Budowa gitar elektrycznych_-_Martin_Koch.pdf

MARTIN KOCH

Building Electric Guitars

How to make

solid-body, hollow-body

and semi-acoustic

electric guitars and bass guitars

Stratocaster®, Strat®, Telecaster®, Tele®, Precision Bass®, P Bass® and Jazz

Bass® are registered trademarks of Fender® Musical Instruments Corporation.

Les Paul® and P-90® are registered trademarks of Gibson® Guitar Corporation.

Botar® is a registered trademark of DRAMM® Guitars.

No liability is assumed for damages resulting from the

use of information contained in this book.

All rigths reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or copied

without written permission from the author.

This eBook was downloaded from

www.BuildYourGuitar.com

Translated from German by Franz Luttenberger

Published by Martin Koch, Gleisdorf, Austria

Martin Koch

uilding Electric G

ic Guitars

uitars

How to make solid-body,

hollow-body and semi-acoustic

electric guitars and bass guitars

uilding Electr

Building Electr

ic G

Send me your suggestions, ideas,

requests or complaints. Any letter

or e-mail will be very much appreci-

ated.

Before we begin: thank you for reading this book. I did my best to

make it a really helpful one. But I would also strongly recom-

mend that you read other books as well. Every author chooses a

different approach or a different style, and one has to keep trying

to learn from more than just one source to constantly widen

one’s horizon. You won’t become poor from buying every book

available on the building of electric guitars, for the simple reason

that there are not that many books around. You may well find a

number of books on how to build acoustic guitars, but when it

comes to building electrics, you can count the number of

publications worldwide on one hand! There might be one or two

more, but the only ones I got to know so far are Melvyn Hiscock’s

“Make Your Own Electric Guitar” and Roger Simminoff ’s “Con-

structing A Solidbody Guitar” . So please do read and enjoy those

books as well (as I hope you will mine).

A ddress:

Martin Koch, Hartbergerstrasse 22,

A-8200 Gleisdorf, Austria

E ddress:

martin.koch@buildyourguitar.com

www.BuildYourGuitar.com

Doing it yourself can be looked at in two different ways, one of

them being mocked by my Austrian fellow-countryman, the

actor/comedian Lukas Resetarits , who has one of his characters,

who likes “doing it yourself”, say the following:

“So I bought myself this power drill for 3000 shillings, thinking

one can always do with one of these. Mind you, since I bought it,

I’ve only drilled ten holes with it - that’s 300 bucks a hole!”

Looking at things from such a purely economical perspective

may in many cases be appropriate and the right thing to do. If,

however, by “doing it yourself” you are hoping to save money,

you had better forget about it: in times like these, where guitars

are built in low-wage countries, it is easy to get hold of an electric

guitar of sufficient quality for relatively little money in every

music-shop - without taking any risks or investing a lot of time.

Remember also that the first guitar you build will never be a

world-class instrument. Even the most professional guitarbuild-

er will, at some point, have had to start with the basics and will

have gradually built up his/her competence. As a proverb puts it

so appropriately: “No master has as yet fallen from the sky.”

Some things cannot be paid for with money, and if you regard

your spare-time activities as hobbies and a welcome break from

your everyday job, the economical perspective loses its impor-

tance. How could anyone put a figure on the satisfaction that a

positive learning experience or the joy of having successfully

produced something can bring? I am not interested in the

economical side of things; to me, building guitars is a meaning-

ful spare-time activity and all about gaining experience - which

can probably be said of any other hobby, too. It is all about trying

to consume less and creating something of your own. If you feel

like building an electric guitar, you should just do it.

This book is aimed at people who enjoy working with wood in

their spare time, who are interested in building instruments and

either play the guitar themselves or would like to surprise a son,

a daughter or a grandchild or someone else. For all of these

groups of people the question of finding a suitable workplace

will in most cases not arise and will already have been solved. I

mention this because I consider the availability of a workshop

where you can do whatever you like as one of the prerequisites

for the successful completion of a project such as this. In this

respect, someone living in the countryside will, of course, be one

up on someone who lives in an urban area and who may already

count themselves lucky to be allowed to use a basement room.

As for tools, huge investments should not be required. If the

wood needed has been adequately prepared in a joiner's

workshop, no other tools apart from what I would call “hobby

tools” will be needed. If, however, your guitar is to seriously

compete with professional instruments, good tools will be

indispensable.

Guitarbuilding on the WWW

On the World Wide Web most of the

established guitarbuilders as well as

quite a few individuals who build

guitars are represented with more

or less informative pages. Talking

about “guitarbuilding individuals”

on the WWW , I would like to invite

you to come and visit my guitar-

building pages on the World Wide

Web at www.BuildYourGuitar.com

I shall be trying to update my web

site regularly - but what can you

expect to find there? Well, first of all

obviously guitarbuilding-related

links; apart from that, my webpages

give me the opportunity to occasio-

nally share a few things I have

recently learnt with those who visit

the pages. They are also to be a

source of useful addresses such as

of suppliers of materials you may

need. Apart from that you can find

pages with useful guitarbuilding

tips, a quiz and a fret calculator.

Finally, you can order my guitar-

building instruction materials there.

Reading alone won't be enough. Trying to describe the indivi-

dual steps of work involved in detail, I have followed the motto

“A picture is worth a 1000 words” by including pictures, illustra-

tions and drawings to better illustrate the verbal descriptions.

You will, however, always need to bear in mind that there is of

course a huge difference between reading something and

actively doing it. Just as you are not going to satisfy your hunger

by merely listening to a description of food, you will have to

gather your own experiences in the world of guitarbuilding. The

ability to put an idea which exists in someone's head into

practice is what makes a great craftsman - this also applies when

it comes to building guitars. On the long road between the initial

idea and the actual result, a lot of compromises will have to be

made at the beginning, due to not-yet-learnt skills, lack of both

experience and patience or peculiarities of materials used.

Although you will find that there are many pictures in this book,

please do none the less read the instructions carefully: not each

and every individual step of work has been captured in picture!

Only those who do nothing will not make any mistakes. While

building a guitar there will be moments of great joy as well as of

huge frustration. If the latter is the case, sleep on it: something

one presumes to have gone terribly wrong quite often doesn't

look all that bad after a good night's sleep or after a couple of

days. What you will certainly find then is enough energy to start

all over again, in case things should have gone so badly wrong

that there is no other alternative. Never try to achieve anything

by force. Remember that sometimes it may be better to pause

and not do any work, or to stop working rather too soon than too

late. Mistakes made should not be regarded as setbacks but

rather as opportunities to gain experience and, above all, to

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