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How to Build an Electric Guitar - Historic 1959 Plans (Free Download)

In our quest to discover and compile all the great DIY musical instrument plans of the last 150 years, we stumbled across these great electric guitar plans from 1959.

The Strat and Les Paul were only several years old when Mechanix Illustrated magazine published these plans, penned by Captain America creator and artist, C. C. Beck in their September 1959 issue.

Like many how-to articles from this era, the article is somewhat vague in carving and building techniques and instead puts most of its weight into the diagrams with measurements.

We've taken the actual page scans (advertisements included!) and put them together in one downloadable PDF file. If you're daring enough to build this, let us know.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on February 28, 2016 at 8:39am

A member on the TDPRI Guitar Forum is building one of the 59 guitars from these plans. If anyone's interested, here's a link to the build thread.http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/610424-1959-mechanix-ill...

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Permalink Reply by Burt Philbrick on February 29, 2016 at 8:07am

What a beautiful build he's doing! I'd love to get that good, as I'm just starting out building cigar box guitars with very basic tools. I did get some ideas looking at his pictures and reading through the forum.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on February 29, 2016 at 12:50pm

Lots of highly skilled builders over there and a lot can be learned from looking over those threads.

CBG's can be elaborate or primal, so there's nothing wrong with how your building them. Rock on

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Permalink Reply by Kirk Bolas on December 26, 2016 at 7:09pm

The neck and completed fretboard are the most difficult pieces. They're also the heart of any fretted instrument. I've only felt confident enough, as of recent, to attempt fabricating these parts myself. I admire anyone who can successfully create these pieces.