Amazing job !
It’s fantastic. I would have no chance.
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Looking forward to seeing more progress. The neck is looking great.
Picked up a nasty looking 44mm thick lump of Ash from a wood recycling place this morning for £21.
Chopped it to rough size and jointed two pieces as best I can. The grain will not match along the centre line but that’s doesn’t matter this time. Quite a bit of work to do, will aim to glue it tomorrow.
I’ve also managed to make a mess of the nut slot, cut it too wide while simultaneously chipping the fret board in a few places. I’ve repaired the chip out with sawdust I’ve kept and glue, but I may need to buy a bigger nut and bodge it to fit. The lesson here is do this before the fretboard is glued to the neck, too far gone now to start again. I’ll get away with it somehow.
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Glued the body together during last week. Had to band saw in some flat edges because clamps don’t like curves. TF I left some meat on the body blank for that to happen.
I went on a course about 5 or 6 months to learn how to do fret work, so I have a head start on this bit.
Precut fretwire with a 12inch radius to match the fretboard
Decided to make life difficult with a trick a saw on that YouTube. Trim and file away the barb at each end of the fret so you don’t see the barb when installed in the fretboard, expensive high end guitar stuff is that.
Lots of overhang either side of the barded area (trimmed down later)
21 frets all cut to size as the fret board tapers, I regretted starting that tbh.
Fret press adaptor for my pillar drill, all the way from China - worked well to be fair.
Had to glue the fret ends becuase i cut the barbs off, also shoved some glue and saw dust into the fret slots to hide them.
With all the frets installed, next up is a fret level, crown and polish. That is going to take ages over the next week or 3.
The guitar body glued up well enough, planed it down to remove more of the marks and scratches and rough cut it out on the bandsaw. Used a template I made to get the shape right, will also use that for routing the body to it’s final dimensions.
More planing and sanding, considering this was a rough lump of wood with an unknown grain, I’m happy with how this is proceeding.
Routing next…
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I made a start on fret work last weekend, they all need leveling, crowning, dressing and a final polish.
This is a skill that requires practice, despite attending a course last year, I made a proper mess of the first 4. So much so, I decided to pull them and install new ones.
Fret pulling is not a nice experience. A hot soldering iron helps melt the CA glue, a pair of ground fret pullers carefully ease the fret out of the slot, fortunately there was little damage to the fretboard. 4 new ones installed.
Having set the neck 100% flat with notched straight edge…
I leveled the fret with a 16inch aluminum beam and some 240 grit sandpaper, this removes any high spots so all the frets are the same height.
Next step is crowning. The purpose is to reinstate the fret’s curved profile ensuring the peak of the curve is down the middle of the fret. Get this wrong and the intonation point (the dead center of the fret) will be out which will make the guitar play slightly out of tune. (This is what I buggered up at the first attempt.)
A flat fret
Crowned frets - not too bad.
A pro would complete this in under an hour, probably closer to 30 minutes. It’ll take me several hours, but wevs, there’s no rush. Will do a couple each evening during the coming week.
I also did some more power tools,
Body template attached
Success, the Trend router and router table are very decent, (shame I can’t extend that complement to the table’s assembly instructions which weren’t worth paper they’re written on).
Setting up for routing the neck pocket, creating a template from 12mm ply.
All aligned to the guitar’s centre line
It fits, level and straight to the centre line too.
However it is far from perfect work, a momentary lack of concentration while getting used to new router.
oh well, not going to worry, first attempt an’ that. Sanding it back will soften it.
Pickup and control cavity routing next (and a load more fret work)…
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Excellent work Graham 
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Man, that is some serious skill you are showing there.
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^^This, exactly this^^ Can’t wait to see the finished article 
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I have huge admiration for your patience with this. It is beyond my ken.
I can’t imagine the sense of satisfaction that must come with acing these various skills. Whilst I appreciate artisans rarely feel their work is perfect, from where I’m sitting this looks excellent!
Do Luthiers have a go to ‘demo’ number to play when their work is complete?
Maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvB5dQHvRSc
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Thanks, I have huge admiration for my patience too.
Every step has taken 5 times longer than it does in my head before I start. I can only manage a 2 or 3 hours before I have to walk away.
I have made countless process mistakes, which if I decide to have another go I would aim to avoid, speeding things up considerably.
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I’m following this adventure with great interest, admiration and a little envy. 
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Serious patience & skill.
Making the 60 quid spent setting up a bass guitar look positively cheap.
The money in this is really in repair work and to a lesser extent setups, £60 for an hour or less is OK money. Assuming your bass only needed adjustment (no parts) it is pretty easy stuff.
Building new guitars as a small independent is very hard to make a living.
This is £40, which is what I’m attempting to make.
You can buy a very well made neck for £100.
Most people need to see Gibson or Fender on the headstock and won’t give lesser know manufacturers a look, never mind hand made cottage industry instruments.
Boutique, built to spec guitars is where the money is, and you have to be really good at the multi £k level.
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I walk past a seond hand guitar shop in Brighton quite regularly and I am always surprised by how relatively cheap some of them seem to be.
You can pick up something like a Gretch for about £400 and a Telecaster for under a grand.
When you look at them in hifi terms a guitar costs the same as a cartridge.
You can pay what ever you want for a Fender Telecaster, price is dependant on where and when they were made. New Mexican made ones are generally under a £1K, USA standard under £2K. USA Custom shop - think of a number. (used Mexican £300ish maybe)
Look at these Relic Teles I saw in Glasgow last year, they’re band new (afaik) from Fender’s custom shop. Destressed and “aged by hand” in the factory. I don’t get it, mega bucks for the most basic design guitar that is made to look old.
The one that’s had more aging work, costs less, go figure.
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Knowing nothing about guitars, are there sonic differences between these (and say Mexican vs USA vs Custom Fenders) or is it down to aesthetics / build quality? They all look very similar to my untrained eye.
Yes, there are sonic differences and the build quality, general fit and finish improves as you move up the range. But like hifi, the gains are marginal the more you spend. You’re also paying more to simply cover the higher costs of producing guitars in the USA rather than Mexico to get the all important USA serial number on the back of the headstock.
A well made Mexican Fender is a very good guitar. Fit the same pickups and average Joe like me will be hard pushed to spot much difference between that and a USA one, imo.
Custom shop ones are fully customisable so a different kettle of fish really.
Start a conversation about tone wood, pickup magnets etc etc on a guitar forum then step back to watch the show…
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Interesting, thanks. Is there a point where serious guitarists will want to have a customised one (to enable better playing, not for pride of ownership), or are high end standard models fine for nearly all use and people only go custom for specific reasons/pride of ownership?