Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum

Forum Ringside => Tech => Topic started by: horsehead on July 24, 2007, 08:15:42 AM

Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: horsehead on July 24, 2007, 08:15:42 AM
found this when I was looking around the net. Don't know if it's been posted before, but I thought it was pretty helpful
http://www.desopolis.com/midwest/Strat1.htm
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: indysmith on July 24, 2007, 09:58:20 AM
i have NEVER seen a 50s strat with the join in the wood perfectly in the centre. awesome guide though!
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: Elliot on July 24, 2007, 11:37:18 AM
That was pretty cool, thanks.
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: WezV on July 24, 2007, 11:41:48 AM
It a great tutorial that makes it seem really breaks down a strat into managable chunks - then suddenly they start using a duplicarver for everything!!
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: TwilightOdyssey on July 24, 2007, 02:14:16 PM
Very interesting, but ... I'd still rather buy my guitars than make em. PDT_008

As the Dream Theater song says
Better to save the mystery
Than to surrender to the secret



I've never had a desire to have the mysteries of guitar building explained. If it looks nice and plays nice and sounds nice, I'm happy. I really couldn't care less how the pieces fit together!!
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: WezV on July 24, 2007, 03:06:18 PM
i have always needed to know what was going on inside.  When i got my first guitar at 13 i had taken it apart with a month - and i really had no clue how to put it back together!!!!

For me its got to sound nice, play nice, be well built and look good - pretty much in that order.
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: noodleplugerine on July 24, 2007, 03:56:59 PM
Quote from: WezV
i have always needed to know what was going on inside.  When i got my first guitar at 13 i had taken it apart with a month - and i really had no clue how to put it back together!!!!

For me its got to sound nice, play nice, be well built and look good - pretty much in that order.


I took apart my Squier strat with a Power Drill and destroyed all the threads.

had to be repaired at the local for about 2 weeks.
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: Philly Q on July 24, 2007, 04:25:14 PM
Quote from: WezV
i have always needed to know what was going on inside.  When i got my first guitar at 13 i had taken it apart with a month - and i really had no clue how to put it back together!!!!

Me too.  One of the very first things you learn is how to repair the horrible mistakes you've just made....  then hopefully the mistakes get less over the years.  I've never had the get-up-and-go to build anything from scratch like you do, though.

Quote from: TwilightOdyssey
I've never had a desire to have the mysteries of guitar building explained. If it looks nice and plays nice and sounds nice, I'm happy. I really couldn't care less how the pieces fit together!!

And perhaps that partially explains why Ben can actually play guitar and I can't  :( ...  don't know about you, Wez?
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: WezV on July 24, 2007, 04:51:31 PM
My playing gets worse by the day, and it was never that good to begin with - no time to practice anymore!!
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: ToneMonkey on July 24, 2007, 05:12:09 PM
Count me into that.  cr@p on the guitar 'cause I spend too much time guitar fiddling (well, when I'm not sitting on my arse being bone idle)
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: dave_mc on July 24, 2007, 06:45:39 PM
that was sweet, thanks! Especially the lasers...

I always like to know how something works, so I can be too lazy to put it into practice.  :lol:
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: 38thBeatle on July 24, 2007, 07:33:30 PM
That was great- thanks for posting.
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: Nadz1lla on July 24, 2007, 07:47:26 PM
Yeah it was a great tutorial, thanks for posting Horsehead! But I was somewhat perplexed by the duplicarver. It seems like laziness to me. Am I the only one? Also, can't help but wonder if some of what they were doing was really that necessary, mainly around the part where they are fretting the neck.

All these things I will learn in time when I get to that point making my own Axe and go "OOooh, I see now why they did that" and chuck my now useless piece of timber in the bin, lol! :lol:

Wez, did any of that tutorial seem overkill on the technology they used to you? I always imagined making guitars to rely more on traditional methods and a lot more manual hard work on the builder's part. What's your opinion on the duplicarver?
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: WezV on July 24, 2007, 08:37:36 PM
If i was making large batches of identical guitars i would probably build myself a duplicarver.  I think i would still rather do necks by hand - its one of my favorite bits.  i owuldnt mind a duplicarver for doing carved tops though!!!

Even better would be a CNC  - but its gotta take all the fun out of it!!!!

the fretting method was slightly overkill but would certainly give a good fretjob.  I approve of them gluing the frets in place with wood glue because it just fills the gaps around the tang and swells the wood slightly to hold it better.  But the hammering them sideways is unneccisary and would make the fretboard a lot more likely to chip when the frets were removed for a re-fret.

It was unneccisary since they used a press to push the frets in place anway - with slightly over-radiused fretwire the edges get pushed straight down into the slot first, then as the middle section goes into the slot the edges are pushed sideways anyway which is more than enough to stop the fret popping out of its own accord

fender used to push its frets in from the side with a special pulley operated machine - absolute bar-stewards to refret because you have to individually push each fret back out the way it came in - if you try and do it the normal way ,i.e. pulling them out - you can destroy the fretboard
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: Nadz1lla on July 24, 2007, 11:18:25 PM
Hmmm, yeah seems more trouble than its worth, but I agree the gluing is a good idea. Just seeing the overkill kinda daunted me about fretting and making a neck, but now you've said yourself that it is overkill I'm not as worried. I guess they are just trying to get the best end result possible, but I am sure half the effort would still turn out a product fit for the public market.
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: WezV on July 25, 2007, 08:42:24 AM
in 99.9% of the guitars that exist in the world the frets are just pushed straight in and most of them stay there!!!

Adding wood glue to the fret slots isnt really the same as gluing them in - since it doesnt actually stick to the metal.  Some places actually expoxy the frets in place - i suppose then you can call them glued in!!  These are good techniques for eextra insurance because they dont create much more work at re-fret time.  the glue releases quite easily with a bit of heat on the fret but you need to spend a little longer cleaning out the slots

These extra techniques can come in very handy if you have a difficult board to fret - one that doesnt seem to want to hold the frets - but thats more something that happens on re-frets where the slots are getting a bit worn out anyway
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: Nadz1lla on July 25, 2007, 09:02:02 AM
Ah cool, thanks for the info Wez!
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: AngusYoung01 on July 27, 2007, 07:26:42 PM
That was awesome, thanks!  :D

I really want to make a destroyer style guitar, it must be so like, fulfilling playing a quality instrument that you made, and if done right it could be a very high quality instrument indeed!
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: WezV on July 27, 2007, 10:10:48 PM
to be honest - if you manage to get someting thats playable the first time thats satisfying enough

something like the bailey guitars course is a good option if you wnat high quality from your first attempt.  It cost about £1000 depending on spec but i probably spent a lot more than that before i had made a guitar of the same quality you would get from the course
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: Nadz1lla on July 28, 2007, 09:18:37 AM
Yeah that Bailey guitar course looks great! Was going to do it but I really don't have that kind of money to spend unfortunately. Did see their stand at the Guitar show in London and they had a guy there who spent the weekend making a Guitar from scratch so people could watch.
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: WezV on July 28, 2007, 10:37:19 AM
I read about it somewhere but couldnt get to that guitarshow this year
Title: Building a strat...a pictorial guide
Post by: Nadz1lla on July 28, 2007, 02:46:16 PM
I could only go on the Saturday for a few hours, so I couldn't really hang around and watch the demo. Really wanted to though, could have picked up some tips, heh.