Beginnner needs advice on Guitar Carving

[lands]

Hi all,

I apologize that I'm starting with no knowledge, but I think this is the place to get started.

I'm a guitar player and have wanted to put together a custom carved guitar. I've decided to get started, so here I am. First some VERY elaborate examples. I wouldn't be shooting for this level, more of just decorative shapes, but here's some cool stuff.

A current ebay auction that's inspired me - the back is amazing:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ayphotohosting

Doug Rowell's stuff is great:
http://www.carverdoug.com/guitars/mike_botts.htm
http://www.carverdoug.com/guitars/russ_guiguerre.htm

So, what I'm looking for is some guidance on where to start. I'm an artist, but haven't worked with wood much. I'll just rattle off the questions in my head and maybe you could be kind enough to give me some help.

I'd like to do some carving like this:

1. Is it best done by hand or are there other tools that would make it easier?
2. Could you recommend tools so I could get started?
3. What is he doing to get the different colors of wood (reds and browns)? Is he staining it or burning?
4. Difficulty level based on your experience?

I LOVE the back of this thing:





Look like the guitar may have started out brown and then cut into the wood to show the design. (It's a bit deceptive because the middle flower looks raised) This style might be the way I'd like to go.

1. Thoughts on how it was done?
2. Tools you'd use?
3. Once finished, what would you use to coat/protect it? (I'm assuming you'd need something)
4. On the closeup of the neck (second pic), it looks like he man have burned a design on the neck. Best way to do that?
5. I'm a bit worried on how the existing finish will react to being carved, hmmm...

Lastly, what type of wood would you recommend if I start from an unfinished body? Swamp Ash and Alder seem to be the most used in guitar, but I've seen carved guitars using Basswood. I'd like it be be as light as possible.

Anyway, thanks a million. This project will really help me start getting out my artistic side again, and take my mind off everyday troubles.

Take care,

LB

[falconer]

Lands, I have built both acoustic and solid body guitars. It takes patients and precise measureing. My advise for your first attempt would be to buy a kit and put it together first. That way you will have a working knowledge of all the parts. If you want to get right to work get the best piece of 2in thick alder AAA at least this is the best for carving and guitar sound. You will also need wood for the fret board and neck. I would pick rosewood/ebony and maple. If you have any other questions see my website for my contact info, I'd be glad to talk to you further. Building guitars is a really complicated subject. My website is www.sierracreekstudios.com

[lands]

Thanks Falconer. Yeah, I've done of bit of guitar building, so that shouldn't be the problem. Actually have a neck that will fit the guitar type I'd like to carve (Tele).

So Alder is the best for carving. Great, I'll start with that if I get an unfinished body. I'll check out your site!

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

for tools....talk to Rick at www.littleshavers.com

[Ashbys]

I will give you my thoughts,

1. Is it best done by hand or are there other tools that would make it easier?

If you wish to do it like he did , he purchased a finished gituar and striped the finish . Cut through the venieer and got into the heart of the gituar. It has been a while but I think the inter wood is mahagony . To strip the top coats of a gituar, I would suggest power tools as the finish can be many coats of poly.

1. Could you recommend tools so I could get started?

You will need a bit more than a starter set if you expect to do the type of work he has done. But without studying the work for a while , it isn't possible to say excatly what he used. And his work is pretty good he isn't just starting.

1. What is he doing to get the different colors of wood (reds and browns)? Is he staining it or burning?

He is usings stains paints and look like he is buring in some areas. The brown may well be the natural tone of the mahagony showing through the new finish. The other tones are paints.

1. Difficulty level based on your experience?

If you are just starting and attempt to copy that , you have the determination to work on one cut until you get it right , and you have the time to apply yourself to study the work before you attempt it. I would expect your looking at 3 -4 hours a day for 6 months. A master carver , working 8 hours a day, I would expect 3 weeks start to finish including the painting.

Once finished, what would you use to coat/protect it? (I'm assuming you'd need something)

Polys , coat sand coat sand coat sand normally 6 - 8 times to get the depth of the finish .

On the closeup of the neck (second pic), it looks like he man have burned a design on the neck. Best way to do that?

This is a simple design , done with a v-tool , very common pattern for scroll work. Also very little time in doing it , compaired to the other completed work .

I'm a bit worried on how the existing finish will react to being carved, hmmm...

Any where your planning on carving , do not expect to keep the finish it will not happen, you can't carve and keep the finish. Also , if you have a flame burst or a venieer top , it is paper thin and will be removed as soon as you clear the finish.
Solid bodies are the way to go but the more the design in the wood the more issues you will have carving it.

Also depending on the ammount of wood you remove , the tone may change.

So my suggestions,
1 build the guitar, this way you know the material.
2 Solid body
3 Carve the body before you assemble it carving a gituar with the neck in place is awkard and your always worried about the neck being in the way.

4At your experence level be aware that , it may not come out the way you want.

I would strongly , suggest you try caving with another carver , before you start and really take some time to plan this project. If you can't find another carver to work , with while you are planning spend the time learning carving , take a class , learn to sharpen your tools and practice .

[wade clark]

LB,
Welcome!
Wow! Ambitious first project, but you can do it, just take your time.
If you have a Woodcraft Supply store near you, sometimes they have classes that you build and carve a guitar start to finish. At least the one in NASHVILLE does...of course! I hope to take the course one of these days, maybe next winter. You can also buy kits to build them yourself.
I see you've got lots of other good advice here.
go for it, and have fun!
Wade

[mark yundt]

Most guitars I've seen are the previously mentioned woods as well as various patterns of Maple..this to me doesnt' look at all like mahogany,and as you know solid body guitars are just that,solid, no veneers,necks are usually maple as well. I've visited the c.f.Martin company here and they use spruce for the sounding board, then walnuts, mahogany etc for the sides and back or pretty much any wood you want.The carving,,looks more difficult than what it really is I believe.The intracacy of the design is fooling. the bulk of this ,especially on the back could be done with 3-4 chisels but in this case it was done with a router,,, not chisels.The background is only stippled,,making fast work since you dont' have to fuss over keeping it clean. With a steady hand and small sharp bullnose bits this could be pretty quickly done even considering the slight undulations ,,but most guitar backs are fairly flat aren't they..even the fronts on most elec. ones ?Looking at it I believe this is how most of the back was done,, if you look closely you can see the paths of the bits,, these are not chisel marks,,,they're the path of router bits.I've used enough of them to recognize their tell tale marks.As long as you can draw the design ,, the rest is easy,, as long as you can handle at least a small router/ I think the bulk of this could be done in a day or so just for the back and just a small veining chisel and a V tool to refine the outlines and a bit of clean up.The front is another story,, here there is more carving done in relief. Again the same process could be used, but to gain the flow and shape of the leaves etc,some carving will have to be done,, and in this case,,it's not a whole lot, but some knowledge of carving to get the lizzard and leaves to flow would be helpful.Also ,, seeing how high the crawling critter is off the surface , it might have been added as a separate piece to appear more like it's running over the surface, (nothing else is even close to it's height) and then just blended in.The remaining background here is also just stippled, meaning using some sort of punch or texture and tapping the design into the background and the remaining stems and leaves basically just rolled over, with some carvings and veins on the leaves themselves.As I said looks, in this case , are deceiving ,,this to me is a fairly simple carving without a high level of skill required,something with some practice on some scrap with a router, just a few chisels,or dremel even, some sandpaper and a little time , a beginner could duplicate this rather easily.Many beginner projects are much more involved than this,,it just doesn't look it.Whoever made this might make a good instrument,, but the skills he needed to do this"carving" were minimal to achieve this look

[lands]

Thanks to all of you for the great info. I'm really getting excited about this. Many years ago I sculpted with clay, and I think this will provide some of the same enjoyment.

Here's a little more history of where I'm looking to go. I'll need to decide which way to go - relief carving, router like on the back, or both. On of the inspirations I've had in my head for a while is Waylon Jenning's guitars. Here's one from the Hard Rock museum:



I was thinking about starting with something like this and making my own design from their. I'm a computer artist, so I'm assuming that I could start with a pa patern I create on the computer, print out, and go from there.

I'll certainly take your advice and do a fair amount of practice on other wood. I'll also look for a class so I can work with another carver.

I'll talk to Rick at www.littleshavers.com - thanks

Ashbys - thanks for the very detailed reply. Ton of great stuff in there. I'll have to do some research on color and stain. Any suggestions on resources for that?

mark yundt - Thanks man. Your breakdown of the process for doing the back makes sense to me.

For the routing of the back, would either of these tools be a good choice:
http://cgi.ebay.com/4-N-1-ELECTRIC-H...QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...076839233&rd=1

I'll have to get some practice with some carving tools to do relief work on the front.

Thanks again, and any other thoughts are appreciated.

[Ashbys]

After reading Marks reply,

I did some checking, the gituar that is posted is a very cheap bass gituar. That model is basswood., with a maple neck and sell for less than 200.00 today. THe more expensive version of the same gituar , has a mahagony body.
So the tint is from the finish.
There is a lot of information in the finishing section of the board about different finishes you might check there.

Also , I think it is quite possible that it is laser cut on the front. I have not done basswood with a laser but if you look close the texture effect is an easy effect to achieve with a laser. Also the carving is not very deep. THe lizard looks like it could be added on as it looks to be higher than the orginial body of the gituar. If you also notice the tail area of the lizard, the leaf under the tail takes a color shift going under the tail, with a dark area showing up that gets darker as it gets deeper. That depth is easy to achieve.

It would explain the color in the areas it is at.

Thanks for making me take a closer look.

Now I guess the next question is , do you want to learn to carve or just to do something quickly. If you wish to power carve, some of the work on this gituar was done with an engraver. I know there is a high speed 200000rpm tool being used for this type work, the entire piece may well have been done with it.

[mark yundt]

Here is a quick example using the methods I described. I made mine deeper so you could see it a bit better since I wasn't using stains or paints to help it show. This isn't an exact duplicate,, only wanted to show the basic elements.I only used a bullnose bit an a small #2 chisel and a "V" tool.I only got close on the stippling but if I played with it a bit,, and changed the way I shaped my tool the backgroung pattern would be much closer.After setting up the router,doodling a bit of a design,carving , a touch of sanding,,well under 40 min.. So I feel as I said earlier,, once the design was laid out ,, the back at least would take not even a day,, there is no carving here to speak of.. The front,, at max could be done 2 days max.Let me know if you have any questions.

Yeah, could very well be bass,,knew it wasn't mahogany.The front MIGHT be laser cut but I would doubt it. Most of the laser work I've seen is crisp and clean,,very precise and accurate,sterile and lifeless. This piece shows none of those qualities.Instead this shows rounded coves at the base of all the leaves, chisel marks all over the stems, some rounded some square showing I think someone who wanted to try a carving,used a router and a few chisels and went at it hoping for the best.As far as the texturing in the background,,I'm sure this too could be done quite easily with a laser,, but this guy wasn't that high tech,, again looking at the piece he ran into the same thing I did,,not able to get really tight up against the leaves with the punch leaving the telltale router marks which are clearly visible with the punch marks following them to a T.Even looking at the rest of the background,,on the front,,you can still see,, even under the stippling,, router grooves.