Now we will give shape to our guitar body! Now its time to let our creativity flow.
This weekend i talked with a luthier and he told me that the guitar body shape affects the sound just a little, almost nothing, so you can draw whatever you want!

There are lots and lots of guitar shapes around, some classic like the Stratocaster or Les Paul shape and others more aggressive like Dean, B.C Rich or Jackson guitars and everything in the middle. But we can basically group them in four groups.

Stratocaster Body Shape

1) Stratocaster shape: This design is defined by it asymmetric shape and two “horns”, the upper horn is bigger than the lower and it use to reach the 12th or 13th fret, this gives the guitar a good balance. the lower horn is shorter to help you reach the last frets. The distance between the guitar bridge and the end of the guitar is shorter than the next shape categories.
Lots of guitar shapes are inspired by the strat shape, even the B.C Rich Warlock (which i love) is based in this design, its some kind of “wicked” strat.

superstrat body shape

2) Superstrat shape: This design is some kind of “modern strat” shape, brands like Ibanez and Washburn have many superstrat guitars, the horns use to be more stylised and the guitar scale (lenght) larger.

Les Paul body shape

3) Les Paul shape: This shape is a Gibson’s classic and lots of brands make their own Les Paul shapes that are bassically the traditional shape with some little changes. The classic Les Paul shape is inspired by acoustic jazz guitars, there’s no upper horn, the shape is really symmetric with just the exception of the little cut that creates the lower horn.

star and arrow body shapes

4) Star and Arrow shapes: In this category we can list guitars like the Explorer, Flying V, RR, King V, Kelly, ML and lots more.

Use this shape categories to help you find your own shape, you can tweak an existing model, mix two shapes (like the Dean ML) or create a whole new guitar shape! its up to you and your creativity.

When you finish to design your guitar shape maybe you’ll want to learn how to paint your own guitar

In this new part of the “design your own guitar step by step” series we will be talking about bridge placement.

We will show you how to put “tune o matic” and Floyd Rose bridges in your design… the most important thing in both cases is place the bridge at the end of the guitar scale (length).
In the next pics we will show you how to place a tune-o-matic, a tremolo stratocaster bridge and a Floyd Rose in your design

tune-o-matic bridge

This pic represents the placement position for the standard tune-o-matic bridge, this is a really common bridge so the placement will be the same for almost any brand. the end of the scale is marked with a “X”, there’s a 4mm distance between the end of the scale and the first piece of the bridge, this small difference will be more than enough to make the bridge work with any string gauge. The other two holes that are located 37mm below the bridge are for the stopbar.

tremolo bridge placement

This pic show us the classic cavities for a tremolo bridge, tremolo bridges are really common in fender stratocaster guitars. the distance between the bridge and the end of the scale (7mm) is different from the tune-o-matic distance. This measures will allow us to place a Fender or a Wilkinson tremolo bridge in our design.

Floyd Rose bridge placement

This last image represents a variation of the last one, this time we will put a Floyd Rose in our design. This time the distance between the end of the scale and our bridge is 13mm. If you want to use your floyd rose intensely you’ll need to add a 8mm cavity behind the bridge micro tuners.

In the next part we will show you how to draw the guitar body shape and how to design your own!

Tiger style painting

Maybe you’re looking to give your electric guitar a new look or make some bucks from your passion, guitar painting can be expensive, so you can be a great option for your friends and other people if your learn how to do this in the right way… it’s a great way to make some extra bucks and it’s fun!

Yesterday i was talking with some luthiers about this and they told me that there are lots of factors to keep in mind when you’re repainting an electric guitar, its not the same to repaint a Les Paul than a Stratocaster… its all about the wood, its not the same to paint alder than mahogany.

I was looking for a good guitar painting course and i found this one: Paint Your Own Guitar, its a cool collection of books about guitar painting created by John Gleneicki, who has been painting guitars professionally for over 25 years. He’s a former Guitar WORLD Columnist and has done custom work for such elite companies as ESP Guitars… so he knows about this!

In his course he explains how to paint your own guitars step by step, with lots of pics and explanations so it’s very easy! He has cool books to teach you how to paint your guitar with Camoufagle, Zakk Wylde’s Bullseye, Tiger, Hot Rod and EVH style with factory finish just using spray cans!

If you’re looking to become a luthier or if you just want to do this as a hobbie… this books worth to check out.

Today we will learn how to place the pickups in our design.
This step is really important cause the pickup position will let us get the sound we are looking for.

As with headstock design, pickup placement has some rules we must keep in mind to get the best from our pickups.

1) Don’t place the pickup magnets under a harmonic node

2) It’s useless to put more than three pickups in a guitar, unless you really want to experiment with your instrument, if you want to build a “normal” guitar just use two or three.

Well… now lets explain what is a harmonic node, if you press a string slightly in some strategic points you’ll play a natural harmonic (we will explain natural and pinch harmonics in future guitar lessons).

Why this happens?

The string vibration is really complex and it doesn’t vibrates just with the main string note… it has a serie of vibrations that double, triple, etc the main vibration. This vibrations are called harmonics.

harmonic nodes

If we play a string and we don’t press any fret we won’t notice this cause the main vibration is too loud and it covers the other vibrations. To get the harmonic we want we just have to play the string in one of the nodes.

We will be talking about pickup placement in the next part… have fun with your guitar!

This part III.2 of the “How to design your own guitar step by step”, now we will draw a headstock, it’ll be simple, just a 3+3 like from an acoustic guitar.

First we have to draw two circles with the same center, 6mm (tuner axis) and 10mm (hole for the tuner) respectively.  The 6mm hole is very important cause it’ll allow us to correctly align the tuners respect the nut, this way we can also control the lateral angle of the strings once they get through the nut.

Step 1

If  look at this, you’ll notice that the angle vary from string to string, this isn’t bad if we keep this angle at a minimum.

Step 2

Now we need to draw the tuners to get sure they are correctly aligned

Step 3

We want to design a 3+3 symmetric headstock, so we can just repeat the 3 holes from the left side in the right side

Step 4

Now we just have to design the shape!

Step 5

And just like that we have designed our own guitar headstock, it up to you to create an unique and cool headstock! Next time we will be talking about how to place the pickups in your guitar design!

Now that you have your guitar design elements, lets draw something!

The first thing that we have to do to start our guitar design is to plan the guitar scale (lenght), sound endeavor depends of the scale (sustain, pinch harmonics,etc). Most Fender, Washburn and Ibanez guitars have an 25-1/2″ scale, while Gibson Les Paul guitars have an 24-1/2” scale and Paul Reed Smith guitars have an intermediate 25” scale.

Of course we can use a totally different scale, but just do that if you want to experiment with this, if you want to build a “normal” guitar just use one ofthe previous scales. Remember this… the 12th fret is right in the middle of the scale

So… draw this:

Draw the guitar scale

Now we have to put some frets there, you can put all the frets you want… but the normal number is between 22 and 24. If you want something like 32 frets you will only have space for a humbucker, 24 frets is great cause  you’ll have space for HSH, HSS or HH pickup configuration. The 17.818 formula its really easy to use and we can use it to  calculate the distance between frets, for more info about the 17.818 formula CLICK HERE

The 24th fret must be in the middle of the 12th fret and the end of the scale.

draw the frets!

Now it’s time to think about the neck’s width, 6 string guitar necks use to have a 43mm width in the scales beginning (nut) and 57mm at the end of the scale. Of course, if you want a 7 or 8 string guitar try 48mm at the nut and 62mm at the end of the scale. Now we can put some inlays there too!

put some inlays there!

And just like that we have designed our own guitar fretboard and scale, leave a comment if you want to ask something! or maybe contact me and send me a pic of your own fretboard!

This will be the first part of a serie of articles where we will be talking about the aspects you need to keep in mind when you design your own guitar.
The process it’s not so hard as you may think, it all depends in your skills with pen and paper and your needs.

Don’t give up if you don’t make it with your first try! This requires some practice but it’s not rocket science, this is really simple and a lot of fun.

All need to start is a pencil, a piece of paper (big enough to draw a real size guitar),a ruler and of course an eraser. A large table is always welcomed cause you need space to work properly.

I’ll give an example of a simple guitar design:

Simple Guitar Design

We will be posting the next “Design your own guitar step by step” parts every day! Leave a comment if you are interesed in guitar design and building.