The Electric Luthier is a website/ blog created to share information about all aspects of electric guitar building. We will discuss materials, techniques, theories, and tools. The main goal is to become a ‘one-stop-shop’ for anyone looking for information on the subject, whether academic or practical.
The Electric Luthier has become to be as a result of the vast amount of information I have collected over the years and when wanting to build my own guitars. There is a lot of information, opinions, and practices, many professionals and many more hobbyists building guitars and sharing some of the information. The Electric Luthier aims to collect and distill all that information for all who want it.
It starts with the theory of how does the guitar work? what are the materials? the different styles, shapes, and parts. Understanding all the options and what they mean is, in my opinion, just as important and fun as the building process itself. If you like playing or even just listening to guitars, you have probably developed your own preferences. Do you know why these are your preferences? Would you know how to replicate the sound and the sensation?. The facts, the details, and the little differences are sometimes what change the bigger picture.
The practice is just as important. Having worked with wood, professionally and as a hobby, for over 30 years, I can very much appreciate the many different methods and techniques involved in guitar making. Building a solid body vs a hollow one, a bolt-on neck vs a set neck or a neck-through, flat or angled headstock, and various methods of binding and inlays. These are all very different and require different skills, tools, and materials while all living under the umbrella of ‘guitar making’.
The tools are also a big part of building a guitar. While professionals may invest in expensive, high-performance machinery, the average hobbyist will probably have a somewhat limited, budget space and time to invest. The selection of tools at your disposal will also make a big difference to the techniques you will choose. I will try and find as many methods and workarounds to accommodate different variations and standards of tools. I will also try to find the budget tools which may make a difference, for the better, to those of us with limited resources who still want to build a guitar.
To provide more and better access to all this information The Electric Luthier now also has a growing YouTube channel:
I hope to keep on growing and providing the best information possible for the aspiring electric guitar builder.
Yoav Binyamini