The choice of wood !!

Hello guys,

We've reached an important part of building a guitar, that is to say the important choice of the wood.
We have to know that the wood has a great influence on the sound coming out from your future guitar!

In fact, at the same level as pick-ups , the choice of your wood is crucial on the guitar, in a general way. There are many wood's variables that occur on the guitar between the weight and the depth, the sustain, bright and sound's precision . Each combination is used to make guitars suitable with each type of music : rock, blues, jazz ...

Here is a list of a none exhaustive choice of wood with its characteristics:

• Alder (Aulne in French) : A neutral wood which doesn't influence highly on the sound of the guitar . It brings a great agreement between the sustain , bright and sound precision . Used on the Fender Stratocaster .
• Poplar (Peuplier) : Generally similar to the alder in sound performances. It is characterized by its lower density and its low cost.
• Mahogany (Acajou) : Exotic wood . It is more often reddish. With a large sustain , he brings a warm and deep tone to the guitar . We find it in all rock and blues guitars where the sound's warmth , depth and sustain go on the rampage.
• Basswood (Tilleul ) : This low cost wood has great acoustic performances. It has a nice sustain but an unclear tone . By the way it remains neutral soundly . The american basswood comes closer to the mahogany.
• Ash (Frêne) : This clear and veined wood has a bright and slammed sound . It has the honor to be part of the Fender Telecaster.
• Maple (Erable): Generally used on  guitar's necks and fingerboards . 

I used the mahogany for my guitar because it is enough tough and easy to manipulate it .

The start !!!

Hello Guys,

I will start today by describing how I made my second guitar . In fact, I have stored my first guitar's pictures in my HDD and it's broken. So I'll be back to it later :D .

Last summer, I decided to build a guitar like those of James Hetfield. Really, I'm found of the Xplorer he plays with and i would love to have one like it, so why not?
On top, I prefer to concentrate my learning on real guitar. The creativity will come after ;) .

The first thing to do when you want to build a guitar is to draw it on a paper support in real scales .

I printed an Xplorer picture of Gibson collection . The aim here is to determine the scale we need to apply to draw in real size.
The trick here is to measure up the distance between the bridge and the nut on paper and also on a real guitar if you have one .
Then, you have to calculate the ratio between the measures and apply it to all distances you need to obtain a precise clean and rigorous drawing of your future guitar !!
You obtain normaly that:

Be careful to use some tough paper to avoid misadventures during the cutting !!

JamaliGuitars - The new Guitar Building Blog !

Hello guys,
It has been a long time I wanted to make a blog.
Loving the procrastination, i had always postponed the time i create it.
This blog has the goal to share with everyone my knowledge and all i have learnt during my own investigation, researches and mistakes in the Guitar-Building domain. Surely, I expect also to attract some pieces of advice and some experienced people helping me improving my ability of building guitars.
Hoping you’ll enjoy my blog