Guitar building

Have any of you built a guitar? I’m curious to hear your experiences.

I’ve assembled three, usually with some help. Every time I buy parts, even from the same place (so they know they’re going together and should not screw it up), there’s something up with the parts. For example, my 3rd one, they cut the nut too low and it needed three shims to raise it. I didn’t know how off it was (I could just tell it wasn’t right) or have the shims, so I took it to a pro, who fixed that and then re-did my setup.

If you’ve never built one and always wanted to, I have a video showing how easy most of it is: Gutar building video

Rand

Hi Randy - I've also built 3 solid body electrics ( from scratch, not a "kit") about 10 yrs ago. For the most part I was/am pretty happy with the results. One I sold. One of the remaining 2 I have recently tore apart and am "re-doing" it to see if I can get it to the next level.. so far coming along nicely. I found the most challenging aspect is that, in order to build a truly awesome guitar, you need a pretty big, and expensive, library of specialty tools and jigs. None-the-less, I made do with what I could come up with and there's a lot of satisfaction from showing someone a guitar you made completely from scratch. If U haven't already seen it, there's a youtube video ( 30 parts/about 5 hours long!) of a guy doing a Warmoth KIT strat. Absolutely amazing. I figured out that, for me to duplicate his level of precision and end result, I'd have to invest in at LEAST $700 worth of tools/jigs (in addition to a pretty good assortment of tools I already have). Out of my reach so I settle with knowing I did a pretty damn good job with what I had. Happy sandpapering! ( U know what I mean:)