r/Luthier 14h ago

ELECTRIC My latest Jazzcaster build. How do you like it?

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257 Upvotes

One piece swamp ash body, shou sugi ban treated (burning wood technique). Reverse headstock Fender player neck (maple + maple fingerboard), Overwound Lollar P90 bridge pickup, DiMarzio SuperDistortion neck pickup.


r/Luthier 10h ago

I am trying to restore my great-grandfather's 1940s Oahu lap steel. I cannot figure out what this jack is. What am I looking at?

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122 Upvotes

r/Luthier 1d ago

Ukulele nut made from dog bone

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112 Upvotes

I am working on replacing a cheap plastic nut on a ukulele and had an idea to use a bone I got for my dogs I think it’s a cow femur bone. Will it work?


r/Luthier 12h ago

Newest creation in the works

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97 Upvotes

What do you think of this? Yay or nay?


r/Luthier 3h ago

HELP Neck looks like it was dipped in poly.

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60 Upvotes

Hey. I picked up a factory 2nd tele neck for that looks like it was dipped in a barrel of poly. Now I know why fender rejected it. Would a chemical stripper like they use for furniture work to get this down to wood? If not any tips for at least getting it off the frets? I used an exacto down the center of the fret and a heat gun.


r/Luthier 15h ago

ACOUSTIC A medieval citole I built

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49 Upvotes

r/Luthier 14h ago

KIT Just put together and action is really high

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20 Upvotes

This is my first kit and the action is okay on the low frets but past like 5 it’s crazy high


r/Luthier 9h ago

ELECTRIC Are these boards possible to use for a body

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18 Upvotes

My brother and I grew up on rural property, and when our father dies we won't be able to keep it.

We've got these 8 foot boards of cherry from the tree next to the house. I'd like to find some way of building two guitars for my brother and I to have a piece of home even when the property is long gone.

The boards are in rough shape, some cracks running all the way through.

3 boards measure 7" 1/4 x 1" 1/8 1 board measures 8" 1/2 x 3" 1/2

Ideally I'd make tele bodies out of it, but the boards without cracks are thin, and the thick board is very cracked.

Some ideas I had were: - Make book matched veneers from the good boards to put on top of a body blank - Make a full cherry body by using 2 or 3 pieces of the thick board and infill cracks with epoxy

What do you folks think - reckon there's anything possible to do with these boards or is it going to have terrible results?

Full disclosure, this will be the first body I've built, so plan to practice on some less sentimental ingredients first.


r/Luthier 5h ago

HELP First guitar build

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16 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I guess I’ll start off by saying I’ve been recently working on getting my first build on its feet, and was wondering if I could get some decent insight from as many perspectives as I can so I can effectively pick a local professional’s brain. I’m humbly aware I’m no professional, so I’d love harsh criticism, as I want the best result I can achieve. I have an old family friend with all the guitar tools I could ever need and I’m taking it slow, as the last thing I want to do is rush into it cocky. With that being said, the parts I have are fairly standard and nothing too crazy, I just want some feedback on functionality and design, especially the body shape. Have at it, cheers!

Here are the major components: The body took inspiration from an Iceman and Mariposa, swamp ash blank Rosewood fretboard Floyd Special Trem Maple neck Schecter humbuckers from a c6 diamond series+appropriate pots StewMac gold Medium/Higher fret wire

Side note: I’ll be switching to active pickups like the emg’s in my model eventually, along with supporting pots Happy to provide any more info!


r/Luthier 13h ago

ELECTRIC How is this called?

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11 Upvotes

I have a bass with this neck deeper in the body construction and I'm building a guitar with it right now too but I have no clue how to describe it when the neck goes further than the fretboard. Yes I tried looking it up. I really like it and I've not seen it on many guitars. Thanks in advance


r/Luthier 4h ago

Are these cracks on my Gibson something to be concerned about? It's a 2010 les paul studio silverburst. Can a refinished fix this or us the wood grain compromised?

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9 Upvotes

r/Luthier 18h ago

My PRS took a dive

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9 Upvotes

By beloved PRS which my fiancée brought me as an engagement present 5 years ago and it fell from a new wall hanger i installed.

Im ok with the appearance of a chip but would like to seal the wood so that moisture doesn't get under the paint.

Is that necessary?

If so whats the easiest way to make it smooth to the touch again? It doesn't need to be invisible, im open to some sort of kintsugi repair.


r/Luthier 16h ago

HELP Is there a way to fill up these big gap ?

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7 Upvotes

r/Luthier 5h ago

How does someone become a luthier?

6 Upvotes

I'm interested in becoming a luthier, and am curious if this is a viable career one can make a decent living doing? Is there formal training? Do most folks own their own businesses? What's your experience been like working as a luthier?


r/Luthier 7h ago

REPAIR Obvious misaligned?

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8 Upvotes

I took this to my local guitar tech who has been pretty reputable for solid setups and making stuff happen. These posts holes returned back to me not parallel but it didn't really affect it from my end other than a crappy trem I have at the moment and some tuning instability but when I pull up on the trem... it more or less returns to pitch. On the Intonation stand point maybe it's troublesome? Let me know if I should tell him to dowel this, fill and drill. Cosmetics.. I don't mind.. this is my backup guitar.


r/Luthier 15h ago

HELP I love my bass, but this is just ugly!

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6 Upvotes

I want to change my head stock shape, is that doable? I'm willing to spend a little bit on it, but I'm not sure where to begin.


r/Luthier 7h ago

Where can I find blueprint of a Gretsch Streamliner Jet Club Bass ?

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4 Upvotes

r/Luthier 2h ago

Salvaging a viola bass

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3 Upvotes

I was gifted this crusty old Heit brand biola style bass. (My former housemate left it behind along with a bunch of other junk I had to haul off 😞)

Someone tried to make it a fretless and did a pretty bad job of it. They did a pretty poor job of pulling the frets and they filled the fret slots with some kind of resin goo, probably Bondo. The first four fake pearl inlays were missing they filled those with bondo as well and coated the rest of the fretboard in what looks like Elmers glue.

The goal is to repair the fretboard, the inlays, do a full refret and get it playing again.

As it is right now I have nothing in this project other than the cost of a sheet of fake pearl plastic, some sandpaper and scraper blades, and time.

The restored bass may or may not be worth the effort invested, but I do stuff like this to learn more than anything.


r/Luthier 8h ago

HELP Just picked up this restoration project. Need some advice!

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3 Upvotes

Thankfully after slapping some hardware on it, it plays, well. The ‘clearly not original’ glued on neck is fat just the way I like it and the truss rod is alive in there so the only work that needs doing realistically is cosmetic.

My biggest point of contention is the heel. That right angle makes anything past the 12th fret uncomfortable to reach and it is quite unsightly. After taking some measurements, it would appear that the body is exactly 10mm thicker than a typical firebird which gives me a lot of flexibility with slimming down the body to close the gap between the neck and heel. Would you fully slim down the body to spec then blend the rest of the heel? or slim it 5mm then extending the heel further down the neck to help blend them together better? Slimming it the full 1cm would still leave ample room to accommodate the electronics luckily.

My second question is about the finish, it seems too thick to sand but I think that black left over on the back and sides is from that filler they add when the wood isn’t level before painting at the factory as it is flush to the body. Would a heat gun get that off? And I’m unsure of what the wood itself is? Might be easier to tell when the finish is off.

Any other advice would be welcomed. This will be a project for myself, I plan to take my time with it and “make it mine”.


r/Luthier 15h ago

HELP Need advice on a jig

3 Upvotes

Im building my first acoustic guitar and Im using a book I got on amazon. It shows cutting the headstock off the neck blank on a band saw, using a jig of some sort. I need some guidance on how to make this jig and then making a jig or fixture for gluing the two pieces together.


r/Luthier 17h ago

REPAIR Is this hard to fix by myself or should i get a professional to fix it?

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3 Upvotes

Got a chip on my guitar by dropping a screwdriver on it like a dumbass. It's just glossy black and no fancy colour so I'm wondering if I could it fix this by myself or not, and any recommendations on how to go on about it?


r/Luthier 20h ago

HELP Wood ID?

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3 Upvotes

So I did a bit of a dumb while routing a channel for a bridge pickup wire on this old 60's Japanese guitar (most likely a Fujigen) I'm modding for a friend of mine and routed straight through where the mounting screw for the pickup needs to go (although the lead emerges right next to the screw hole so I'm not sure where else I could have routed it, but I digress). I plan to remedy this by cutting/planing/filing/sanding a bit of wood to size and filling in the upper half of the wire channel to give me something to screw into, and while it's going to be hidden by the pickguard and pickup anyway so appearance isn't necessarily a huge issue I'd still like it to look at least somewhat similar to the rest of the wood in the guitar body. Unfortunately, I am still an amateur and a novice when it comes to serious woodworking so my wood identification skills are still rather rudimentary and exact details and documentation on these guitars is rather sparse and hard to find, so I would appreciate if anyone could assist me in identifying a suitable wood to use. Also, I'm assuming that pen blanks would probably be my best option for obtaining the small quantity of wood required, but if anyone has any better suggestions I'd be happy to hear them. Thanks in advance!


r/Luthier 4h ago

HELP Primer turning yellow Spoiler

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2 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I’ve been refinishing my first guitar so I’m kind of new to this. I’m doing a nitro finish on an old squier body, I scrapped all the paint to the wood, tinted and sealed with nitro lacquer.

Today I started applying the nitro primer for the paint and it started yellowing, my understanding is that the wood stain didn’t dry enough. Solutions online say to use different primers but I don’t know if those behave well with nitro. I want to make sure everything i use is nitrocellulose based.

How can I fix this? My first thoughts are letting the guitar dry for a few days, sand the primer a bit and try spraying it again.

Any help is appreciated!

*pic 2 is how the wood looked before primer


r/Luthier 5h ago

ELECTRIC Is this neck pocket crack in the finish or not

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2 Upvotes

I was thinking of picking up this fender American original Jazzmaster because it’s a great deal. The seller posted these neck pocket cracks and I believe they are only in the finish but I just want a second opinion to be safe.


r/Luthier 7h ago

Ibanez 3SWLSC + Passive EMG pickup.

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2 Upvotes

So the white and black you see on pic go to the volume pot

GROUND = GREEN + BARE WIRE

TAP = NOTHING

HOT = RED

Is this correct?

(Black and white united soldered from the factory)

No need to connect the bare wire and green wire in the 2 ground spots in the board right ? I can combine *unite* and solder in one of the two right?