How to Make an Electric Guitar from Scratch, Step by Step

Everything starts with a full-size drawing: body outline, cavities, neck pocket, neck and fretboard with the fret positions. Print it 1:1, glue it on MDF or plywood and cut routing templates for the body and each cavity. Our T-style guitar plans (from $17) and S-style guitar plans include 1:1 templates, dimensioned drawings and a 3D model. All our guitar templates and plans are in one place.

You need a body blank about 45 mm thick, a quartersawn neck blank and a fretboard. Let the wood settle in your workshop for a week before cutting. Alder, ash and mahogany are the classic body woods: our guitar body wood guide compares them. Ready-glued blanks save the jointing work: the ash body blank, the ST-style body blank, a maple neck blank and an ebony fretboard blank, among our guitar blanks.

Trace the template on the blank, cut 2 to 3 mm outside the line with a bandsaw or jigsaw, then screw or tape the template on and bring the edge exactly to it with a flush-trim bit in the router. Round the edges with a roundover bit or a rasp. Shape any arm or belly contour with rasps and sandpaper.

Using the cavity templates, rout the pickup cavities, the control cavity and the neck pocket in several shallow passes. The neck pocket is the most important cut on the body: it must be square to the centre line and the right depth so the neck sits at the correct height. Drill the wiring channels, the jack hole and the bridge holes with a pillar drill so they go straight.

Rout the truss rod channel in the neck blank, cut the fret slots in the fretboard, drill the inlay dots and radius the fretboard with a sanding block. Glue the fretboard on, then cut the headstock outline (see our guide to headstock shapes) and carve the back of the neck to its profile with rasps and a spokeshave. This is the longest step: take your time. Our neck making set has the maple, the fretboard, frets, truss rod, nut and plans, from $148.

Press or tap the frets into the slots, a pre-cut fret wire set saves the cutting. Snip and file the ends flush, then level all the frets with a long flat beam, re-crown them and polish. Even fret heights are what make a guitar play with low action and no buzz.

Sand to 240 or 320 grit. On open-grain woods, fill the grain first (how to apply grain filler), then seal, apply color and clear coats. Spray or oil finishes both work at home: see how to paint a guitar. Let the finish cure fully before you polish and assemble, often one to three weeks. Want a bound edge? Do it before the finish: our guitar binding guide explains how.

Fit the neck (fitting the neck to the body), the bridge, the tuners and the pickups, then wire the controls with a soldering iron following a wiring diagram. Our guitar wiring guide walks through it. Check every connection with a multimeter before you put the strings on.

Shape a pre-slotted bone nut to the neck width, cut the slots to the right depth, string the guitar and set it up: truss rod, action, pickup height and intonation. Our guitar setup guide covers each adjustment.