Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hello!

Trying my hand at the good ol' trade of guitar making! Since i peruse this site often for everything dead related, i thought it might be just a good idea to contribute.

Preface: I am no master builder, so 'hold your mud' cause i definitely make mistakes now and again..but one thing is for sure: i got a lotta patience and a smile for a face (also, high attention to detail)...(also, love me some good natured advice from people way smarter than me )

So, spent a lotta time itching and researching the formidable "wolf"...But i'm convinced i got it down! Figured out what i thought the scale length was and made me a full size picture of the guitar, with some help from the kinkos staff, of course. Then was able to print out a 'spot on' template (presumably), to scale.

Took that over to some mdf, and made me a decent template to work with.

SOOO, this wolf is gonna be a mixture of what i got for a minuscule amount of tools and a minuscule amount of money..aka a poorman wolf, or as I like to say: a mangy wolf.

enjoy,
proshy

Get some alder from woodcrafters

gonna avoid that booger in the top right corner

Run it through the planer to get that tight joint, next is clampin and gluin

like this


Squeeze for 24 hours

Glued up ready to dance (sorry, no red dress)


Draw out the template, just for giggles


Route out the neck joint (fender style) and swimming pool (not pictured, i forgot)


Like that


Relief cuts


Rough cut body


Flush trimmin'


This part always freaks me out, it's one monster of a bit!


Turned out pretty good!

Pretty good for a days work!

Next phase: rear control cavity, pentiometer holes, bolt on holes, roundover sides and anything else i can think of...

,

proshy

Top effort proshy

Curious - how come you decided against a neck-through construction?

Looking good, man!

That's looking really good!

Grant,

Thanks for the encouragement! Eventually, I'll be able to get the neck through going...that's the goal at least: Have a completely outfitted guitar making factory!

The bolt-on construction was an idea that i had when i was trying to find a custom builder to build my next guitar...Without any luck, nobody would make me a 'one-off' of the template i made, so i just decided to do it myself! With this, someone that has an old bolt-on neck lying around (or is willing to buy a pre-made neck from warmoth or something) can get the cool shape of wolf with the practicality of a leo style guitar.

,
proshy

Here's something just for fun, take a good long look

I like you already!

Lookin' good.

john in san diego

Looking good so far!!!

Update, didn't get a lot done... but enough for all you to get some popcorn!

Off to the sanding machine



It was'a sweet sunny day!


Smooth out them shadows


Careful with that


cute little roundover


there ya go, off to the 'unique' side


straightened him out good


Cavity cuttin' time


Cavity cover depth


switch templates


A ba'zillion passes later, 1/8 inch left for pentiometer shaft


hole to the cavity, eyeball the angle


like this


hole was a little high comin out the rear, nothin to worryabout


,

proshy

Here's a sneak preview with an old johnson neck, pick-guard i assembled from the old johnson pickups (custom cut guard), and some ol' pot covers






,

proshy

Looking good. Keep it comin!

Gotta love guitar builds because there's always a happy ending. Looks great!