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The Online Guitar Store - Make Your Own Electric Guitar
![Make Your Own Electric Guitar]()
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List Price: $16.95
Our Price: $40.92
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Music Sales Corp
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 787.612
EAN: 9780713717068
ISBN: 0713717068
Label: Music Sales Corp
Manufacturer: Music Sales Corp
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 160
Publication Date: 1987-03
Publisher: Music Sales Corp
Studio: Music Sales Corp
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Editorial Reviews:
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The electric guitar is the musical instrument of the last 30 years. In that time, names like Fender and Gibson have acquired an aura--and a price--that are truly remarkable. For some, however, it is not enough to buy a guitar--the challenge of designing and hand-making a unique, customized instrument is the dream. Since 1986, these people have turned to one book: Make Your Own Electric Guitar. Written in a clear, relaxed style, it covers every facet of guitar design and construction, as well as electronic theory and practice, and full woodworking and wiring techniques--all supported with plenty of photos and diagrams. Now in a revised and expanded edition, Make Your Own Electric Guitar will enable any musician or enthusiast with basic woodworking skills to create a uniquely valuable instrument.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Read this before building your first guitar
Comment: Excellent book for building and electric guitar. The instructions are wonderfully clear. There is also loads of general guitar information you'll pick up as you read through it.
Worth reading for any guitar enthusiast whether you or not you are considering building one yourself.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Make your own electric guitar
Comment: This is quite an informative book for a beginner electric guitar or other electric instrument maker. There are three chapters which follow the course of making two guitars and a bass, and different neck/ body constructions are covered pretty well through these instructional examples. Different techniques for different applications are examined. I think the structure could be more logical and progressive for this book, but it's not a major detraction. I think that there could be a more fundamental analysis of constructing a guitar rather than basing the work on traditional and contemporary practices. In this way guitar makers could come up with there own ideas and approaches, but overall it's a good book in a subject area that seems pretty scant for want of information. Also sometimes the author is a little misleading for the sake of telling a joke, for instance about 'bashing in' frets. It could be edited better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Comment: I am a hobby builder and, like many, I suppose, had made some beginner mistakes and was unsure of some proper techniques. This book is excellent whether you are building a guitar from scratch and making every part by hand, or using some ready made parts (perhaps neck and body) then assembling and setting up an instrument yourself. The wiring section is particularly helpful, both for builders and repair people. The book is written in a self effacing, witty British style. Lots of good photographs and diagrams are included as well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good reference, but not great.
Comment: This book does have useful information and reference, but is not the 'Fantastic', 'Electric guitar bible', that it has been touted to be here and on luthier sites.
Book is organized logically, but it doesn't exactly flow, and even though some bits are humorous it doesn't make up for drab writing. Melvin is a great builder and does make nice guitars.
The book probably is worth the money for the first time builder, but not for someone who has built one or two already.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good book when it stays on the topic
Comment: Fed up with my local musical instrument retailers, I set out to build my very own guitar armed with this book: Make Your Own Electric Guitar by Melvyn Hiscock. I have to say I learned A LOT from this book, it's got a lot of very detailed information. However as an absolute beginner to this art who has a lot of questions, I can say it has some shortcomings.
For one, as another reviewer mentioned, there are way too may pages spent babbling on about the history of the electric guitar. This would all be fine and good, BUT it is mixed in with the instructional text, so there's no way to skip over it or read around it. It's not like you can just skim until you find what you need because when building a guitar, missing the slightest detail can leave you completely screwed. You actually have to read it all to get the details you need, and it isn't always interesting or relevant. The history content should have been separated from the instructional text, the net result is a book that is not very clear or concise.
Secondly, I hope you're a fan of Fender and/or Gibson, because the entire book is centered around them. You'll learn the history of these two brands from the very first one built onwards. Also all the specs for the building are based on those of Fender and Gibson. I don't mind this, as I am a fan of both, but this book does not give an answer-all formula for any style guitar, if such a thing exists.
Melvyn describes the craft in a very great amount of detail and he is very honest, but to me the book was more discouraging than anything. Perhaps I could save you some time right now before you even buy this:
-To build a guitar you need some ABOVE AVERAGE woodworking skills. If you just woodwork in your spare time or you never have, do not even attempt this.
-You need a lot of tools that I can almost gaurantee you don't have in readily available to you.
-Building your own guitar wil NOT save you money. You will most likely end up spending more money than you would on a brand new guitar.
Those are just a few of the many things you should be aware of perhaps even prior to purchasing this book. Hope this was helpful, thanks for reading!
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