One of the most important things to affect the tone of your guitar is the kind of wood it is made from. Being one who likes the classic sound of a Gibson Les Paul Electric Guitar, and my Melody Maker, I chose to use Mahogany. So I went down to the
local lumber yard and picked up a piece of Mahogany that measures 7 x 60 x 1.5 inches.
Which is enough wood to build two electric guitars. One for myself, and one for my son.
It was too expensive for me to buy a piece of Mahogany the entire width of the electric guitar, so I chose to glue two pieces together on edge to get the proper width. One thing you need to do is to make sure you match the grain of the wood as much as possible. This helps to hide the glue joint, which will be in the middle of the body of the electric guitar.
The two edges of the Mahogany that are going to be joined I used 3/4 inch dowel rod to reinforce the joint. The placement of these dowels must be located such that when you route out the pickup cavities these dowels will be out of the way of the humbucker pickup cavities.
Here you can see one edge with the wood glue on it, ready to be clamped up.

For glue, I just used TiteBond wood glue. Also I used pipe clamps for clamping the wood, as a lot of force is required,
Here they are being clamped together. After the wood is clamped, I let it set for 24 hours.
Once the glue has completely set for 24 hours, I took it to a local woodworking shop and had them plane down both sides. This insured that the front and back of the guitar body are perfectly flat and smooth.
Next page: Cutting Out The Body |