Why did you build your guitar

[Death by Uberschall]

The curious part is you put together the exact fiddle you want - no compromise, everything's right - yet you almost immediately feel like you need another one. What's up with that?

All my life I've been pretty much a one-guitar kind of guy. If there was something I didn't like, I changed it. If it wasn't changeable from a practical standpoint, I replaced the whole guitar. Been doing that since forever until I started with the Warmoths. Now I've got 8 of them, and I still go cruising The Showcases on the off chance there's something I just gotta have and to hell with everything else.

I need a 12 step program or something <grin>

:toothy12:

I think it's the satisfaction we get from "getting it right" by our own standards.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

The curious part is you put together the exact fiddle you want - no compromise, everything's right - yet you almost immediately feel like you need another one. What's up with that?

It is simple, you cannot be satisfied by just one build.  Sooner or later you want to try something different, whether it be the same thing with a brighter sound, or something completely different for the oft overlooked caged up in the dark corner lunatic fringe part of the personality.  But getting it right feeds the desire to get it right again, and satisfy another need.  Because it is not to difficult to get something that fits so well, it is not hard to justify another, and another, and maybe just a couple more.  Perhaps one for the living room as well.  You know only one doesn't give the room balance quite the way I had originally hoped.  Well, now the dining room really has to have two as well...
Patrick

 

[swarfrat]

Your luthier buddies are most likely by and large technicans who are just guarding their business interests. There's a heck of a lot more design that goes into mass produced jar lids than even a very talented artistist who scrapes out exquisitely beautiful guitar necks out of old growth wood from the garden of Eden with a rock and dull spoon hand tools.

 

[mayfly]

Let's hear for THE musicians friend Behringer.  They may not make the highest quality equipment, but for the price they charge, they are easily replacable.

Yep Behringer is the new Peavey.  If it breaks, you can just get another.

 

[Jusatele]

Wanted a guitar designed and built by your own hands?

My luthier chat buddies hate Warmoth people for having that attitude. Screwing together some Warmoth parts (I know Warmoth was not specifically mentioned in the OP, but it's pretty much implied.) is by no means "designing and building a guitar with your own hands." It's just assembling. You're not designing and building until you're sketching out drawings and cutting up wood.

In any case, I got into Warmoth because I wanted things I could not find in mass produced instruments.

I have to politely disagree with this
I know a ton of designers and engineers that do not assemble their own designs.
when you get a idea, and carry it out till it is what you wanted, you designed something
now I will agree it is easy to design stuff with pre made and finished parts
however, a lot of us here do take pre made parts and design a finish and carry that out, others even buy blanks with minimum routing. where do they lay in your luthier friends eye.
While we are not luthiers, we are capable of design, and technical enough to assemble. As said we may not be luthiers but quite a few guys here have the technical ability to do many of the skills of a luthier, if not some being able to do all of them.
A luthier is nothing but a professional guitar technician. It has been proven in any profession that there are guys who are hobbyist that can far out preform a professional, they just do it as a hobby. Tell your friend to get his nose out of the sky.

 

[swarfrat]

My sister in law's grandad has a place at the beach. He built his own pier. About 1/3 the way through he decided he'd bit off more than he wanted to chew, and consulted a professional. The pro came out, took a look at the piling's he'd already set, and asked "who did this?"  He said "I did it myself." The pro then replied "I don't think you're going to be happy hiring this out". 

 

[JimBeed]

Well I must admit that my reasons fall into quite a few of the catagories.

I wanted something in purple, very hard to come by on run of the mill 1000 downwards cost basses,

I wanted to try a five string, but one that could easily be played as a four string if i wanted, My warmoth does that, Currently its running a string short while im skint.

After spending a great deal of time on here, i wanted to try a raw neck, which i got and i absolutely adore in my wenge deluxe 5 neck, along with the bloodwood fingerboard.

The reason my build came into being was due to my dad passing away, and having gotten a 1000 from his teachers pension at the start as a lump sum, i decided that in a way it would be in his memory.

Now it is finally being played for a band, well practices so far, gigs will follow, and i couldn't be happier with it.

One thing i am wishing for is a cousin for it, 4 string, Either wenge/bloodwood or wenge with a maybe purpleheart fretboard this time, 4 string, same pickups and z body,

Thats where my GAS is right now, and im planning on saving up for it now, and possibly selling my thunderbird to help fund it, as i find i can get tone for saxon and other heavy songs from my five string that a four string could easily replicate aswell.

Even with it being a slight memorial for my dad, i've still called it Annabelle, and just trying to decide on its cousin's name once i put the design spec set in stone  :rock-on:

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Let's hear for THE musicians friend Behringer.  They may not make the highest quality equipment, but for the price they charge, they are easily replacable.

Yep Behringer is the new Peavey.  If it breaks, you can just get another.

While this isn't what I'd call a hijack, it's definitely a detour and I feel more than obliged to contribute.  Behringer's pricing puts them in the beginner's price range.  Because they're beginners, they don't know what a unity setting is, what gain/trim does, what impedance matching is, or why for a few more bucks, Yamaha is a great deal.  Beginners are the hardest on equipment, so maybe Behringer gets a slightly exaggerated rep.  It's fragile to begin with, compounded with use by people that don't know the dos and don'ts.  But....the issue for me isn't that it breaks, but when it breaks.  It breaks in the 1st set of a 4 hour show on Saturday night when you're in BFE.  Who cares that its easily replaced, I need it now.  It's like the kid that only has one cable, but it has a lifetime warranty.  If you have one cable, you have no cable.  If you're playing through a Behringer, you better have 2.  After buying 2, you'll realize you would've paid less for one of another brand that works.

 

[KaiserSoze]

I call BS on all of you....you did it for chicks, every one of you.  'Nuff said.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I mostly play bass.  It's patently obvious I didn't do it for chicks.

:headbang:

 

[Jusatele]

Well, I have to say now that my second build is a.week or so from finish, that I enjoy the hobby.
I have learned tons. Developed new skills and been able to put ideas in my head to guitar.

 

[ORCRiST]

My Dave Murray Aces High strat came into being for basically one reason.

I was on Fender's website looking at Dave Murray's Signature Series Stratocaster. At first, I laughed at the comical price. After that,
I got pissed because Fender had the gall to charge an outrageous amount for a ho-hum stratocaster (which I hated to begin with)
and it didn't even have a Floyd Rose! Right then and there I just KNEW I could make something better in every way (even though I'd
never built a guitar in my life), such is my absolute contempt for Fender.

So I did.

:headbang1:

 

[Jusatele]

ORC
we are friends enough I can call you ORC?
One thing I will give you, you do hate Fender.
I will never forget that.
And it looks like all that built in hate has caused a beautiful to be created and in this world.
so
:rock-on:

 

[Just Another Smith]

About a year and a half ago I bought an Ibanez AMF73TF.  I had been looking for a semi-hollow for a while and the Ibanez fit the bill.  I added a piezo bridge, Seymour Duncans, and changed some of the hardware and had a new pickguard cut for it (I'm not that into the Partridge Family).  The guitar sounds great and plays great but that pickguard still bugs me.

I then decided that I wanted a Tele next but when I went to their site I couldn't find anything for a decent or not so decent price that I wouldn't have to sink more money into to make what I wanted.  I didn't want a repeat of the Ibanez.  While searching the internet I stumbled across Warmoth and I've been saving up for my first build ever since.  I haven't started yet but I've already learned a ton about the mechanics of guitars.

 

[Rickgrxbass]

I suppose, for me at least, a good part was the romance of choosing every aspect, the body, the neck, the wood combination, the electronics, the hardware; conjecturing on what the tone is going to be like, knowing it's going to be "the one bass" I'd ever need...

...Never mind, two years later I find a used Peavey T-40 in Tennessee for $300 and realise it is literally all the bass I'll ever need  :doh:

 

[Twigman]

I wanted a Charger Green / Tort  precision with a Jazz neck and a bridge jazz pickup - Fender didn't and have never made on so I had to do it myself.

 

[dsorber]

Me reasons didn't exactly fit one choice either.

I am building my own guitar for several reasons:

1) I can be picky and tweak and tweak and tweak and get everything the way *I* want it. No manufactured guitar is going to offer me that. I have always changed *SOMETHING* about the pre-built guitars I've owned.

2) Its fun designing an instrument. I've learned so much about myself as player by looking into the design aspect of the guitar. I feel much more connected to the instrument and the music since I now have a greater understanding about how the guitar works and why things sound the way they do.
It's like now I can manipulate the playing field to improve MY game and give me an advantage in my music that another guitar can't offer. I feel like a part of myself goes into it as well.

3) I am a gear head. I love it when MY gear gets other gear heads excited, hahah. I love taking the stage and all the guitar players coming up to me afterward going "What are you using!? That's awesome!" and your response is "I built it".  arty07:

4) Its unique, and theres nothing else like it. It's truly MY guitar! My weapon! I designed my own headstock too so in a way, its MY brand.

 

[SlartiBartfast]

I'm just picky and wanted to customize as much as possible without completely breaking the bank. It's also awesome to be able to see the actual hunks of wood that will be used to make my baby become my baby.