A couple of month ago, @SR mentioned I was working on a guitar building project.

Now that it's done and sounding, it's time to tell this journey, because a journey it was :)

Have a seat, grab a drink, put on your preferred music on, the fuzzier the better!

Where the wood started it all

Two years ago, my father-in-law, a painter and sculptor, bought several planks of plain sawn french elm, dried for more than 30 years.

Although it is not a common wood in guitar building, the planks were so gorgeous it lighted a spark in my mind.

This spark soon became an obsession, and sharing the idea with a friend in woodworking made it more doable than else.

First things first, chose the shape, find the plans, select the piece of wood.

I'm a huge fan of offset bodies, like Fender Jaguar or Toronado. But the Firebird's reverse headstock is probably one of the most beautiful of all time, and the neck-through conception has something so appealing that it made this choice obvious.

No the easiest choice, right ? Well. Yes, and why not ?

Now, second item in the list: drawings. What a pain!

Although it is easy to find the Firebird studio plans, the Firebird ('63) reverse with reverse headstock is slightly different, with both its neck-through body, a bigger headstock, the v-shaped wings. And as I discovered a bit later, depending on the factory and the production year, they're all a bit different.

Indeed, in the 60s and 70s, there was still a lot of manual craftsmanship in the production process.

Gathering all the documentation I could made me rather uneasy with the endless possibilities, but also more comfortable with the mistakes I would probably make (fortunate I am to have gone through this, we'll see that later).

Roughly drawing the shape led me to select the mandatory planks. In lutherie, one uses quarter sawn planks. Since the planks were plain sawn, I had to go for a 5-ply body and 3-ply neck. There are no mechanical constraints on the wings so I could focus on the nicer grain.

I ended with two pieces for the wings, and three to build the neck-through body.

Electric guitar means...

Well... yes. It means some electronics.

Usually, Firebird have two mini humbucker pickups, sometimes one, with tone and volume pots, plus switch. But I wanted more (the fuzzier the better, remember?) so .. I also had to dig in that.

After trying a couple of guitars, with different pickups, I decided to go for two, a P90 on the neck, and a humbucker with an high output level for the bridge.

As I didn't want to spoil a wood that rad, I also decided not to have a pickguard, and to move the switch near the pots instead of on the bottom "horn". Yes, I like piling up difficulties.

For a better sustain, I also decided to have a string-through body tailpiece (well... ferules then) and for the sake of aesthetics, I wanted to have Steinberger tuners.

Gathering all the furniture before starting is a good way to ensure all is planned, and to start visualizing the building process, the constraints, some dimensions.

So I ordered all the stuff from Stewmac, and patiently waited for them to arrive. Pickups come from Tep's, a french amp builder who also have pretty good pickups.

When the easiest part ends in the first questions

First day of build came out as the first day of questions.

With my friend Renald, we started to review all the steps to plan and what must be done at the workshop

This started by leveling and planing the planks for the neck

and do the same for the wings

Remember they are v-shapped.... :)

And to glue everything for the day 2!

Day 2 - When it starts to look like a guitar

Day 2 was dedicated to the most important part: Neck-through body.

Renald starting with the headstock angle, then shaping and routing the truss-rod slot

Meanwhile, I started with the electronics, to plan the mandatory thickness for the lower wing and the cavities.

At the end of the day, we were ready to have a ... well... plane?

Day 3: Wings and pickups.

It's a plane right? So let' build some wings.

First of all, it was interesting to have the nicest grain pattern for the shape.

During this phase, I used quite a lot various tools from the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab in Velizy: Shapertool Origin and printers.

I made all the templates using the lab's tools:

Pickups and other holes to route

Well. Now that all the mandatory templates are ready, it is time to route the cavities, glue everything, and to get closer to ... well... the end, right?

Having the templates done with the Shapertool origin was undoubtedly a gain of time.

Time to chose the fretboard before finishing the neck. Rosewood is absolutly gorgeous on elm so ...

It's both pre-radius and pre-slotted, Radius is 12'' and scale is 24.75'', standard Gibson scale.

Same for the electronic cavity, which would have ended in a total mess without this tool

Remember that the wings are v-shapped? It's a nightmare. The lower part of the cavity must be parallel to the front of the wing but the cavity cache hole is parallel to the back section...

Shaping the neck, finish the head...

Well. OK. Not the end yet. One would have thought neck shaping as the most complicated, but it turned out to be rather easy in the end.

Roughly cut in trapezoid, then rasping, then compare to the template... then sanding, ... and start other until you're fine with it.

In the process, we added the fretboard (rosewood) and inserted the inlays (pink mother of pearl).

At the end of the day, it's time to glue everything

Time to fret!

So yeah. The next step, after a handful of hours sanding the body and the neck to be as smooth a baby skin, it's time to assemble ferules, tuners, frets, etc.

And I finally played it!

I thought I was done. I was wrong.

Having a guitar perfectly in tune is not that easy. It is even a cumbersome process when you start from scratch. Setting the action, to ensure the height of the nut is correct etc.

It took quite some time. Ensure all the cavity is shielded, solder pickups...

So there we are...

That was a fantastic project, a great journey, learning a lot in the making. And this is the beginning of the next project... providing with the perfect frame for my now beloved Firebird.