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Home-made Electric-guitar

Josia Schloegl

January 5th 2009

Qatar Academy

Mrs. Turriago

10c

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Word Count: 4087

Table of Contents:

Content Page

Introduction 3-4

Description of the process 4-5

Analysis 5-6

Conclusion 7

Bibliography 8

Appendices 9-11

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Introduction:

Guitars, guitars, guitars, guitars, my entire life seems to cycle around guitars. Some may say it is an obsession, but let’s just say that when I am not in school there is a high chance I’ll be strumming my guitar! I started playing 5 years ago with an acoustic guitar until I knew most of the chords and then naturally wanted an electric guitar. Ever since I got my first electric guitar, I have always been fascinated by how they work. I really wanted to have a guitar where I could control what goes into it and what it will sound like.

Well now with the personal project, I got the perfect opportunity! With the countless hours I had spent online looking at different guitars and guitar parts, I had enough background knowledge to know roughly what it required to build a guitar and I knew it would not be easy. With this thought in mind I decided to go for it, to build my own electric guitar.

My goal was to build a fully functional electric guitar at home. I realized that I did not have the resources to make my guitar entirely from scratch; but I did have the privilege to be able to order things from the USA cheaply. So I decided to use this privilege to order the guitar pieces from the US and then assemble them at home.

The “Area of Interaction” (AOI) I thought would fit this project well was Ingenuity. This AOI is all about the question, “Why and how do we create?” The point of Ingenuity is to make you appreciate the ability humans have to create, invent and improve things. With my goal being to build an electric guitar, I am surely going to learn to appreciate the complexity of this invention and am therefore doing exactly what this AOI is all about.

To make this guitar, I obviously had to have a plan, not only about what I was going to do, but also how I was going to do it. So I made a plan for what I would have to do before I ordered all the pieces:

1. I will have to research what parts are required to construct an electric guitar1.2. I will need to locate a source1 (or possibly multiple sources) from which I can acquire the parts.3. I will need to research the differences and characteristics of the parts and then choose what

parts I want.4. I will need to order the parts2.5. While I wait for the pieces to arrive, I can practice some of the skills required to build a guitar

such as soldering or drilling.6. I have to find tips, tricks and general information on how to build an electric guitar. I will also

have to acquire an electrical diagram of the guitars electronics3.

Then I made a plan of how exactly I would put together the guitar.

1. I’ll Screw the volume pots, the switch and pickups onto the pickguard.2. I’ll solder the electronics on the pickguard together, but not the ground wires yet.3. I’ll solder the ground and live wire onto the output jack.4. I’ll drill two holes for the output jack into the body and screw the output jack to the body.5. I’ll drill the two holes for the bridge claw and screw the claw into the body.6. I’ll solder the bridge ground wire to the claw and leave the rest in the control cavity.7. I’ll solder the ground wires to the volume pot and then connect the pickguard and body.

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8. I’ll test the pickups and fix any problems.9. I’ll place the bridge, neck and pickguard the way I want them, alignment the neck with the

bridge and the pickups.10. I’ll mark the holes for the bridge, the neck and the pickguard.11. I’ll drill the holes for the bridge, the pickguard and the neck.12. I’ll hammer in the bridge’s pivot posts, screw in the pickguard and the neck. 13. I’ll install the bridge and string the guitar.14. I’ll tune the guitar and keep the bridge steady; parallel to the body.15. I‘ll tighten or loosen the bridge springs accordingly until they exert the same force as the strings. 16. I’ll set up the guitar’s action and intonation with a tuner.17. I’ll play the guitar and adjust any problems that may occur!

The Process:

Once I knew what I was going to do and how I was going to do it, I was ready to go. The first part of the project was to find the parts I would need. To find these parts I used the Stewmac4 website. I went through the list of all the things they had and wrote a list of all the parts I would need to get.

Since I now knew what parts I needed, I would have to choose not only a website to order them from, but also the specific pieces. This must have been the hardest part of the research stage! I got most of the pieces from the Stewmac site, mainly because they were all compatible with each other. The only things I did not get from Stewmac were the neck, and the pickups. Since my goal was to make a functional electric guitar, I had to be sure I had a good neck, as this would determine how playable the guitar would be. Since the necks on the Stewmac site were either boring or they were ones where you still need to shape the head, I decided to get a neck I had seen before on the Carvin website5. I liked this neck because it had a nice headstock with pre-drilled holes for the tuners and because the fingerboard was made of ebony. I wanted an ebony fingerboard because I had not had one ever before and thought it looked nice so I really wanted to try one.

The hardest piece to choose must have been the pair of pickups I got. The pickups are the parts that pretty much determine what the guitar is going to sound like; they can make it sound bright, mellow, distorted or twangy. I decided from the start to get Dimarzio pickups mainly because my two favorite guitarists both use Dimarzio pickups, now I had to choose which ones. This process was greatly aided by the Dimarzio website. This site was great for two reasons. Firstly, the site had a chart for each pickup showing on a scale from 1 to 10 how much bass, middle and treble frequencies the pickup picked up. The second thing I liked was the “pickup picker6.” This was simply a part of the Dimarzio website where you could tell the site exactly what pickup type you wanted, where in the guitar it should go, what wood your guitar was made of and most importantly what you wanted your pickup to sound like. So I wanted my guitar to have a warm sound for the neck pickup and a very warm bridge pickup. So then I would have a very full sounding guitar all-round that should sound warm acoustically but also very full when distorted. The website gave you the best three pickup choices of all of their pickups and I ended up choosing the “Tone Zone” pickup in the bridge and the “Air Norton” in the neck because they both had a balanced sound and the “Air Norton” is used by my favorite guitarist.

Once I had all the pieces I made a nice table in excel (see appendix 1) with the exact pieces I wanted, the number of pieces I wanted, what website they were on and how much they cost. This I then presented to my Dad and used as a checklist when we ordered the pieces to make sure we got them all. So now I had all the pieces and just had to wait for them to get here. While I was waiting, I started to do some research on the one thing I was not so sure about and that was how to drill the 4 holes into the neck that I needed to drill7. These holes were critical because a millimeter of error might cause the neck

1) I got this information from source 11, a website listing what pieces the author needed and where he got them from. 2) I ordered the parts from sources 12-14 which were all online stores.3) I got one diagram from source 4 an online forum, and another diagram came with the wiring kit.

4) This is source 12 and is an online store for guitar pieces.5) This was source 13 which is an online store for guitar parts.6) This is source 10, a useful tool on the Dimarzio website.

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to be crooked. I also researched on how to put a pickup into a guitar as I was not so sure about that either8. But once the first few parts started arriving, I was pretty much ready to go.

The first thing I worked on, once all the pieces arrived, was the electronics. In preparation for this I had already practiced soldering with my Dad’s soldering9 iron beforehand. I had to practice two things in soldering, the first was soldering to a connection and the second, soldering to a flat surface, for the ground wires. So once I felt confident I had the soldering under control, I got started. This is when my AOI of Ingenuity came into play, because as soon as I started building, I started figuring out firsthand how people create. I had some problems at first with the soldering but overall it worked out well, especially for someone who has never really soldered before. The plan I had drawn (see appendix 2) beforehand of the electronics on a 1:1 scale really helped me while I was soldering the electronics. The plan was a combination of the general plan that came with the wiring kit and the plan for another guitar10 I needed to see because it had Dimarzio pickups. The plan really helped me understand how the electronics function and what all the wires do, which again showed me how humans create.

When I had completed the electronics and tested them, I was ready to put the neck, pickguard and the bridge onto the guitar and that is when my first big mistake was revealed. I purposely performed a test to see whether the neck was aligned with the bridge and the strings were going nicely over the pickups. It turned out the strings did not go over the pickups very well. First I thought that the pickups were too small. However after some thought on my bridge dimensions, I realized the bridge I had ordered was too wide! I had not compared the measurements of the neck and pickups to the measurements of the bridge well enough. So now we had to order another bridge and this time I was very careful to check the bridges dimensions and compare them to those of the neck. We ordered the bridge quickly from Stewmac so we would get it before the Eid vacation so I could work on it over the Eid. The next surprise came when the bridge arrived. I had ordered it in black; however Stewmac had sent me a gold bridge! First I was angry as I could not send it back in time. But then I thought about it and realized this may actually not look bad and once I lay the bridge onto the guitar to see what it looked like I realized that with a black bridge this guitar would have been boring. So this mix-up made my guitar unique and I am glad it happened.

The last challenge was to put in the two pivot points from the new bridge into the guitar. The reason it was hard, was that they needed a 9 mm hole but at home I only had an 8mm or a 10mm drill-bit and this had to be very exact. So I took the body to school one day and then asked Mr. Elder if he would help me and he kindly did. So we marked out the holes and Mr. Elder drilled them. Once he drilled the holes, I hammered in the two pivot posts and then was ready to install the bridge. This however was also interesting as I used a very funny method to do so11 that I saw on YouTube and it involved spoons. The part that was hard was that for the bridge to stay in place I had to string the guitar which proved to be quite challenging when the bridge was not screwed in place. But once I finally figured it out, I was ready to set up the guitar!

This was the very last thing I had to do before I would test it. I had to adjust the string height and make sure the strings were in tune all along the neck. This was however easier than I thought and I was soon done and was ready to play the guitar. The guitar sounded great, I loved the sound, especially when it was acoustic and the bridge worked fine as well. The only complaint I really could have was that it made a buzzing sound when I did not play, but that is not such a big problem for me. I was just amazed that I had done it; I had built my own electric guitar!

Analysis:

As I stated before, the AOI that I chose to use for this project was Ingenuity. I chose this AOI because I was focusing on the actual build of the guitar, I was focusing on how people build, which is

7) I got this information from source 6, but slightly adapted it myself.8) As a guide I used source 3 a video from a pickup designer on how to replace pickups.9) As a soldering tutorial I used source 2 a video tutorial on soldering.10) Sources 4 and 5 gave me this diagram and some extra information on Dimarzio pickup wiring.11) I got this method from source 1, a video on installing a floating bridge.

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exactly what Ingenuity is about. So because I used ingenuity, the project was not focused so much on the research stage. The construction of the guitar was my focus and it really let me appreciate the skills humans have to create and invent. I obviously did not invent the electric guitar, but building one left me simply amazed at how intricate and developed these instruments have become over time. However I could have chosen another AOI to view this project from.

If wanted to focus on the learning experience of building the guitar, I could have used Approaches to Learning (ATL) as my AOI. ATL is all about the question “how do I learn?” This AOI is designed so that I learn to learn, which should ultimately enable me to learn to do things by myself. So this AOI would also have fit this project well, because that is ultimately what I was doing, I was learning to build a guitar by myself. I did not have a teacher or an instructor, all I used was the internet and my old guitars. So this was a project that really was a test of my approach to learning and I think the learning experience I had was definitely very useful. After I built the guitar I had learned many new things such as how the bridge works, how the pickups work, what the electronics are or even just practical skills such as soldering. So ATL would also really have been an AOI I could have used for this project and would surely also have worked well.

So now the question is why I chose to do Ingenuity as opposed to Approaches to Learning as my AOI. The reason why I preferred Ingenuity over ATL was because of what I wanted to focus the project on. When I started this project I did not necessarily only want to learn how to build a guitar, but what I was really interested in was actually building the guitar. Of course to build a guitar you need to know how to build one as well, but it is not what I wanted to focus on. I wanted to focus on how humans invented and have created such amazing “machines.” So I decided to use Ingenuity as my AOI and I think it fit the project very well!

Now one might ask why I wanted to build an electric guitar at all. There are several reasons for my decision. Since I got my first electric guitar I have always been fascinated with how they work. I spent hours surfing the web for explanations of how guitars work, what different types there were, what is special about them. In fact I would often go to websites for pickups and guitars and try and see, if I would ever buy a new pickup, which one I would pick. I also researched all sorts of guitars, looking at their specifications, and watched movies of them on YouTube. The one thing I also always found interesting was the factory tour movies on YouTube. Whenever I watched these I always wanted to work at a guitar factory. So many of the people in these movies were so happy and got to make the worlds nicest instruments in some cases and were mostly musicians too. So with all this research and knowledge I had already accumulated, building a guitar was something I always wanted to do. I was always in the position where, if I ever met a fairy and she gave me three wishes, I would be absolutely certain of what I would wish for!

So when I first thought of making a guitar for the personal project I realized it would be hard and expensive, but when my parents said they would pay for all of it, it was a dream come true and I could hardly believe what I was about to do. I still remember the day where we ordered the pieces and I was so amazed at how incredible it was that I was now actually ordering the pieces, for real! I never thought I would be able to make a guitar so soon. This project really was a lot more to me than just a school project.

My goal to make a functional electric guitar on my own was one I thought would be close to impossible to do. However I knew what I needed to make a guitar, I knew where to get it, and I knew I could get it, so the only part where I could fail was in the making. I had never really soldered before, only once in school, where I soldered two or three wires together. The warning that came with the pickups advising non experienced customers to take the guitar to a professional to replace the pickups did not help much either. This warning got me worried because I always thought it would not be that hard. To get the product I got, all I did was do everything very carefully. I took my time, double or triple

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checked everything and made sure I was doing the right thing all the time. I think if you do these things, you can do pretty much anything, even at my age!

Conclusion:

In the end I would say this was a successful project, I loved doing it and will never forget it. Making this guitar certainly had an impact on my life. The most obvious impact is just the amount of knowledge I gained in the process of building the guitar. I gained both mental knowledge and also practical skills that I am sure I did not have, at least not to that degree, at the beginning of the project. Then the next impact is that I now have a new guitar to play and one that I like and use frequently. I would not be surprised if I kept this guitar for a very long time just as a memory of my achievement. Building this guitar has also showed me that I am capable of changing components on a guitar. In the past I never wanted new pickups because I was sure it was far too difficult for me to change them. However now at the end of the project I might seriously consider getting new pickups for my other guitar. So I think what this project really did was open a whole new world to me and I think the reasons why many love electric guitars so much is because you don’t only have to be a good musician to play one, but you can also be an engineer and change or build one!

If I were to do this project differently, I might try and make the guitar body myself, or to get a neck where I can change the headstock and make it look better. I would try and find things that would make it more challenging, but then also even more authentic. I would also try and maybe use more pickups or ones with more options to make the instrument more versatile and the build more complicated. During the build I would also not solder all the ground wires to one location. The reason for that is that if they are all connected and there is one mistake somewhere, they are all useless. I got this idea when I opened up my PRS guitar and looked at its electronics; they soldered the ground wires to various components and not just to one volume pot like I did. But all these changes are just minor things that would either make the build more challenging or easier in a small way. So I would say the way I did everything this time was great and I like the outcome too, so most of the process would probably stay the same.

I am very pleased with the final product and would never have thought it would end up looking and sounding as good as it does now. Sure there are little mistakes here and there, but overall I really like the guitar. The only mistake that really has a bad effect is that somewhere something is not quite right with the ground wires, so there is always a buzzing sound while playing. Then there are also other little secrets, like the fact that the body is made for three pickups, but I only used two. It is not really a problem; it was just that Stewmac did not have a body for only two pickups, so I just got a body with three pickup cavities and a pickguard with two holes for the pickups to cover up the hole for the thirds pickup. The last little imperfection is that the pickguard has three holes in it for three control knobs, but I only used the lower two of the three. The reasons for only using two was firstly that I wanted to keep it simple and secondly because the top control knob on other guitars was always in my way. Once again it is something nobody can see because it is very little hole and the players’ hand is over the hole most of the time and I stuck some electric tape over it from behind the pickguard so it is even less visible.

As a conclusion, I think this project was a huge success. Not only a success because I made a guitar and a good project, but a success because I made a good sounding guitar that looks professional and that I will be able to use it in the future. I am sure I will take this guitar with me, or at least keep it somewhere with me in the future as it is my first home made guitar. The other thing that this project has done is that it has let me see that I am able to get new pickups for my other guitar and get some better parts for it to improve it. So I am very excited to see what these skills will help me accomplish in the future, maybe I will make my own guitar company or a repair shop, who knows?

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Bibliography:

Assembly Tips:1. Floating Tremolo Adjustment Video . Prod. James. Online video. YouTube, 2007.2. Soldering 101 . Prod. Allan Drick. Online video. YouTube, 2006.3. Seymour Duncan - How to Replace Pickups in a Les Paul . Perf. Seymour Duncan. Online video.

YouTube, 2008.4. "Wiring for an RG620x w/DiMarzios." Weblog post. Jemsite. 03 July 2008. 29 Sept. 2008

<http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f21/wiring-for-an-rg620x-w-dimarzios-74560.html>.5. "Ibanez to DiMarzio pickup conversion." Weblog post. Jemsite. 08 Feb. 2007. 29 Sept. 2008

<http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f35/ibanez-to-dimarzio-pickup-conversion-66233.html?highlight=replace+dimarzio>.

6. "7 steps to neck install." Weblog post. Telecaster. 12 Feb. 2008. 26 Jan. 2009 <http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-tech/98038-can-i-drill-mounting-holes-neck-myself.html>.

Pickup Sound & Help:7. Engl Blackmore Clean Tone . Online video. YouTube, 2008.8. Carvin DC127 . Online video. YouTube, 2007.9. Meshuggah - sane . Online video. YouTube, 2007.10. Pickup Picker . Dimarzio. 10 Sept. 2008 <http://dimarzio.com/site/#/pickuppicker/>.

Pieces:11. "How to build a guitar." Rick's Software Website. 18 Jan. 2009

<http://www.reesley.com/guitar.html>.12. Stewart-MacDonald: Everything for building and repairing stringed instruments! 18 Jan. 2009

<http://www.stewmac.com>.13. Carvin.com - Guitars, Amplifiers & Pro Audio . 18 Jan. 2009 <http://www.carvinguitars.com/>.14. Musician's Friend | Your Online Music Instrument & Pro Audio Store | Best Prices, Great Service .

18 Jan. 2009 <http://www.musiciansfriend.com>.

Personal Photos:15. Neck and bridge alignment test, Doha. Personal photograph by author. 23 Nov. 2008.16. The guitar and my amp, Doha. Personal Photograph by author. 28 Nov. 2008.17. The back of the guitar and neck joint, Doha. Personal Photograph by Author. 27, Nov. 2008.

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Appendix 1:

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Appendix 2:

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Appendix 3: