Electric Guitar Kit Project
Created by: Daniel Zhou (Class of 2019)
Step 1: Abstract
The purpose of this project is to build a guitar from a guitar kit.
The main challenge of this project will be to design and paint the
guitar before assembling it. This finishing process will take up to
three months as it requires an extensive amount of sanding,
sealing, painting, sanding again, and polishing to make the
guitar look good. The final assembly process of this project will
not take as long and should only take up to a week to complete.
After finishing and assembly guitar, I should have a fully-
functional guitar. It will look something like the pictures shown
below:
Step 2: Research
After determining my end goal for this project, my first step of this process was to research how to build a
guitar. The first research I used was an online luthier supply shop called Luthiers Mercantile International Inc
(shown below). This online shop had many kits available for building electric and acoustic guitars completely
from scratch. However, due to the time restrain of this project and my inexperience in guitar making, building
from scratch was not an option for me. From there, I started searching up pre-built guitar kits that I would only
need to finish and assemble to complete. I emailed several of these guitar kits to my teacher, Mr. Berwanger,
for approval. In the end, I ended up with the Les Paul Guitar kit that we bought from Amazon.
Having purchased a guitar kit, it was time for me to determine what products I would use to paint and finish
the guitar. I first searched online guides to help direct me in the right direction and the one that stood out to
me as the best resource was an article titled "Guitar Finishing" on Ed's Guitar Lounge (shown below). After I
found a guide, I created a list of the different sandpapers, spray cans, and polishes I would need all from
Amazon (shown below).
After I had finished the guitar by applying the spray paint and gloss, I needed to begin the wiring process.
However, I had lost the wiring instructions provided with the kit, meaning I had to research how exactly I was
going to wire the guitar. Luckily I found many resources, including an in depth website as well as a Youtube
video. In the end, I followed the steps provided in the Youtube video to create my guitar as the guitar in the
tutorial was the exact same model as my guitar.
Examples of Research:
Step 3: Final Result
By the end of the semester, I had completely finished building the guitar
with everything. It took me about a month to thoroughly apply the
spray paint and the gloss to finish the guitar. After completing the
finishing, I had to search up how to wire the guitar as I had lost the
wiring instructions (see research section above). After finding a reliable
resource, I wired up the guitar in about three days and finished
assembling the switch, potentiometers, guitar pickups, output jack, and
the neck of the guitar before stringing the guitar with my guitar strings.
After about one and a half months of hard work, I had completed my
guitar! This project as a whole taught me how to effectively use web
resources such as online blogs and Youtube videos to do research. It
also gave me plenty of hands-on experience with woodworking, spray
painting, and electronics.
Step 4: Future Steps
For the future of this project, some areas that could be
explored could be to build an amplifier for the guitar, as
the guitar by itself does not make much noise. Also, the
guitar itself could be improved with better electronics
and pickups and a better quality paint job and finish.
Whatever the change may be, the guitar could definitely
use these add-ons and upgrades as it is quite basic as it
is now.
STEAM Elements
My project is a STEAM project as it incorporates the tehnology and
engineering elements of STEM while also being an artistic project.
Technology is incorporated as I had to use and apply guitar wiring
technology into my guitar. Engineering is incorporated as I used my
engineering skills to build the guitar with the technology I had
available. The art component of the project would be the unique
paint design of my guitar along with the fact that my guitar can be
used to make music. These are all elements that qualify my project as
a STEAM project.
