How do I get the body I want?!

[veemo]

Guitar bodies, of course!

I started daydreaming about building my dream guitar from Warmoth. I have a body shape in mind, but I'm not sure how I should  proceed, if and when I do.

This is the body I want to copy, its an Aria Pro II TS style.

The options I see are buy a rear-routed body blank and go from scratch, or a rear routed unfinished strat body and cut it to shape. I have access to a wood shop, that's not a problem, I'm just wondering if anyone sees advantages or disadvantages to either approach that I haven't seen.

Thanks!!

 

[bagman67]

If you're going for a shape you want, might as well start with a virgin blank rather than trying to pound a square peg (strat body) into a round hole (veemo's fantasy guitar shape).  It'll be cheaper, too.

 

[veemo]

Thanks, that's what I was leaning towards. The advantage I saw to doing a strat body was that I could get all those nice strat contours, and it would all involve minimal work to get the result I want.

 

[line6man]

How would you get that shape out of a Strat body? :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch:

 

[bagman67]

Thanks, that's what I was leaning towards. The advantage I saw to doing a strat body was that I could get all those nice strat contours, and it would all involve minimal work to get the result I want.

Well, if you're feeling brave, you can go to town on a blank with a surform or microplane, whichever name the technology is known by in your area - or a good old fashioned rasp.

 

[DangerousR6]

Guitar bodies, of course!

I started daydreaming about building my dream guitar from Warmoth. I have a body shape in mind, but I'm not sure how I should  proceed, if and when I do.

This is the body I want to copy, its an Aria Pro II TS style.

The options I see are buy a rear-routed body blank and go from scratch, or a rear routed unfinished strat body and cut it to shape. I have access to a wood shop, that's not a problem, I'm just wondering if anyone sees advantages or disadvantages to either approach that I haven't seen.

Thanks!!

If you want Warmoth to do that for you. you'd have to send them a full scale drawing of the body shape...

 

[line6man]

Thanks, that's what I was leaning towards. The advantage I saw to doing a strat body was that I could get all those nice strat contours, and it would all involve minimal work to get the result I want.

Well, if you're feeling brave, you can go to town on a blank with a surform or microplane, whichever name the technology is known by in your area - or a good old fashioned rasp.

I would use a Microplane. Surforms suck! Lol.

 

[JimBeed]

Or a small islands supply of different grade sandpaper, 

 

[nexrex]

How would you get that shape out of a Strat body? :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch:

Agreed, that looks a lot closer to the shape of an SG to me

 

[veemo]

with the offset horns it could be cut from a strat body, I got a picture of a strat and trimmed the horns down to a shape pretty close to the picture, but I'm liking the body blank idea. I could rough it out with a bandsaw then go to town with whatever finer hand tools, that wouldn't be a problem.

 

[Cagey]

Why pay for the labor to cut out a Strat body if you're going to cut it up into something else? Cut up a blank with the neck/cavity routes already in it. You end up at the same place after doing the same amount of work for less money.

 

[Alfang]

I recognized that as soon as a i saw it, I got one and its a nice guitar, I don't play it as much as I should.

I think your best option would be to laminate up a blank, send it to Warmoth and have them route the blank and return it to you, then you cut out the body shape and cut your own contours.

Better yet would be, get some scrap and practice routing a neck pocket and pickup cavities and do the whole thing yourself

 

[line6man]

with the offset horns it could be cut from a strat body, I got a picture of a strat and trimmed the horns down to a shape pretty close to the picture, but I'm liking the body blank idea. I could rough it out with a bandsaw then go to town with whatever finer hand tools, that wouldn't be a problem.

You're going to need a spindle sander after cutting out the shape with a bandsaw.
Unless you REALLY enjoy hand sanding bandsaw blade marks.

 

[iamdavidmorris]

If you have the tools, I would think the right way to turn a strat body into something like this would be to make a copy of the strat shape with MDF (or several of them), and then try to get that to the shape you want.  When you're comfortable with it, pull out the router and use it as a template.

Then again, if you're doing all that, might as well just make the whole body.