How do you build your own guitar?

Leading up to BRIDGE Festival, we step -together with Niels Guns (journalist; guitar freak; storyteller)- into the world of guitars, guitarists, guitar music and guitar gear. Niels touches the sensitive chord with tantalizing background stories and hands-on interviews, in the series 'Guns about Guitars'.

Anyone can build a guitar, is the belief of Roel van Heur of RH Guitars, one of the exhibitors at the Guitar Convention at Bridge Festival. I visited him for an evening and extracted five golden tips for building a guitar.

By Niels Guns

That the love of the guitar has many forms is the focus of BRIDGE Festival. Listening to it, talking about it, playing it, transferring your knowledge about it and so on. For me there is one form of guitar love that I just can't get a grip on: because how do you build such a thing yourself? Very nice to have two left hands to play tapping riffs. But very frustrating if you want to unravel this piece of guitar passion.

Less than half a kilometer from my own home, to my surprise I found someone who builds great guitars and can lift a few tips of the veil. You don't have to take a long, expensive course, says Roel van Heur. "The most important thing is that you just start." Roel shares five tips that can also help you as a beginning luthier.

Tip #1: I've never done it before, so I think I can do it.

"I am convinced that anyone can build a good guitar. I myself am not a super good guitarist. But I can build a guitar. When you build a guitar, a good mindset is crucial," Roel says. "I often hear from people: I could never build a guitar. But how do they know? They've never tried. Assume you're going to make mistakes. You will have to get through that discomfort for a while. You will have to accept that things often don't work out. In time, hopefully that discomfort will become a challenge you want to solve. By the way, a mistake does not mean the end. Every mistake is fixable. Always keep that in mind."

Tip #2: Time is gold.

"Don't expect to have built a guitar in a few days. It takes time. A lot of time. Sometimes I spend months on one guitar, although the building process is getting faster and faster. After all, with every guitar you learn and that saves time next time. The amount of time and work you put into it really does pay off. A guitar is a beautiful instrument with an awful lot of detail. Every detail needs attention. Sometimes it's just a groove that needs to be changed to achieve the right result. To practice with some skills, you could also buy a somewhat cheaper guitar and upgrade and fine-tune it."

Tip #3: Determine the order.

"The order of the construction process is very important. That order is personal for everyone. For example, I myself really like to fret my necks before I cut the profile of the neck. But that's just one of many choices. How you do it also depends on your skill level, but at least think about it. After all, with the right order, you can easily step back even if something doesn't go quite right."

Tip 4: Choose the right material.

"Every luthier puts a different focus on something when choosing materials. There are luthiers who make a whole study of types of wood you can use. I myself think that the final tone and sound in an electric guitar does not depend that much on the type of wood. At least it is almost impossible to measure. I myself built a guitar from saw waste from wooden toys I made. And that went just fine. What I do think is very important is the electronics. With mediocre pickups it will never amount to anything. And a good potentiometer and switches are just as important."

Tip 5: Don't do it alone.

"Once you get started, you're not alone. You'll find that other guitar builders are very helpful. There is an awful lot of information online. I personally find the YouTube videos from Crimson Guitars very helpful. Daniel van Veen of Unquendor Guitars also gives a lot of good tips on how to build a custom guitar. He is also at Bridge's Guitar Convention, by the way. Koen van der Meij of VanderMeij Guitars is also an inspiring example. You'll see: it's all not rocket science, so by all means, go build!"