Re: Anyone ever make their own electric guitar?
Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 4:12 pm
Nice job Wolfgang!
Mike, if I recall correctly, in the days before the internet, apart from going to a music shop, or obtaining catalogues which included hardware, pickups etc, about the only way you could find out about buying guitar parts was from reading adverts in guitar magazines.
However, there weren't many places you could buy necks and bodies...apart from a very few, like Rockinger in Europe, and firms like Mighty Mite and Schecter in the USA, and perhaps some others elsewhere- probably luthiers who would make you a body or neck etc..
Before that era, it was a challenge getting hold of almost anything...some clever folks even made their own pickups! Many home made guitars had home made bridges, nuts, tailpieces, vibrato units and scratchplates etc...but you usually had to buy manufactured machine heads AKA tuners!
Necks and fretboards etc were always an issue...many young chaps sneaked into music shops with hidden pencils and paper, then asked to look at a Fender etc so that they could try to sneakily and cunningly measure or copy information about where frets had to go! Then you needed fretwire!
Pickups were usually the cheap type that were meant for acoustic f-hole cello guitars or round hole acoustic guitars..a good pickup e.g. a USA made DeArmond could cost more than a whole guitar!!
Mike, if I recall correctly, in the days before the internet, apart from going to a music shop, or obtaining catalogues which included hardware, pickups etc, about the only way you could find out about buying guitar parts was from reading adverts in guitar magazines.
However, there weren't many places you could buy necks and bodies...apart from a very few, like Rockinger in Europe, and firms like Mighty Mite and Schecter in the USA, and perhaps some others elsewhere- probably luthiers who would make you a body or neck etc..
Before that era, it was a challenge getting hold of almost anything...some clever folks even made their own pickups! Many home made guitars had home made bridges, nuts, tailpieces, vibrato units and scratchplates etc...but you usually had to buy manufactured machine heads AKA tuners!
Necks and fretboards etc were always an issue...many young chaps sneaked into music shops with hidden pencils and paper, then asked to look at a Fender etc so that they could try to sneakily and cunningly measure or copy information about where frets had to go! Then you needed fretwire!
Pickups were usually the cheap type that were meant for acoustic f-hole cello guitars or round hole acoustic guitars..a good pickup e.g. a USA made DeArmond could cost more than a whole guitar!!