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SPECIAL REPORT: BUILD YOUR OWN GUITAR
Recently I was contacted by fellow Gearhe@d Jason who had
decided it was time to build his own guitar from the ground up
and did I have any advice. Well this got me looking through the
parts supply catalogue books and checking out the web for guitar
parts. So for this article I thought I’d point you in the
direction of some "must visit" websites I came across for those
of you considering building your own guitar.
WD Music Products Inc. STOP PRESS. We at the humble Tone
Pit that is 1-800-Instruments now import WD guitar parts into
Australia. From a pickguard screw to a fullhouse USA made Custom
guitar, we can supply the full monty. E-mail Doug for a
catalogue TODAY. mailto:doug@1800instruments.com
One of the first places you should visit is the WD Music
Products site
http://www.wdmusicproducts.com/
they can supply you with everything you need, from bodies
(finished and un finished) to tremolos and pickups.
WD one of the largest after market parts producers for electric
guitar and bass. The company was started in 1978 by current
owners Wendy and Larry Davis with the intention of supplying the
after market with quality pickguard reproductions. At that time,
there simply were no replacement pickguards available from
anyone other than the manufacturer, and even this was fairly
uncommon. While Wendy spent the day cutting pickguards in the
Davis' basement, Larry was on the road selling them to local
music stores and repairmen. Pleased with the product and service
that WD was providing, several customers began requesting other
parts that they were having trouble finding. Wendy and Larry
continued to add to WD's inventory, and the business has grown
from those humble beginnings into a full-service guitar parts
supplier with distributors in: Canada, Mexico, Norway, Finland,
Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel, Croatia, Switzerland, Sweden,
France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Korea, Italy,
Russia, Brazil, and the U.K.
WD supplies a large number of guitar manufacturers and luthiers,
including: Jackson/Charvel, B.C. Rich, Modulus Guitars, Pedulla,
Schecter, Reverend, Melobar, Spector, Fodera, Guild, Ernie
Ball/Music Man, ESP, Fernandes, G&L, Hamer, Heritage, and
Peavey. In addition to our OEM clientele, WD supplies parts and
accessories to Harris-Teller, Davitt & Hanser, Musicorp, and St.
Louis Music, as well as over 4000 music stores and repairmen in
the US alone
WD offer some great replacement Necks For Guitars & Basses. Is
your neck ready for an expensive, time consuming re-fret? Is
your truss rod at the end of it's travel? Does your fingerboard
have more pits and grooves than a washboard road? Would you like
to change the sound of your guitar? If you answered yes to any
of the above questions, then WD's replacement necks are the
ticket for you. WD necks feature: USA eastern hard rock maple
construction. A choice of birdseye or straight grain maple. A
choice of ebony, rosewood, maple or birdseye fingerboards and
can come Pre-finished.
They also have "Deep Six" Baritone Conversion Necks. What is a
baritone conversion neck? Put simply, it's a neck that bolts on
to your existing instrument and extends the scale length,
allowing you to tune your guitar down to a "B" without loss of
string tension or tone. Best of all, the Deep 6 Conversion Neck
requires no permanent modifications to your instrument!
When a standard scale-length guitar is tuned lower than normal,
the strings become slack and lifeless, which seriously affects
the "snappy", or "twangy" tone that guitarists love. By
increasing the scale length to 27.67", the effect of detuning is
minimized and the instrument can effectively be tuned to a low B
without sacrificing tone. With the Deep 6 Conversion Neck, it's
as simple as removing your guitar's neck and bolting on the Deep
6 Conversion Neck. After some simple intonation adjustments the
instrument is complete.
The Deep 6 Conversion Neck is available for standard Strat® and
Tele® neck pockets, with either rosewood or maple fretboards.
WD also sell Kent Armstrong Pickups distributed exclusively by
WD. A brief history of Kent Armstrong: In the early 1970's, Kent
got his start rewinding pickups in his father, Dan Armstrong's
New York City repair shop. Eventually, Kent took over the shop
and added a partner: pickup designer Bill Lawrence. With Bill's
help, Kent continued his accumulation of pickup knowledge, and
it was at this time that he started building his first pickups.
After moving to England to attend college, Kent opened a rewind
and repair shop and started designing new ways to manufacture
his own line of pickups. Today, Kent is one of the foremost
pickup designers in the industry, and years of listening to what
the customer wanted to hear has culminated in the WD pickup
line. With his designs for WD, as well as his handmade pickups,
Kent still has one goal in mind: To give every player their
dream sound
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STEWART MACDONALD GUITAR SUPPLIES
http://www.stewmac.com/
These guys are my idols, one day I hope to service Aussie
guitarists with the same range and service that Stew Mac provide
to USA guitarists. Stewart-MacDonald offers a complete line of
hard-to-find tools, parts, and accessories for building and
repairing stringed instruments. They also offer a wide selection
of instruction books and videos covering all aspects of repair
and building. Whether you are just getting started or you're a
seasoned luthier, you'll find what you need in the STEW MAC
catalogue. They also offer an Unconditional Return Guarantee. If
you're not satisfied with an item for any reason, simply return
it.
In the late '60s founders C. E. Stewart and Bill MacDonald
decided to build a banjo they could sell for $100. To finance
their project, they began selling parts and in 1969 they mailed
the first catalog, a simple flyer listing ten items. The company
earned a reputation for innovation. Stewart-MacDonald introduced
the revolutionary 5-Star banjo head, the first banjo head that
didn't pull free from its metal ring. They were also the first
to sell banjo kits and parts through the mail. They have master
builders and repairmen on staff who develop and test the
products that they offer.
You'll notice that the Stew Mac catalogue is packed with helpful
tips and I really love getting the catalogue in my mailbox every
few months. The Guitar Shop Supply catalog is 108 pages —
updated every 3 months — with everything you need for building
or repairing acoustic, electric and bass guitars, banjos,
mandolins, violins, dulcimers and resophonic guitars. A popular
section is Trade Secrets, written by Dan Erlewine, director of
technical development for Stewart-MacDonald and a columnist for
Guitar Player magazine.
The Stewart-MacDonald web site is also a fantastic place to
learn how to build your own guitar, check out the contents of
their Trade Secrets On-Line it is like a guitar course on-line,
from finishing tips to wiring secrets, it’s grouse!
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WARMOTH
Are located in Washington State on the Pacific Coast of the
United States and is a "Must Visit" website
http://www.warmoth.com/
Warmoth been crafting fine necks and bodies for over 18 years.
Because they build their own parts in the USA, they can offer
you far more options and custom details details like deep,
sculpted contours, neck, bridge and wiring holes pre-drilled,
clean, crisp routing and fine sanding to 220 grit. They also
offer you the largest selection of routings, woods. Warmoths
website is very slick and well laid out with lots of great
pictures of the bodies and necks they make. They supply necks to
Yamaha (900 Series Pacifica), necks and bodies to Valley Arts
(Custom Pro Series), Pensa-Suhr, Sadowsky Guitars and many other
quality-conscious builders. They use select woods and proven
construction methods, these really are top shelf guitar bodies
and necks. They also sell finished bodies to your requirements,
with some beautiful staining and dead straight "natural binding"
al la Paul Reed Smith. There are cheaper parts available, but
these bodies and necks are really top of the range.
As well as great bodies and necks Warmoth also sell guitar
hardware. The chrome, black and gold platings are very heavy and
durable, and the buffing is beautiful. Our stamped parts are
done cleanly, without burrs and jagged edges.
One New Guitar Part that really interested me was the NEW
Warmoth Baritone Neck, my last band tuned down to C# exclusively
and one of these necks would have been a Godsend. I always had
to trade off low tuning for lack of crisp attack. Tuning down
meant 10 gauge strings go slack and floppy, moving to higher
gauge strings helped with that but I sacrificed attack, a
baritone neck would have allowed me to tune down AND keep string
tension and hence attack.
These Baritone Necks feature the following:
Will bolt directly to your Strat® Body with no modifications and
convert it into a baritone.
28 - 5/8" scale length works well with standard electric guitar
strings.
1 - 11/16" nut width.
Hard maple neck with your choice of Maple, rosewood or ebony
fretboards.
Your choice of any of our 5 fretwires.
Keyholes reamed to fit your preferred tuning machines.
Strat style peghead.
WARMOTH Sell Worldwide! By FAX: (253) 848-2415
By Snail Mail: Warmoth Guitar Products, Inc.
6424 112th St. E. Puyallup, WA 98373.
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ALLPARTS at http://www.allparts.com/ is also a great
place to source your guitar building supplies. The website
doesn’t feature many pictures of the items but the prices look
good so it is worth a visit. Here is a brief history on ALLPARTS.
ALLPARTS have provided guitar and bass parts to wholesale and
retail customers world-wide since 1982. Over the years the
business expanded and the parts became more varied. ALLPARTS was
started in Houston but relocated in 1985 to Katy (25 miles west
of the city) to increase warehouse and staff space. The ALLPARTS
necks are now licensed by Fender* and come marked that way on
the back of the heel. The studs that come with stop tailpieces
have USA threads so there is no problem using them on
American-made guitars. ALLPARTS is America's exclusive
distributor for ABM hardware and Razor Pickups. ABM is a German
company that specializes in high quality, machined brass parts.
The Razor Pickups are a high quality, custom pickup line.
For more info visit online at http://www.allparts.com/
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EXOTIC WOODS at http://www.exoticwoods.com/ is the place
to visit if you want to go the whole hog and actually start your
guitar with a lump of wood.
The company was founded in 1975 by Gulab Gidwani, to provide
musical instrument woods to Gibson Co. So if you own a post 1975
Gibson Guitar you probably have a guitar that started its life
at EXOTIC WOODS. From such humble beginnings, they have grown
over the years to provide musical instrument woods to major
manufacturers of stringed instruments, woodwind instruments,
pool cues and custom cabinetry. At present, they stock more than
a million dollars in inventory, of approximately 50 different
species of wood, at 5 locations in New Jersey, approximately 20
miles southeast of Philadelphia, PA.
As EXOTIC WOODS have their own vacuum kilns and
de-humidification kiln, they are one of the very few companies
in the world who provide kiln-dried Ebony. They also offer
milling services such as re-sawing, dimensioning, planing,
gluing, thickness sanding and dowelling. For small manufacturers
of stringed instruments, they provide fret-slotting, profiling
and radiusing of fret boards as well as fret wire, truss rods
and mother of pearl inlay materials. All the woods for musical
instruments, pool cues and other applications are hand selected
per customer specifications.
For more information here are the details;
Exotic Woods Company Inc.
444 Erial-Williamstown Road
P.O. Box 532
Sicklerville, New Jersey 08081
Phone (609) 728-5555
Orders 800-GIDWANI
Fax (609)728-6262
Email: gulab@exoticwoods.com
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JEANNIE CUSTOM PICKGUARDS at http://pweb.netcom.com/~pickg/pw1.htm
This is a great place to get that fancy pickguard of your
dreams, want a black pearl pickguard for you old Hagstrom but
want it to take a P-90, a Strat coil and 1 Humbucker??? No
problem Jeannie can custom make one for you. Also you can
replace your old pickguard with a new one of the exact same
shape, if you have the original they can make you a replacement.
They have most of the early pickguard templates, if not there is
no charge to make one from your old pickguard. They also have
replacement Bodies necks and parts.
For more information check out their website at, it has some
great photos of some very good looking pickguards, fine them at:
http://pweb.netcom.com/~pickg/pw1.htm
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MELVYN HISCOCK’s "MAKE YOUR OWN GUITAR BOOK"
If you needs some reference material to start you off in
Luthiery, then check out MELVYN HISCOCK’s "MAKE YOUR OWN GUITAR
BOOK". It’s a great reference for someone just starting off in
Luthiery and ready for their first serious guitar building
project. Melvyn Hiscock has been making guitars since he was 16.
His first instruments were awful and showed a complete lack of
understanding of even the most basic principles of woodwork and
guitar design.
Having made all the mistakes it is possible to make and having
learned from them, he is in a unique place to pass on this
knowledge and to help the reader avoid some expensive pitfalls.
After almost a quarter of a century of guitar making, he has
truly mastered his craft and is able to pass this on in an
informative and entertaining manner.
The first edition of Make Your Own Electric Guitar became the
standard book on the subject. The new edition is sure to
continue this. The new edition of Make Your Own Electric Guitar
is now available direct from the publishers. Already widely
regarded as the best book on the subject of electric guitar
building, the new edition contains much new material. With
chapters on designing your own guitar, wood choice, the tools
for the job, truss rods and fingerboards and with three guitar
projects that cover most of the main design styles of electric
guitar, the book is comprehensive yet easy-to-read and
informative.
The new edition also contains information about assembling
guitars from component parts, an enlarged wiring chapter,
setting up the guitar and a comprehensive list of suppliers
across the world.
Published price is £16.95 plus £2.00 postage and packing (£3.00
outside UK) from:
NBS Publications, PO Box 6292, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England,
RG21 5YX
Mailto: melvynh@globalnet.co.uk
Distributed in the United States of America by:
TRAFALGAR SQUARE PUBLISHING
P.O. Box 257, Howe Hill Road,
North Pomfret,
Vermont 05053 USA
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MANNMADE GUITAR PARTS
EVERYTHING BUT THE WOOD.
http://www.mannmadeusa.com/
Some of their customers include: PRS Guitars Ltd, Tom Anderson
Guitarworks, Chapin Custom Guitars, DiMarzio Inc, Fishman
Transducers, Gibson Custom Shop, Harmonic Design Pickups, Mike
Lull Guitarworks, Terry C. McInturff Guitars, Parker Guitars,
Peavey Electronics, Sid Poole Guitars, Zion Guitar Technologies,
Mike Stevens Electrical Instruments, WD Music Products, among
many others. Join the growing family of satisfied customers who
demand only the best! They stock all the other metal and plastic
parts you will need to make your dream guitar, components such
as bridges, pickguards, knobs, neck plates, and other hardware.
You can check out their website at: http://www.mannmadeusa.com/
MannMade USA TM designs, manufactures and sells "top of the
line" guitar and bass components. Every part in this catalog is
manufactured to exacting specifications by skilled craftsmen in
our modern factory located in Franklin, New Hampshire, USA. John
Mann, founder and president of MannMade USA started designing
and building guitar parts in 1979 after meeting and
collaborating with Paul Reed Smith, founder of PRS Guitars®.
Together, they developed and designed many items, including the
vibrato bridge used on many PRS® guitars.
From this beginning, John began manufacturing guitar and bass
hardware of his own design for many guitar companies, and also
began producing high quality retrofit parts for many existing
guitars, as well as manufacturing OEM parts to customer
specifications. John Mann grew up in suburban Long Island, New
York, and began playing guitar at age 12. Even at that age, he
always wanted to know why things worked and functioned as they
did, so more often then not his guitars, amps, and other toys
would be taken apart (much to his mother's dismay) just to see
how it worked! Armed with his constant curiosity, he would
modify and repair many guitars during his youth. He attended a
local city college as a music major, later changing his studies
to mechanical engineering. It seems as if destiny has combined
his two loves, music and mechanics to put him on the path he has
carved out for himself. After college, John began working as a
machinist in the aerospace industry. This was where he learned
and developed the skills needed for high precision workmanship,
often working in tolerances as close as 1/10,000's of an inch!
In 1975, John moved from New York to Stevensville, Maryland,
which is across the beautiful Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis,
Maryland. There he began working at Westinghouse Electric Co.
which was a Navy Research Facility as a R & D Engineering
Technician. In late 1978, John met Paul Reed Smith when he had
Paul restore an old beat up Gibson guitar. From that meeting,
the two became friends and began collaborating on various
projects related to Paul's original guitar designs, including
the now famous guitars that Paul built for Carlos Santana, Al
DiMeola, and Howard Leese and many other guitarists. (see Guitar
Player March 1982)
In 1979, John opened a small machine shop, located in his
garage, to design, develop and produce guitar parts for Paul.
Things continued like this until 1984 when John moved back
north, this time to New Hampshire. When Paul Reed Smith opened
his factory in 1984, John opened a factory in Franklin, NH to
produce various parts for PRS Guitars. That relationship
continues to this day. John has since expanded the business over
the years and now manufactures parts for many different guitar
and bass manufacturers. as well as marketing his own product
line - MannMade USA.
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