I guess hackers like to just build stuff. What have you built other than sotware? Maybe a crib for your new born child, maybe a house, maybe a bike etc...
Also there are books, googling around there is plenty. I actually have a store near my house that supports home built guitars and the guy there was really helpful, but that doesn't scale at all.
Well my father has built about 10 guitars (acoustic and electric), so that is kind of cheating.
Electric are definitely easier. Much like a computer the hardest part is figuring out what to buy because there are so many options. Figure out what kind of wood, what kind of neck, what kind of pickups etc to get the sound you want. A lot of people just knock off a common setup like a Les Paul or something well known.
I'd recommend buying the neck off the shelf, then it really comes down to just making the body which is general woodworking type stuff. (The block of wood heavily influences the sound so obviously you order one specifically for guitar building). The electronics are straightforward. The most technical part is the paint. You probably want to spray, I guess you could stain but in my case we had an aircompressor and a spray gun so it was too hard.
If you want to get more advanced, you can start to inlay stuff, I inlaid my name in mother of pearl on the neck, that was tough, but that is not necessary to build your own guitar, that was just for fun.
Actual build time is not that bad. If you have the tools it is cheaper than buying one, if you don't have the tools it is more expensive.
Bookshelves, an entertainment center, lots of medieval armor, several homebrew computers (I'm putting the finishing touches on an 8085 now: saundby.com), a couple of fish tanks, my computer desk, a parallelogram mount for my binoculars, several telescopes, including the primary optics.
Building is just another part of hacking. If you asked me what I'd modded, I'd have an even larger list. I originally got into electronics and computers because it was a cheaper hobby than model railroading. I couldn't afford railroading stuff from the hobby shop, but I could always find a broken radio to get parts out of for electronics projects, and make money repairing radios and TVs until I could afford a microprocessor. :)
Built a RFID collection system using RFID reader plus mico Linux computer. Ok, semi-software related since I needed to write the software to control the hardware.
A 16x16 array of RGB LEDs on which we ran animations generated by the community on a website. (Yes, I know, its still software related...I can't help myself!).
I built two CNC machines. The first one essentially from scratch components: bearings, plates and beams. And a second higher performance machine by converting a manual machine to servo control. Hardware is fun.
That is a nice machine. I have been trying to convince myself that if I want to build a custom set of cabinets that should build a 4x8 router to make the whole job easier :)
Yes my web page is lame and written by hand 7 years ago, but it does have a few pics.
Those are very slick little machines that you've built there.
I've been busy converting this one off-and-on for the last two years, it's going so slow because the machine is in a warehouse almost 200 miles from here:
A bed, a blanket chest and lots of other smaller projects. Woodworking helped me realize that I really like building things, so I've stuck with that on the software side.
When I was a kid I hacked apart my NES controller. I connected wires to each of the leads, and then made some simple contraptions that would connect two leads when activated. The main one was a jumping board my dad helped me with. I also made a punching thing you strapped to your arm. I didn't know how to solder properly so I don't think it all worked right at any one time, but it was cool.
Wow, I'm very impressed with your projects. If you're a redditor, /r/DIY loves to see these type of projects, and if you blog, consider submitting to Make Magazine, or Hack-A-Day, or any of the various other DIY blogs. It's great to see such creativity.
I recently built an arcade cabinet, which houses a PC running MAME so that I can play lots of arcade games.
I also built the desk on which my workstation currently resides. I couldn't find a desk that (a) looked decent and (b) was enormous, so I designed a desk that satisfied both and built it.
Together with friends I renovated a 4-floor house, which was unhabited. Now we have a cool house with garden to live and work in, oil-, coal- and gas-free heating and solar panels for below-the-average rent.
i built a software radio (or something a lot like one, involves software, but the device was soldered) it was quite fun, just google "zetasdr" or the gnu radio project, or softrock sdr .... have fun!
We're moving to a smaller apartment soon so I'm building a platform for our bed (king size) this weekend, so we can get more storage under it. Should be fun!
The blades are actually milled out of knot free white pine, alternately laminated to reduce warp.
Machine shops in basements are nice once they are stocked but getting your gear in there is a real pain, best to stay on the ground floor if you can, preferably in a place that is not directly connected to your house, the vibration can be quite a nuisance to other occupants.
It also helps if you bolt your stuff to the floor (concrete).
Did you build the house from ground up? How long did that take you?...Lately I have been reading up about building a small house using shipping containers.
Actually, it's two houses, one in Canada and one in NL.
The latter was a rebuild, an old farm house, the one in Canada was from 7' in the ground to two and a half storeys.
The one here in NL was a major project, mostly because I did it all by myself and it's a brick building. It's a beautiful little house in a very quiet spot of the country, with a fair bit of ground around it.
You should write about the whole experience with pictures. I am getting more serious about building a house from the ground up. Two years is a great time frame. Share pictures if any.
What is that instrument, that somebody keeps putting their hand infront of, detecting? Sometimes it goes up when the hand goes near, and sometimes it doesn't.
Very cool project. I think if somebody made an installation / toy that did extreme looking ferrofluid stuff in response to people touching around it (like those glass spheres with electricity arcs tracing all around), it'd have commercial value.
My dad owns a fab shop, so I grew up making stuff.
I was into cars for a long time. In college, I built strut/tie bars and sold them on the web. I turboed my car and built the downpipe and the charge piping. I also made and modified numerous parts for the car and friends' cars (suspension parts, wiring, brackets, blah blah). I also reverse engineered the ECU running the engine and wrote an engine management system for it which required some hardware integration (that count? http://benogle.com/projects/bre ).
All of my furniture that was not upholstered (no couch, etc) until last year was built by me in high school.
I finished the basement in my house which required making a bunch of stuff at previously mentioned fab shop. Even for general house maintenance I often ended up making some small part(s) at the shop (i.e. sprinkler system install, fixing the garage lean, etc).
My grandfather was a carpenter and when he passed, he gave our family his tools. We always have lots of wood and woodworking tools around so that's my preferred medium (when all you have is a hammer....).
77 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 161 ms ] threadhttp://buildyourguitar.com/resources/links.htm
Electric are definitely easier. Much like a computer the hardest part is figuring out what to buy because there are so many options. Figure out what kind of wood, what kind of neck, what kind of pickups etc to get the sound you want. A lot of people just knock off a common setup like a Les Paul or something well known.
I'd recommend buying the neck off the shelf, then it really comes down to just making the body which is general woodworking type stuff. (The block of wood heavily influences the sound so obviously you order one specifically for guitar building). The electronics are straightforward. The most technical part is the paint. You probably want to spray, I guess you could stain but in my case we had an aircompressor and a spray gun so it was too hard.
If you want to get more advanced, you can start to inlay stuff, I inlaid my name in mother of pearl on the neck, that was tough, but that is not necessary to build your own guitar, that was just for fun.
Actual build time is not that bad. If you have the tools it is cheaper than buying one, if you don't have the tools it is more expensive.
Building is just another part of hacking. If you asked me what I'd modded, I'd have an even larger list. I originally got into electronics and computers because it was a cheaper hobby than model railroading. I couldn't afford railroading stuff from the hobby shop, but I could always find a broken radio to get parts out of for electronics projects, and make money repairing radios and TVs until I could afford a microprocessor. :)
http://image.bayimg.com/dapehaacf.jpg
500 Feet long, held two passengers, guts were a rewired electric wheelchair.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/5008514139/in/set-...
This picture is neat: http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/5008514139/in/set-...
Loved this, was a very very ambitious project, sadly I didn't get to see it working. :-(
In the same vein I made this this year:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bendelarre/5010762637/in/set-72...
A 16x16 array of RGB LEDs on which we ran animations generated by the community on a website. (Yes, I know, its still software related...I can't help myself!).
One of my babies :) :
http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/renewables/windmill/17_sep_bill...
Yes my web page is lame and written by hand 7 years ago, but it does have a few pics.
http://www.crcarlson.com/Personal/cnc1/cnc1.html
http://www.crcarlson.com/Personal/cnc2/cnc2.html
I've been busy converting this one off-and-on for the last two years, it's going so slow because the machine is in a warehouse almost 200 miles from here:
http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/machines/dscf1225.jpg.html
But it's actually getting there, just a few more wires and it will be completely modernized.
1 PC 1 Matrox TripleHead(3 monitors-View), 1 Matrox G200(3 monitors-Instruments)
Built some electronic boards to control LEDs, Switches, Potentiometers for Throttle, Yoke, Overhead panel, Central console, etc...
Nice project if you have the time....
pictures, please?
So many amazing projects in this thread!
Still waiting for royalties from the Wii :)
I also built the desk on which my workstation currently resides. I couldn't find a desk that (a) looked decent and (b) was enormous, so I designed a desk that satisfied both and built it.
http://www.guitarwithrob.com/images/studio2.png
http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/renewables/windmill/
I want to start building a machine shop in the basement.
Machine shops in basements are nice once they are stocked but getting your gear in there is a real pain, best to stay on the ground floor if you can, preferably in a place that is not directly connected to your house, the vibration can be quite a nuisance to other occupants.
It also helps if you bolt your stuff to the floor (concrete).
The latter was a rebuild, an old farm house, the one in Canada was from 7' in the ground to two and a half storeys.
The one here in NL was a major project, mostly because I did it all by myself and it's a brick building. It's a beautiful little house in a very quiet spot of the country, with a fair bit of ground around it.
It took me two years to get it all done.
Building a house is absolutely doable, fixing one up with a rich history in a way is more fun, but comes with more restrictions.
http://jakemauer.com/work/fields/
I also built a T-Shirt with EL wire that sync'd to Ableton Live
http://jakemauer.com/work/electroluminescent-dj/
Very cool project. I think if somebody made an installation / toy that did extreme looking ferrofluid stuff in response to people touching around it (like those glass spheres with electricity arcs tracing all around), it'd have commercial value.
I was into cars for a long time. In college, I built strut/tie bars and sold them on the web. I turboed my car and built the downpipe and the charge piping. I also made and modified numerous parts for the car and friends' cars (suspension parts, wiring, brackets, blah blah). I also reverse engineered the ECU running the engine and wrote an engine management system for it which required some hardware integration (that count? http://benogle.com/projects/bre ).
All of my furniture that was not upholstered (no couch, etc) until last year was built by me in high school.
I finished the basement in my house which required making a bunch of stuff at previously mentioned fab shop. Even for general house maintenance I often ended up making some small part(s) at the shop (i.e. sprinkler system install, fixing the garage lean, etc).
My grandfather was a carpenter and when he passed, he gave our family his tools. We always have lots of wood and woodworking tools around so that's my preferred medium (when all you have is a hammer....).