Free guitar building course · Part 2
Choosing wood,
and choosing
glue.
What genuinely matters in timber selection, what is folklore, and how to buy stock that is dry, stable and will not twist itself into firewood a year after you finish.
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Chapter markers coming — paste the timestamps from the video description into the chapters field in videos.py and they become clickable here.
What this covers
- Body timbers, and what each actually contributes to a solidbody
- Neck timbers, where stability matters more than anywhere else on the instrument
- Reading grain, runout and figure — and spotting stock that will move
- Moisture content, and why wood that is not dry ruins a finished guitar months later
- Which glue for which joint, and where each one fails
The part most people get wrong
Not species — moisture. A beautifully figured board that has not stabilised to your shop's humidity will move after it is cut, and keep moving after the guitar is finished. That shows up as a twisted neck or a body that no longer sits flat in a neck pocket, and by then it is unfixable.
Buy dry stock, then let it sit in the shop before cutting. Cheapest insurance in the whole build.
On tonewood arguments. Body timber changes the weight, balance and feel of a solidbody far more reliably than it changes what comes out of the amp. Stability, weight and workability are the properties worth choosing for.
Written companion in progress.
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Full build videos, start to finish, including the parts that went wrong.
Build series · New video most months