Step-By-Step Guitar Making [Paperback]

Alex Willis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

With basic woodworking skills, a modest work space, and only a few special tools, even an amateur can make an instrument fit for the concert platform with this guide. Fully illustrated instructions guide the builder through the entire creative process from choosing materials for the guitar to stringing and setting up. The guitar created in this book is a steel-stringed cutaway orchestra model with 14 frets to the body joint. This pattern is ideal for the finger style player, providing excellent projection in bass, middle, and treble ranges. Plans are included for the entire instrument as well as detailed drawings of individual parts. This manual comes complete with instructions on how to tune the soundboard, place the frets accurately, and adjust the action for comfortable playing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The greatest strength of the book is its readability. Every step is clearly described and numbered, and keyed to a full-color photo of that step."  —Woodcentral.com

About the Author

Alex Willis is an all-around craftsman with experience in boatbuilding and house renovation. He now creates fine custom guitars on a full-time basis.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing; Pap/Pstr edition (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156523331X
• ISBN-13: 978-1565233317
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #418,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Guitar making review, September 27, 2007

By 

J. A. Whiteside "luthier" (New Hampsire) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Step-By-Step Guitar Making (Paperback)

It turns out that guitar making is a complex art and there are many different ways for a beginner to approach it. The most complete book is William Cumpiano's "Guitar Making, Tradition and Technology". However, I found Willis "Step by Step Guitar Making" useful and valuable. It is shorter and clearer than Cumpiano and interestingly, a lot of the steps, sequence of operations, and jigs are different. For me, the differences between the two books help in understanding which steps are the most critical and which steps can be altered to best accomodate your particular skills, experience, and available tools. If you are serious about learning guitar building, I would recommend getting both books.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Proceed with Caution!, April 24, 2010

By 

T.W. (Hamilton, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Step-By-Step Guitar Making (Paperback)

Being a collector of luthiery materials, I had to buy this book to keep up to date. The photos and sequence of construction are nicely put together and there are a number of interesting techniques I've not seen in other manuals. That being said, I could not recommend the design offered as a viable first instrument for the beginning instrument builder.
There seems to a movement of sorts in the U.K. for enthusiastic amateur builders to come up with highly personalized designs, ideosyncratic assembly techniques and then... publish. Doubtfire, Kinkead, and now Willis all fall into this category. Each offers us an instrument design quite unrelated to what's been considered "the norm" in North American steel-string building. Of the two, I'm more confident in the Kinkead design.
Never having played one of Mr. Wills instruments, I can't comment on it's tonal characteristics. I am confident however, that this is an UNDERBUILT guitar. A dozen years of building and repair gives me concern about the following:
-The assertion that 2mm is the "optimum final thickness... for spuce tops" is pretty much insane. Two millimeters is considered razor-thin for most nylon-string classical designs.
-Couple that thin top with the X-brace layout described and you have a recipe for collapse. The braces are heavily decoupled, and they are at lacking at least 25% of the mass found on typical factory guitars.
-The low-profile design of the heel is elegant, but structurally problematic.
-The Spanish heel design with integral neck and top block can work for steel strung instruments, but is highly irregular.
-The extreme back-set neck angle necessitates an auxillary wedge under the upper part of the fretboard. Why? This geometry results in 3/8" of saddle protruding above the hight of the bridge. Assuming one can find a commercially prepared bridge blank this tall, you've still got an awesome amount of forward torque on the top.
-The assertion that, "a suitable height is about 5/23in (4mm)on the sixth string" is again,-laughable. Any repair person presenting a customer with a lightly built instrument obviously designed for fingerpicking with that sort of setup would be out of business in short order.
If I'm reading the label afixed to the instrument correctly, this is Mr. Willis' 16th instrument. The text bio states that he started devoting his time to instrument building in 2003. This book is copyrighted 2006. I'd be interested to see what changes he's made to his design. (There are very few photos on his website, but quite a number of ads for this book).
In summary, if you want to build a guitar modelled on the Martin OM design as was stated in the introduction, purchase a Martin plan from one of the suppliers. It's a time-tested design, unlike Mr. Willis'. And if,(again like the introduction says), you think the idea that starting a business making musical instruments is an exciting possibility, do follow his advice and consult a qualified business adviser. Perhaps he or she will suggest taking photos of one of your first guitars and publishing a book so you too can be a master.
-In all seriousness though, please don't use a regular household fan to exhaust the lacquer fumes from your spray booth as pictured on p.23. A spark from the motor could cause an explosive fire that could end your luthiery career very quickly.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for first time builders, March 26, 2009

By 

C or E Kleinman "Ernie or Cathy Kleinman" (lees summit mo 64081) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Step-By-Step Guitar Making (Paperback)

This is a great book for first time builders.There are a number of caveats to consider before embarking on making a guitar. You need to ask yourself if you are up to the task of using woodworking tools, and maintaining and sharpening them. The author assumes that you have previous woodwork experience. Another point to consider is the authors use of a solera, and or spanish heel type neck/foot joint. This is the preferred method for many hand builders. Personally I prefer a hand made or machine routed dovetail joint, to joint the neck to the body. In my opinion this would be easier to disassemble, at a future date. Wheras disassembling a spanish type neck can be very tricky. Overral the pictures are excellent, and the author gives novices plenty of information on making their first guitar. I would also recommend reading at least 2 or more guitarmaking books , to get exposure to other luthiers ideas.