Custom Guitar Construction Course - £799.00
Guitar Construction: Building an Electric Guitar – 3 Day Course.
In this electric guitar building course you'll focus on making the most successful electric guitar of all time: the bolt-on-neck design. In almost any music store, these guitars outnumber others five-to-one. The course will cover: Body & Neck assembly, Pickup Installation & installation of all Electronics, the Professional Setting up of an Electric Guitar.
The aim of this course is teach you how to assemble a bolt-on-neck designed electric guitar to a very high standard as well as gain understanding and knowledge in not only the assembly but also a good understanding of its inner workings and overall function.
The course will commence daily at 09:30 with lectures & discussions on topics relating to each part of the guitar construction and then followed by the practical application of these topics under supervision, finishing at 18:00. The course and workshop located in Winchelsea, East Sussex are designed for a maximum of 3 people per course enabling a very close learning experience.
All Lutherie tools needed to complete the course are supplied.
Upon completion of the course you will leave with a great Custom made Guitar! The end product will be a Custom Strat that You will have made and one that will give many standard models a run for their money in tone and feel…
Please read through the description of the course below and at the bottom of this page are more details on how to go about taking the course, booking and availabilty.
Please click here for Guitar construction photos
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DAY 1 & 2 Body & Neck
Wood choice and body design play a large part in the tone of an electric guitar. If you were to play several solid body guitars unamplified you'll notice distinct differences between various wood types. A solid body that sounds good acoustically generally will sound good amplified. We'll discuss the different woods used to make electric guitars and the effect of different body styles on tone and sustain. Just as wood affects the body, when making a neck you have to pay attention to wood choice in order to have a good sounding guitar.
The hardware that goes into making a great guitar also plays a large role, not only the quality in the parts but also their fitting. You will be instructed on how best to fit all the component parts with skill and accuracy enabling you to create a great custom made guitar..
Topics covered:
Body & Neck styles
Wood choices
Neck joints
Adjustable Truss Rods
Fitting neck to body
Scale lengths
Tremolo Bridge placement (Incl Claw & Springs)
Fretboard radius
Fret Dressing
Machine head installation
Preparing the Nut Slot
Making & Cutting a Bone Nut (Requires working with the belt sander)
All the hardware fitted to the guitar will be quality Japanese Gotoh vintage parts, these are particularly well made; tuners hold tune well and the bridge is of very good quality, all of this goes together to make a great custom guitar..
The pre-finished 3 Tone burst body ready for locating/drilling the Bridge, Scratchplate & Jack Socket. Measuring for the bridge is crucial and is explained in detail as well as applied.
Gloss finished neck, pre-fretted ready for Machine head installation, Bone Nut and fret dressing. The neck requires drilling for fitting to the body, an intergral part of any build, preparing for fitting the neck to the body is very significant to the outcome of a great sounding and playing guitar, angle & pitch as well as practical application are all part of the days instruction.
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DAY 2 cont. Electronics
Once you've learnt why and how a great guitar goes together as well as practically applying the previous topics, you now learn to install the best pickups and wiring.
For these custom built guitars we will be using Bare Knuckle pickups: very high quality pickups designed to suit our specifications of wood choice and body style. These pickups are hand wound in the UK and are widely regarded as the best pickups on the market today. The pickups are modeled on a ’65 Stratocaster and have that great vintage warmth and tone and as with all Bare Knuckle pickups they have a very articulate nature..
The key to having a great sounding electric is not just down to the Pickups but also the choice of components that go with it, often overlooked with most mass manufactured guitars, the guitar you make will have highest quality components and will subsequently sound great and work extremely well. Custom CTS Pots, Sprague Capacitor and a CRL (USA) switch as well as vintage cloth wiring all go together to make a very well appointed loaded scratchplate! You will also be shown how to Copper Shield the body of the guitar, this helps keep standard RF to a minimum.
Topics covered:
Schematics
Pickup installation
Copper Shielding
Wiring volume & tone pots
Wiring 5 way selector switch
Wiring output jack
Bridge and string grounding
You will be required to solder all the electronics from a chosen schematic.
Soldering Equipment supplied.
Pickups, Switch & Pots fitted ready for soldering.
Completed wiring of all the pickups, switch & pots.
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DAY 3 Final Assembly
The guitar will now be ready for final assembly. Today you will learn how to fully assemble and set up your electric guitar to a professional standard. The topics covered will be very useful for your regular maintenance of the guitar you have made as well as any others that you may have.
Topics covered:
Pickguard placement
Installing strap buttons
Fitting and filing the Bone Nut
Fret dressing
Installing Decals (Personalised custom Decals)
Final Setting and fitting the neck
Stringing up
String tree placement
Bridge set up
Action height adjustment and setting
Pick up height
Intonation
Your custom made guitar will be finished!
Completed Custom made Guitar!
The final setup requires setting the guitar up to key specific setup points that can be applied to any other guitar. Action height, relief, saddle radius and intonation are all accurately measured.
If you are interested in building your own custom made electric guitar like the one above, then please contact us to arrange a course. (please click the email link below)
Please click here for photos from the 1st Course..
Email Us :- Custom Construction Course email
or Telephone 01797 222288
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