Guitar Plans and Molds

Let’s take a look at guitar plans and molds. There are a lot of guitar plans on the internet. A simple Google search for “guitar plans” will turn up many possibilities. Of course you will then have to search through them and find one that you believe is what you want and what you can manage to build. Even though there were quite a few free plans that I found, I chose to go with a more detailed plan that I paid for since I have not built a guitar before. Now that I am a ways into building my first one, I might not shy away from the less detailed free plans but for a beginner I definitely would get as detailed of plans as possible.

I won’t insult you by listing out the Google search results for you but I will provide you with the link to where I bought my guitar plans. I bought my guitar plans from Ultimate Guitar Online. I was extremely happy with the plans provided. They included 8 pdfs of full scale sheets containing all aspects of the guitar as well as full size templates for all the pieces and plans to build the guitar form for that guitar. Each sheet contained detailed comments and instructions. I am sure there are a lot of good guitar plans out there but if you want to make sure you get good plans then I would take a visit to Ultimate Guitar Online.

If you are a newbie to guitar building, as I am, you may be wondering what a guitar form is. I know I certainly was wondering what it was. It is actually a structure that you build to help form and assemble the guitar. They come in a variety of styles but the 2 categories would be the outside form or an inside form. An outside form would be one that you basically form and build the guitar around the outside of the form. An inside form is one in which you form and build the guitar inside the mold. Below are some pictures of my inside guitar mold that I built, for my guitar that I am building. Again the plans came from Ultimate Guitar Online with my guitar plans I ordered. I would not have thought of using a form or mold and it definitely adds time and money to the project, but in the end I think it is well worth it. And it is obviously reusable.

Now that I have built a form and I am over half way done building my first guitar, I will say that an adjustable form may be worth the investment. Below is a picture of an adjustable form I found on EBay. The EBay seller is cnc-products. If you click on it, it will take you to the EBay seller who seems to continue to produce these for auction. I’m sure any of you looking to build a guitar could easily build of of these as well or just buy one from cnc-products. The benefit to the adjustable mold is the ability to make different types and sizes of guitars using one form, as opposed to I can only make the exact same guitar with the form I made.

Or the other option is to make really cheap, basically throw away, forms each time you build a guitar instead of going through the effort of making a really nice form. This may be particularly appealing to the person that only plans on building one guitar. Below is a YouTube video from a guy that I found helpful to watch his guitar build videos. This video specifically goes into materials etc. for the guitar he is building but pay attention to his mold. It is very simple and quick to put together. So if you are looking for a one time build you might want to do it his way. You should definitely check out all of his videos, but just keep in mind your guitar plans may call for you to do things differently. Mine did I know.

Now go pick find/buy your plans so you can get started picking out your materials you need and get ready to build your guitar!!! Post or send pics of your plans and materials you plan to use. I am always interested in seeing what everyone else is doing.