Easy DIY Electric Guitar Build

Woodwork is one of my hobbies and I enjoy playing guitar even though I'm not much good at it. Anyhow, I decided to try making an electric guitar. It turned out OK, so I produced this video of the build process. I hope some viewers will have a go at making a guitar based on my design. One of my objectives was to avoid using a router, particularly for cutting the neck pocket which can be a tricky job. This was achieved using two (or more) layers of wood for the body construction. The neck is bolted onto a dense hardwood layer I call the "spine" ensuring good sustain. The rest of the body is composed of a softer wood variety to reduce the body weight. I cheated and used a pre-fabricated Telecaster-style neck/fretboard obtained from a supplier on AliExpress for about AU$80 (= $55 USD approx). A few frets were slightly out of alignment, so I needed to file down those frets which were a fraction too high. Minor defects can be expected with a neck at that price point. Otherwise, the neck quality is surprisingly good. Another design decision was to incorporate an active pickup circuit with treble-boost pre-amp and headphone amplifier. The electronic controls are housed in a small die-cast aluminium box located in the tail end of the guitar body. More information for prospective makers can be found on my website: www.mjbauer.biz Acknowledgements: Big thanks to my friend Dave for assessing and demonstrating the guitar. Thanks also to Don, Phil, Graham and others at the Mount Beauty Men's Shed where I made use of some nice wood-working machinery.