Here’s a fun theory – it makes a lot of sense for guitarists to learn how to do their own setup.  It makes almost no sense for them to learn how to do body work.  And it makes totally no sense to learn how to build your own guitar from scratch.

I want to build a guitar from scratch myself, one day.  I know it doesn’t make sense.

List of What Makes Sense

  1. Setting up a guitar is pretty easy.  You need a few inexpensive tools and a little time.  You should learn how to do it.
  2. Working on your own electronics may make sense, if you are handy with a soldering iron or want to learn.  But it’s not easy.  You’ll make a lot of mistakes learning how to do it well.
  3. Doing your own fretwork (level/crown) is probably not a good idea, unless you have a guitar collection and you want to learn.  If not, buy a guitar with stainless steel frets and have them professionally crowned and leveled, and you might not have to have it done again. Learning to level/crown takes practice.  Lots and lots of practice.  And probably between $100 and $200 worth of tools.
  4. Doing your own refrets is definitely a bad idea, unless you REALLY want to learn.  They say you need to do about 50 refrets to get good at it.  I’d say that number is accurate.  I’ve done about 16 at this point and I’m not good at it yet.  But I’m slowly getting better.  I’ll do a level/crown on a good guitar, but not a refret.  Not until I’ve done about 50.  It’s harder than it looks.  But some people think it’s fun.  I like to do it.
  5. Doing your own body painting is definitely a dumb idea, unless you are already good at painting stuff.  The tools are expensive.  You need a spray booth.  You need appropriate weather.  And after all of that, you still won’t match the quality of the finish on a $129 Squier.  Not unless you get really into it and do a bunch of bodies and practice and learn, learn, learn.  You can buy rattle cans and save yourself money, but if you buy good rattle cans you’ll end up spending more money on the body and the paint than if you just bought a pre-made, pre-painted body.  You can try doing wood filler and staining – I tried it.  It’s a pain in the ass and it’s harder than it looks.  After you’ve done about 10 of them, you might be almost decent at it.
  6. Want to build your own guitar?  You’re nuts.  The wood alone will cost more than a Squier Bullet.  You’ll put between $400 and $800 and end up with a guitar no one wants to buy, and it won’t play very well.  You’ll have to master everything on the above list in order to get to the point where you can make an expensive bad guitar.  You’ll need to build a lot of them before they’re decent.

But people don’t do any of this stuff to save money or time.  They do it because they want to do it, because it’s fun for them to learn how to do it.