Do you want to find out How Are Electric Guitars Made? Here it is a detailed article on how are electric guitars made...
It is rather difficult to imagine music without the modern electric guitar. It is used in different genres of music like the blues, jazz, country music, and rock and roll. It was in the late 1930s and 1940s when guitarists and inventors like Les Paul and Leo Fender developed the early designs of the solid-body electric guitar. Today we see many fancy designs and colors.
Material Used To Make The Electric Guitar
The body and neck of the electric guitars are made from hard woods like mahogany, maple, walnut, ash and alder. The harder the material, the clearer the sound. A softer material absorbs high frequencies, and the heavier the material the longer the sustain.
How Electric Guitars Are Designed
Wood selection and body design are large parts of the electric guitar construction process. The electric guitar is mainly made of the bridge, the body and neck. Secondary components include the fingerboard, strings, nut and tuning heads. The solid-body electrical guitar depends upon electromagnetic pickups and amplifiers to produce the sound.
How Are Electric Guitars Made:
The Process Of Making The Electric Guitar
Wood is selected, inspected, and processed for making the body, neck and fingerboard. The wood is cured and machine-cut to size. The machine also cuts a channel for wires to be placed.
A maple top and mahogany back are glued on to the wood and dried. Next, the body is shaped to its finished contour and smoothed.
During this time, the neck of the guitar is built, shaped, sanded and the fingerboard and head veneer are applied.
Fingerboards are made of rosewood and ebony and are slotted for frets. The inlays come next. After they are placed, the fingerboard is left to dry, after which the frets are placed.
The fingerboard is now joined to the neck. The headstock veneer is also glued onto the neck blank. After the neck is shaped and finished, it is fitted to the body. Some electric guitar necks are glued into place while others are bolted on.
The pickup cavities and bridge holes are added. Before the body is sprayed with a finish, the body and neck are sealed to ensure that paint will not be absorbed into the wood.
After the guitar has dried and has been sanded, it is buffed to a high gloss.
How Are Electric Guitars Made:
Final Assembly Of An Electric Guitar
The final assembly of an electric guitar involves placing the hardware and electronics onto the body and bridge. This means the pick guard placement, setting the neck, installation of vibrato and tuner, strap bottoms, fret dress, nut, bridge and vibrato set up, string tree placement, and pick-up height. The pickups, pots, tuning keys, jack plates and toggle switches are also installed. Now the tailpiece and nut are notched. Stringing the guitar is next. The neck pitch and intonation are checked, and bridge height adjusted. This is followed by fixing the back plates, pick guards, truss rod covers and other hardware. The chrome, nickel or gold hardware is polished.
Quality is checked at every stage in the process to ensure the making of an electric guitar with optimum playability.