The "H7" Custom Electric Guitar


Allan Hef Forsyth

Recommended Posts

Hello everyone.

This will be a document of my first real woodworking project (real as in something made outside of highschool without the guidance of a tutor, I've done a little basic woodworking in school more than ten years ago).

I have been a guitarist for around 14 years now and I currently play seven string guitar in a touring band and thus require to have more than one guitar for playing shows with as it's prudent to have a "backup" guitar at shows in case of string breakage or other calamity.

Having managed to, for the first time in my life, save some money aside from a particularly productive period at work (freelance sound engineer, have to roll with the punches) I decided it was time to buy myself a guitar for life (read: a really expensive guitar) and since the band I play with most requires a seven string guitar I would be buying a seven string.

This is the point where I hit a problem in that, I have always loved Paul Reed Smith's guitars and in particular have always liked his Custom 24 design, but unfortunately Paul Reed Smith do not directly manufacture a seven string version of this design for the retail market and his custom shop service is prohibitively expensive to the point that it is well outwith my humble reach.

Thus I have come to the descision to attempt to build myself a guitar of similar design to the Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 model but of course with seven strings.

 

As this is intended to be a complimentary guitar to what will become my "spare" guitar upon it's completion and I am very happy with the playability of the guitar I have currently, I will be building this guitar with the same neck, string spacing and electronic specifications of my current guitar.

This, I believe, will make it easier for me to build as a relatively inexperienced luthier/woodworker because I will have a reference point for many of the measurement and facets that affect the playability and feel of the instrument, particularly when it comes to the neck and fretboard.

 

With all of the above in mind I began drawing up a scale drawing with the measurements for the fretboard and neck referenced from my existing guitar and the general shape of the guitar referenced from the aforementioned Paul Reed Smith design with some alterations to account for the addition of an extra string to maintain the overall proportions of the neck width to the body width.

This process was somewhat fun as it involved a lot of drawing and some cutting out of printed technical drawings scavenged from around the internet of Paul Reed Smith guitars to achieve the desired shapes and dimensions.

This is what I came up with;IMG_20140115_175837.jpg

 

I later redrew this design as I made a few errors in this particular version of it although I actually cut out the body part of this drawing to be used as a starting point for a routing template for later on and also to get the body dimensions right on the final drawing as much of this one was freehand in terms of body shape and contours.

At this point I decided I had to have a visual idea in my head of what I actually wanted this guitar to look like in the end in terms of finish so that i could start deciding on materials to use for the various parts. I hit upon something I liked with this image:

reference.jpg

 

It looks like a tiger. I like it.

Based on that aesthetic I obviously was going to have to have a maple top for the guitar.

I spent some more time scouring the internet for suitably figure pieces of maple that weren't twelve million bucks. This was actually a lot harder than I expected it to be but eventually I found a canadian supplier that sold individual billets of figured maple on ebay specifically for bookmatched guitar tops.

The piece I purchased in the end is actually massive. More than enough for what I need. Infact the pice might even be big enough to build another guitar in the future as it measures 35"x10"x2".

It's quite pretty though.

$_57.JPG

 

Holy crap @ that figuring.

Anyway, since it's coming from Canada to Scotland on the cheapest flight ever (been wating three weeks for it so far...) I've made use of the time deciding on the rest of the materials and ordering them.

I opted to use wenge for the back "wings" of the guitar as wenge will essentially look black as night when it's finished in polyeurathane lacquer which is my chosen finish for the guitar meaning that I can leave it natural with no stain or colouring. After managng to find a reputable UK source, whom I also ordered an african ebony veneer for use on the headstock of the guitar from, I recieved my pieces of wenge.

IMG_20140117_100956.jpg

Rough sawn, but quite clearly with some very nice grain of their own.

Next up I ordered a large piece of mahogany and some thin lengths of walnut to create a multi-laminated neck from. I decided to do a five piece laminate with a central strip of mahogany sandwiched between two strips of walnut and a further two pices of mahogany. I think that should look quite pleasing without any finish other than the poly and should be relatively solid and strong.

Here arriveth the mahogany;

IMG_20140114_153918.jpg

 

And the walnut...

IMG_20140115_144931.jpg

 

It seems kinde of wasteful to hide some of that wonderful walnut grain within the neck construction but I have quite a lot of it some maybe I can use the left over material for something else.

The next piece to arrive in my flurry of wonderful packages was an african ebony fretboard blank;

IMG_20140116_161904.jpg

 

Not the best photo ever there but rest assured it is a nice piece with some subtle grey/brown striped grain in there which converse to some guitar makers' protocol I will not be staining out black. Why hide a nice peice of wood?

At this point I also order some of the first actual guitar hardware in the form of fret wire and a truss rod to be fitted inside the neck as they will be the first hardware items I will require in the build.

I also ordered a good fretting saw because I don't have any saws with blades thin enough to accept the fret wire snugly enough to retain it within the fretboard.

I then spent another week or so refining my drawing and extracting more measurements from it to finalize my dimensions for the beginning of cutting.

And this brings me to tonight where I finally began cutting after borrowing a bandsaw from a kind chap a couple of doors along the street from me.

IMG_20140206_211043.jpg

You can maybe see a bit of my final drawing on the wall there too.

I decided that I should begin with cutting the walnut stripes for the neck as the stock is only 12mm thick and as I had never used this saw before I was wary of it's accuracy and how much wastage there would be and figured that it would be easy enough to add whatever losses I make in the walnut stripes to the outer mahogany pieces of the multi-laminate sandwich I am creating.

IMG_20140206_214017.jpg

 

Turned out that it cut quite well and I have ended up with two stripes of walnut that are roughly 5.9mm all the way with a variance of only 0.3mm along the length.

This is where I've gotten so far. Tomorrow I'm on to the mahogany pieces of the neck and planing it all for glueing.

Hope you all find this interesting. Any feedback/pointers/advice you have is appreciated.

Please remember I'm a total noob at this so if I'm cocking it up, be gentle with me.

Cheers!

Allan

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello allen, i will definitely be following this build. I have been playing guitar for about 17 years now and have been playing my 7 string primarily for about 6 years now. Arent they great! I have an ibanez prestige model and i made my own neck for it. The headstock is my own blend of a "prs" style while maintaining the tip of the ibanez stock. Good luck on your build and take lots of pictures!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of all, Welcome...

 

For a 'total noob', you've picked a helluva first project...

 

You'll find lots of advice around here -- some of it even useful... :)

 

Don't be bashful about questions, this is one of the best-behaved woodworking forums around --- folks won't bash you for asking advice...

 

Keep the photos coming -- I know nothing about making guitars, and will follow with interest...

 

Good luck.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome Allen! That is a very ambitious project, but it looks like have been doing your homework. It should turn out great. Plenty of folks here to help if you run into trouble. I'm more of a pretender than a player, but I know a nice instrument when I see it. You, sir, are on your way to a very nice instrument!

Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Allan welcome to the forum. There are many people on here who make guitars including me - having made them for years. Don't hesitate to ask questions. BTW once you have built a guitar you will be planning your next one. It's very addictive!

 

There are many books on the subject but I can recommend Melvyn Hiscott's "Make Your Own Electric Guitar".

DVDs are numerous too. A fantastic one is "A Complete Custom Electric Guitar Build" here by Antony Dewar over in Sheffield. This one is a full video series showing how to make a guitar from chopping down the cherry tree to plugging into the amplifier. If you haven't made a guitar before this DVD is a must.

 

Another good resource is  http://www.buildyourguitar.com/

 

For online retailers in the UK Tonetech Luthier Suppliers here in Stockport are great. Bill the owner is very knowledgeable.

Of course Allparts here have a great deal of parts as have Thomann over in Germany here

 

PRS regular 6 string scale length is 25". What scale length are you thinking of making your 7 string?

The low B will require the machine head string hole opening up as a standard low B string will not go through the hole. The machine head posts are normally made from brass so are easy to run a 2 to 2.5mm twist drill through with care. Measure the diameter of the low B first of all.

 

On your walnut strips and mahogany neck parts - are you going to run them through a thickness planer? The bandsaw cut may look smooth but in my experience it wouldn't be good enough for a glue up. You will find there are voids where the timber faces don't quite mate and when you cut the wood away when you shape the neck you will see the voids.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for all the kind responses!
 

There are many books on the subject but I can recommend Melvyn Hiscott's "Make Your Own Electric Guitar".

DVDs are numerous too. A fantastic one is "A Complete Custom Electric Guitar Build" here by Antony Dewar over in Sheffield.

 

PRS regular 6 string scale length is 25". What scale length are you thinking of making your 7 string?

The low B will require the machine head string hole opening up as a standard low B string will not go through the hole. The machine head posts are normally made from brass so are easy to run a 2 to 2.5mm twist drill through with care. Measure the diameter of the low B first of all.

 

On your walnut strips and mahogany neck parts - are you going to run them through a thickness planer?

Hey, thanks. I'll give that video a look. I've already spent a lot of time consulting the vast library of knowledge on youtube, particularly Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars' series of videos on custom guitar building which I found to be quite comprehensive but you can never have too many perspectives.
The hardware I have already came from Tonetech too but I am already very familiar with Thomann (ordered lots of equipment from them over the years) and have used Allparts in the past.

My design features a 26.5 inch scale length as I play a non-standard tuning that requires the almost baritone scale length for tuning stability. I will absolutely require redrilling of the machinehead for at least the 7th string as I accustomed to using a 64 (seriously) for my lowest string. This guitar will be used with the tuning low to high - F#/B/F#/B/E/G#/C#
Pretty low.
For pickups I'm using a pair of EMG 707TWs and will be installing a Floyd Rose Special trem system.

As for the walnut and mahogany, I don't have a planer/thicknesser and as far as I'm aware don't have anywhere to get access to one so I'm jointing everything by hand. Brutal, I know, but worth the effort. I have a #4.5 and a #7 plane and an old block plane that someone gave me so between those I should be able to take care of everything that needs doing I think.



I'm off to the garage now so I'll have more pictures later tonight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you may want to consider looking into a dual truss rod set up or carbon fiber neck reinforcements. I have a single and its fine but you have some hefty strings over an extended scale.

Hey,

I did look at that but I don't think it's really necessary. The guitar I use currently has the exact same neck dimensions and works fine with a single truss without the strength benefits of a multi laminate neck so I think it should be fine. I did however get a 480mm truss rod for it to account for the slightly extended scale length.

More progress;

 Planed out my two walnut stripes.

Was quite awkward to clamp such skinny pieces in my shady cheapo workbench but I did get there eventually.

IMG_20140207_121252.jpg

Cut and planed the central piece of mahogany.

IMG_20140207_110130.jpg

Mahogany ends up nice and shiny when you plane it.

IMG_20140207_113036.jpg

 

 

Cutting that big slab of mahogany is also pretty awkward but my precarious stack of boxes kindly lent a hand.

IMG_20140208_100231.jpg

 

 

Then, while cutting the last of the outer two stripes of mahogany, I hit a roadblock in that the drive belt of the band saw gave up on me. Seems that the rubber is perished. Makes sense since this thing hasn't been used "for years and years".

IMG_20140208_150438.jpg

So, that's me kinda stuffed untill I get a new drivebelt. I would try and finish the cut by hand but I'd rather wait and not ruin my material.

Thanks for following and giving advices guys. Will update as soon as I am up and running again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking good! If you have any questions, we're here! I have built a few custom basses. And I'm finishing up another one based on a Ritter design. I am building it mainly because of the same reasons you are. Cost :)

 

So, we are here! And for the most part we are a good bunch :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's something I am looking for opinions on...

Being that this is a through neck guitar with a zero degree neck break angle (recessed floyd rose not requiring an angle)... should I glue up the body wings and top BEFORE attaching the fretboard to facilitate easier routing of the neck pickup cavity?

Another one, I've planned for a ten degree headstock angle. Too much, too little or just right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No attach the fretboard first. You will find the fretdressing easier to do as there will be no bits of bodywork (the horns) in the way.  Once you have ascertained what action you want the strings to have above the frets you need to calculate the depth under the strings to the face of the body to attach the bridge. You will find that the physical height of the bridge it going to dictate this and you may end up having to rout the body to accommodate it. If you are using a whammy bridge then you will have to rout to accommodate its mechanism anyway. It's actually easier cutting away the face of the body whilst the wings are not attached so that you get the desired action.

What actual Floyd bridge model are you using?  The wings are the last thing that you should attach. You can then level the entire front of the body.

 

You can still rout the neck pickup cavity after the wings and fretboard are glued on. If you attach a spacer to the body with double sided tape to create an auxillary routing platform, maybe made from 11mm plywood (or a transparent template made from plexiglass 6mm thick with 6mm spacers bonded to it - making it 12mm thick) with the pickup rout in that making it a template. You can then use a pattern bit with the bearing at the top to follow the template. The fretboard will only be about 6mm thick +2mm for the frets so the plywood spacer will let you run the router over with ease.

 

10 degrees for the headstock is just right and achieves a good string break angle without danger of weakening the headstock. Gibson make theirs 17 and they are notorious for breaking.

 

Here's a thru-neck I made earlier:

 

post-3084-0-08789500-1391943414_thumb.jppost-3084-0-54751000-1391943417_thumb.jppost-3084-0-68363400-1391943420_thumb.jppost-3084-0-16895000-1391943424_thumb.jp

 

The wood for the wings is bookmatched sycamore and the neck is mahogany and maple with an ebony fretboard.

post-3084-0-28943700-1391943581_thumb.jpYou can clearly see how the wings have been attached in the finished article and the other pictures show the neck with fretboard/frets completed and attached, the pickup routs achieved after the fretboard was completed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

ERGH!
Overdue for an update I think...

Got a new drive belt for the band saw. Cracked on with the neck.

Dry fit looked good.
IMG_20140215_143206.jpg

 

On with the glue up.
IMG_20140215_150334.jpg

 

30 odd hours later...
IMG_20140217_134149.jpg

 

IMG_20140217_134216.jpg

 

Probably used a bit too much glue in hindsight but I figured better to be safe than sorry since I'd never done this before.
Had to spend some time with a chisel scraping off the extra, then started planing everything flat and square.

IMG_20140217_135949.jpg

 

IMG_20140217_135955.jpg

 

Guess I could have just kept it as some kind of weird obelisk ornament like this...
IMG_20140217_152932.jpg

 

Here's what the sandwich of materials looks like now...
IMG_20140217_152939.jpg

 

After this I marked out the 10 degrees headstock angle and bandsawed that out and planed the face.

IMG_20140217_175940.jpg

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I then spent a couple of days fannying around with templates for the body and headstock whilst I waited for my router and table to be delivered. I made like four different attempts at the headstock and cocked every single one of them up for one reason or another. I'm still not happy with it I don't think but I lost the rag with it and gave up after number four. Will come back to it later when it's needed.
Making templates...
IMG_20140218_140828.jpg
 

IMG_20140218_140836.jpg

 

IMG_20140218_143544.jpg

 

IMG_20140218_152956.jpg

 

D:

IMG_20140223_122014.jpg

 

D:

IMG_20140223_122034.jpg

 

Better, but still not right...
IMG_20140223_123901.jpg

 

IMG_20140223_123932.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Then once I had the router and had played about with it a bit, I set up for cutting the truss rod slot.
I marked out where it needed to go and set up some stops to prevent me going too far and ruining everything. Took three passes to get to the depth I needed. Came out very clean. Tidied up the corners and stuff with a little chisel to make the quare ends the rod needs to seat correctly.

IMG_20140223_140438.jpg

 

IMG_20140223_140450.jpg

 

IMG_20140223_154903.jpg

 

IMG_20140223_155031.jpg

 

IMG_20140223_155414.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lovely.
On to the fretboard.
Appologies for the crappy photos here as I was working at night time for this bit.

Cutting the fretboard to shape, minus the binding.
IMG_20140223_172924.jpg

 

IMG_20140223_183704.jpg

 

Planed the edges of the fretboard piece then applied a piece of masking tape over the truss rod to keep glue out of it's workings.
IMG_20140223_183719.jpg

 

All glued up.
IMG_20140223_190114.jpg

 

A significant amount of time later...
IMG_20140224_132023.jpg

 

Next I began making my binding. Slicing up sheet brass into strips to make a layer of binding. This will then be framed with the offcuts of the ebony from the fretboard.
IMG_20140224_133406.jpg

 

IMG_20140224_133703.jpg

Let there be fret slots!
And there wiz.
IMG_20140224_152722.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I decided I'd fire my inlay in at this point just because. Went for a single 12th fret marker because I wasn't too confident about it being that cleanly done as I thought it would be pretty tricky to do.
Turned out that it's actually piss easy and I really enjoyed doing it and wish I had tried to do one of the more adventureous and elaborate things I came up with.
Really proud of how this turned out. If the rest of the guitar turns out even a third as good as this inlay looks I'l be ultra happy.

IMG_20140225_120432.jpg

 

IMG_20140225_120452.jpg

 

IMG_20140225_124137.jpg

 

IMG_20140225_130439.jpg

 

Filled with CA and ebony dust.
IMG_20140225_131454.jpg

 

Filed and sanded flat.
IMG_20140225_134916.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pretty sweet.
On with the binding. I kinda forgot to take some pictures as I did the binding. It wasn't particularly exciting anyway. Lots of superglue on my fingers. Used some small files to make mitres on the bottom corners of both the brass and the ebony and then filed everything flat with the rest of the board and sanded it all shiny.

IMG_20140228_171649.jpg
 

 

Then, finally, after five weeks of waiting, my massive bit of maple arrive from Ontario.

IMG_20140221_110159.jpg

 

IMG_20140221_111110.jpg

 

IMG_20140221_111128.jpg

 

Now for the hellish nightmare or bookmatching it by hand.

IMG_20140301_122112.jpg

 

This was about three albums later...
IMG_20140301_143848.jpg

 

Many, many hours later... The payoff.
IMG_20140302_131204.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Spent some time with the small plane making the surfaces a bit better. I could really tell the parts of the sawing where I had tried to rush it as one half of the board was pretty level off the bat where as the lower half/the latter part of the sawing had created a decent sized lump/divot.
Still, it has some damn amazing figuring in it. Its gonna be bloody hard to decide which bit to use for the top.
 

IMG_20140303_161140.jpg

 

IMG_20140303_161357.jpg

 

Here are the candidates. Opinions welcome...

1.
IMG_20140303_171520.jpg

 

2.

IMG_20140303_171842.jpg

 

3.

IMG_20140303_160559.jpg

 

 

That's all I've got so far.
Thanks for following guys.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Who's Online   0 Members, 0 Anonymous, 41 Guests (See full list)

    • There are no registered users currently online
  • Forum Statistics

    31.2k
    Total Topics
    421.8k
    Total Posts
  • Member Statistics

    23,759
    Total Members
    3,644
    Most Online
    R Parekh
    Newest Member
    R Parekh
    Joined