• Avoid mistakes when building guitars by following time-tested tips.guitars on wall with flash image by Yasen Pramatarov from Fotolia.com
  
  Guitar building can seem intimidating, but even the best guitar builders had to start somewhere. Learning by trial and error is one way to go, but if you can minimize the frustration that comes with ignorance, the intimidation becomes manageable, and you're more likely to come out with a superior guitar. Follow a few tips to avoid time-consuming mistakes.
  
  

Select the right wood: Solid body guitars

• You can build guitars from almost any type of wood, but all of these choices will affect the sound and playability of your guitar. For example, most solid body guitar builders choose mahogany or alder for its warm, rich tone. It is lightweight and easy to carve, cut, mill and glue. Mahogany is probably the most widely used wood for solid body guitars. If you choose to work with one of the other hardwoods like ash, oak, or maple, be prepared for a heavy guitar that is hard to cut, sand and finish and produces a tone with with more treble and brighter sound.
  
  

Select the right wood: Acoustic guitars

• The top of an acoustic guitar is usually made from spruce because of its straight-grained, stiff quality that produces good tone. Other woods can be used, but be prepared to deal with defects like knots, cracks and wild grain patterns that can lead to warping and uneven tone quality. The best tip for selecting wood for acoustic guitars is to buy wood specifically milled for guitars, wood that has been kiln-dried and is free from defects that can ruin your project. You can buy these thin pieces of wood online, or shop by catalog.
  
  

Don't copy

• If you're going to put the time and effort into building a guitar, don't copy an existing design. Your finished product at best will then be only as good as the copy and you'll lose your individuality. Design your own body. Start out with an established design to get your parameters and then alter it until your creation is something original. This way, if you find you have a talent for guitar building, you will already have created your own style, ready to market without any copyright infringements. Be careful, though, when designing to create something that will be relatively easy to build, not something that will break easily and consume many hours trying to reproduce.
  
  

Rout, then shape

• One of the mistakes novice guitar builders make is cutting the body of a solid body guitar first, then attempting to rout later. This is backwards. When routing a solid body electric guitar, rout out all the cavities, particularly the neck cavity first, when the guitar body is still in a square slab. This allows the builder to work with straight lines for the router to follow and allows for perfectly straight alignment of pickup, bridge, neck and saddle placements. When all the cavities are routed, then cut out your design.