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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.
See also:
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on
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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
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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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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
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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.
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Your right, the neck and fret board is probably 70% of the work done on a git.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon Cooper on
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CC Beck created Captain Marvel. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Captain America
The Essential Pages
Recommended Links & Resources
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- Cigar Box Music - How-to-Build CBGs DVDs, How to Play CBG and more!
- 3-String-Guitar.com - John "Red Dog" McNair's unique take on cigar box guitars and their history - lots of historic photos!
- The Cigar Box Guitar Manifesto - the mission statement and rallying cry for the Cigar Box Guitar Revolution.
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