Make Your Own Electric Guitar

I bought this for my nephew as a present, but not before checking out all the updates from my original copy that started me on the road to building my own guitars and basses. Well recommeneded - easy to follow and this new version is much bigger and has more modern updates than my original. Awesome.

The book is well written. It is a little dated, but for a beginner, it will get you going in the right dirrection.

There is a similar book written by Martin Koch that I liked equally.

I bought this book almost 12 years ago when I was just starting out building my own instruments.
This book laid a good foundation for my future projects and inspired a great deal of confidence since I always thought about making instruments which may not be standard or mainstream enough.

Melvyn Hiscock possesses a very strong sense of humor that is understandable to everyone, even if he's English (and I'm a Russian-speaking Ukrainian myself) ;) so even my numerous mistakes accomplished during the long builds were not as painful as they could be. Even with Melvin's good mood-inducing writing style, the explanations given are serious, useful and really easy to get grasp of.

Maybe I cannot say that this book contains everything about building solid-body electric guitars or basses that can there ever be - but can that be said about _any_ book out there? Of course, I have a few more good books and the mighty Internet.

But it's a really nice book in my opinion.

Not bad. Seems outdated slightly but does offer some good advice. Maybe I did too much online research first because the book didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know.

This is a great book! The only reason I did not give it five stars is because I have so many unanswered questions on my first build. Its packed with information that answered questions that I did not even know to ask, so it is very useful and therefore recommend it to anyone wanting to learn guitar building.

My only complaint is that is does not give enough depth on choosing neck angles and bridge combination's. (as some bridges do not work well with angled necks) That is a vague area in the book and now i am going to have to purchase another book or ask someone who knows before I rout my channels for my guitar.
It is still a good book and I am happy I bought it, I have learned a lot from it!

I have built several electric guitars and one bass with the advice and instructions from this book. Without it, I would have easily wasted wood and money trying to get it right. For finishing the guitar I recommend getting another book for more detail.