Project Start
I started taking guitar lessons last year. My instrument is a Classical Style Acoustic guitar. I chose a classical guitar because it has a 2" nut, which is perfect for my big fat fingers. After a while, I became interested in electric guitars also. Electric guitars have much smaller string spacing, which made it difficult for me to play. Big Lou Guitars makes a Strat Style electric guitar with a 1 7/8" nut, and they also sell necks with 1 7/8" and 2" nuts. I decided to buy a 2" nut neck from them, and to tackle the body my self to make an electric guitar that I could play.
Big Lou neck.
I purchased a one piece alder guitar body blank from Classic Tone Woods.
The routing templates came from Ron Kirn. If you are interested in building a guitar, Ron also has a great step by step tutorial.
The first step is to make working templates out of 3/4" MDF from the Ron Kirn master templates. Why? Because at some point, the router will ruin the working template. Better to ruin a working template than the master template!
I traced the template onto the alder blank, cut it out on the bandsaw, attached the working template and routed the basic shape and tremolo cavity.
Then I discovered my first "oops!". I had processed the body blank through the Timesaver to 1.5" thick instead of 1.75". Dang! I decided to forge ahead and make a thinner Strat. It turns out there are thinner Strats out there. At least is will be lighter :-/
I started taking guitar lessons last year. My instrument is a Classical Style Acoustic guitar. I chose a classical guitar because it has a 2" nut, which is perfect for my big fat fingers. After a while, I became interested in electric guitars also. Electric guitars have much smaller string spacing, which made it difficult for me to play. Big Lou Guitars makes a Strat Style electric guitar with a 1 7/8" nut, and they also sell necks with 1 7/8" and 2" nuts. I decided to buy a 2" nut neck from them, and to tackle the body my self to make an electric guitar that I could play.
Big Lou neck.
I purchased a one piece alder guitar body blank from Classic Tone Woods.
The routing templates came from Ron Kirn. If you are interested in building a guitar, Ron also has a great step by step tutorial.
The first step is to make working templates out of 3/4" MDF from the Ron Kirn master templates. Why? Because at some point, the router will ruin the working template. Better to ruin a working template than the master template!
I traced the template onto the alder blank, cut it out on the bandsaw, attached the working template and routed the basic shape and tremolo cavity.
Then I discovered my first "oops!". I had processed the body blank through the Timesaver to 1.5" thick instead of 1.75". Dang! I decided to forge ahead and make a thinner Strat. It turns out there are thinner Strats out there. At least is will be lighter :-/