickups or drill for the bridge and tailpiece until after the neck was glued in, so there were no problems with aligning the strings over the neck. All in all, the guitar turned out pretty well, and I am still proud to show it to others. Compared to that guitar, my second one was an attempt to build a neck-through design, and that gave me nothing but trouble at every stage. Thanks for your channel and your honest take on the pitfalls and rewards of building your own instrument. And thank you for replying to my comment about filling pores in wood!

[danielmiller]

Thank you for sharing your experiences. Invaluable!

[SweetTGuitars]

Very nice. There's so much truth here. Thank you for you honesty. ✌️

[jdy]

Excellent advice as always!
I've been building guitars for over 30 years and if I had one piece of advice for beginners it would be to plan out very carefully the order of operations. A cut that would be easy and precise when the blank is square becomes a huge challenge if you get ahead of yourself. Be patient and think several steps ahead.
Have fun, enjoy the process and the feeling of pride!

[deanrussell]

Mistakes are great teachers. Thank you for sharing this. Much appreciated.

[slimsantilli]

Great video! The biggest mistake I see novice guitar builders do, is to cut the body shape before they route the neck pocket, and control cavities.

[mulekickhandmadeguitars]

The first cigar box guitar I ever made was for my son too. The next 4 of them were also for him. I've now build around 18 CBG's. As you pointed out, the ongoing quest for the next build to be better than the last does get to be a bit of an obsession.

[brianpetersen]

I built my first guitar when I started college in 1966 and was in a band. I had a Fender Mustang, but wanted a custom body. So I built a semi-hollow, Mosrite shaped body (German carved) with a f hole and moved the Mustang parts onto it. It looked great and played well. I used it for a year, then a local music store saw it and offered me a new Verntura hollow body jazz guitar in trade (I think it was a "lawsuit" guitar), but It was just what I wanted, as I was now playing some jazz.

[jimf]

I just went through a very similar experience - only I was rebuilding a Harmony H78 (much like a Gibson 335), from about 1964. It's actually a nice guitar with three De Armond pickups and a Bigsby vibrato. This was my first time doing ANYTHING with an instrument. I started off with a disassembled wreck that needed repair, repaint (I now HATE lacquer...), rewiring, a new fret board etc, etc. It's now done, and it plays well, and it looks pretty good.

I experienced exactly what you described with the neck alignment, and I also had to do several of the other operations two or three times to get them right. I feel like I have completed a college course, but I still have a lot to learn, and a long way to go! I now want to bring another one back to life, so it is a bit addictive...

Thanks for sharing your work.

[bevinmodrak]

Awesome Chris! Makes me feel not as bad about the mistakes I've made. Wish every builder did one of these videos.

[scottriddle]

I think it is a great subject for a video. I stumbled on a guitar making video by accident and was a player for years. So I started checking out different YouTube channels on the subject and found the telecaster would be the easiest to start with, so I built a tele. It was challenging and took about a year in to complete due to working job and family life . I love it much I'm building a Les Paul style now. Great video too.

[hakancarlsson]

This is really great content for future builders! 👍
Watching pros doing things correctly doesn't teach you the troubles everyone encounters when starting out.
I had a lot of the same problems... Still do 😜 But fixing the small issues is part of the fun!

[j.s.]

It's good that builders explain where the mistakes happen so that others attempting will be very cautious in those areas.

[sparrowhawk]

I think it's good for people to understand that even people who are good at something now...made mistakes in the beginning. I think there are things about our culture and the way people sometimes talk about things, or maybe even the way things are portrayed in media that can leave people with the impression that people who are good at things are just...good at them, and always were. That's basically total nonsense. I'm 40 and I wish I had learned that much sooner in life. Also, I really like what you did with the body on that guitar. Those little carve outs in the middle are very cool looking.