DIY Electric Guitar Build Log — A PRS Custom 24 Replica From Raw Lumber

I built an electric guitar from scratch!
This is a genuine, fully hand-built original — not a store-bought “build-it-yourself kit.” I sourced the raw lumber and started from zero.

For the design, I straight-up copied the Paul Reed Smith (PRS) “Custom 24.” I love PRS designs, so…

If you play electric guitar, this is a DIY project worth tackling.
You can copy a high-end model that’s normally out of reach, or design your own original shape — totally up to you.

Then, when bandmates or someone at a gig asks “What guitar are you using?”, you get to answer, with quiet pride: “I built it.”

Acoustic guitars and violins use the body’s resonance to produce sound, so getting a great tone takes real craftsmanship. An electric guitar, on the other hand, is basically an instrument that picks up string vibration with a pickup and sends it to an amp — so as long as the pickups and strings are in the right place, you’ll get sound. Making it actually playable and good-looking, though, is another story. (It was a long road…)

I worked on this on weekends, a little at a time, and it took several months. Hands down the hardest DIY project I’ve ever done. Which is exactly why finishing it felt amazing.

This article is a walkthrough of the full build process.

Can a hobbyist actually build a guitar?
→ It’s a serious project, but with enough motivation, yes — you can.

[Update]

This post documents my PRS build, but I’ve since written a more beginner-friendly series, “Build a Les Paul from Home-Center & Amazon Parts,” aimed at making the process as accessible as possible. As the title suggests, it sticks to tools and materials you can pick up at a home center or on Amazon, and it includes downloadable blueprints. Check it out at the links below.

Wood preparation

First step: get the lumber.
I bought it online from Aimoku (Aichi Wood Processing), a shop in Japan that sells wood specifically for guitar building.

From left to right in the photo below:

Neck: African mahogany, pre-cut with a 14° head angle, for set-neck use
Fretboard: Madagascar rosewood
Body (back): African mahogany, 28 mm thick
Body (top): hard maple, 17 mm thick

The wood choices roughly match a PRS Custom 24.

Design

I drew up a full-size plan so I’d have something to glue onto the lumber as a cutting template during the build.
I used Fusion 360 (3D CAD) for the drawings.

Do you actually need CAD software?
→ Not necessarily. Plenty of people post drawings of well-known guitars online, so if CAD isn’t your thing you can download one of those, or just enlarge a photo of a target model on a copier. CAD is convenient but not required.

I exported the PDF and ordered full-size prints from an online print shop. (I got 3 copies just in case.)

Cutting the body shape

Glue body (back) and body (top) together

First I glued the two body blanks together with Titebond.
Body thickness: back 28 mm + top 17 mm = 45 mm total.

For wood-to-wood bonding on a guitar build, Titebond is the go-to. It bonds the two pieces so well they essentially behave as one piece.

Franklin Titebond 115mL (4oz)

Spread the Titebond, press the pieces together, and clamp tightly.
I cut the body outline out of the printed plan and glued it on top.

Cut out the body

Once the glue had dried, I cut the body outline along the glued-on template with a jigsaw.

Next I drilled out the cavity for the rear pickup, as in the photo below. (The front-pickup cavity gets done later, during the neck-to-body joint step.)
I made an MDF template of the cavity outline, clamped it to the body, and used it as a router guide.
※ Before routing, it helps to hog out most of the waste with a drill — a Forstner-style “boa bit” works great here. Less load on the router (left photo).

A note on routers

For everyday DIY I personally don’t reach for a router that often, but for guitar building it’s basically essential. (Update: I’ve ended up using mine more and more as I do more woodworking.)

The bit at the tip (left in the photo) spins fast and shaves wood — perfect for cutting grooves and recesses.

The router will also be doing the truss-rod slot a few steps from here.

Kyocera (formerly Ryobi) palm router MTR-42, 6 mm shank, 628617A — lightweight (1.1 kg) with simple depth adjustment, beginner-friendly

Cutting the neck shape

Outline cut, pass 1

Now over to the neck blank.
Same as the body: I glued the neck cut-out from the printed plan onto the blank and followed the line with a jigsaw.

Truss-rod slot

Every electric guitar has a truss rod running through the neck to counteract bowing.
I routed a slot down the neck for it.

I used a 2-way truss rod (corrects bow in both directions), bought on Amazon.

Yibuy 460 mm Length 9 mm Dia. Blue Steel 2-Way Guitar Truss Rod

To cut a straight slot, I slid the router along a straight edge clamped to the neck (see photo).

Truss-rod slot done. (Actually installing the rod comes later.)

Outline cut, pass 2

Now I rough-cut the thickness. The final shape gets dialed in later.
I wanted final neck thickness near the headstock end to be around 21 mm, so I cut a few mm thicker than that.

Rough cut done.
For the headstock end, I first hogged out thickness with a Forstner bit on the drill before routing — saves a lot of work for the router.

Then I leveled the headstock face with the router.
(Sorry — the only photo I have is from after the headstock thickness was set and the tuner holes were drilled.)

Fretboard — outline cut and fret slots

A word on scale length

Standard scale lengths (nut to bridge) for the major makers:

Gibson : 628 mm
Fender : 648 mm
PRS : 635 mm

I went with PRS’s 635 mm.
Fret count is also set to 24, matching the PRS Custom 24.

・Can I pick a different scale length?
Yes — any length you want, longer or shorter.
→ Search for “fret position calculator” online and you’ll find sites that compute fret spacing automatically from a given scale length.

Fretboard outline cut

Same approach as before: I glued the printed fretboard outline onto the blank and cut along the line.
The plan also has the fret-position lines drawn in, which I’ll use for slotting in the next step.

Cutting the fret slots

I cut the fret slots along the marked fret-position lines.
I used a dedicated tool called a fret saw — pick a blade thickness that matches your fret tang.

For each fret position, I first scored the line repeatedly with a utility knife to keep the saw from wandering.
Then I peeled off the printed plan and carefully cut each slot with the fret saw.

Neck work — truss rod, fretboard glue-up, body joint, etc.

Drilling the headstock for tuners

Drilled the holes where the tuning machines go.
For position, I image-searched a real PRS, blew it up to size, and overlaid the print on the headstock to mark the holes.

Installing the truss rod

Since the next step is gluing the fretboard onto the neck, I needed to drop the truss rod into its slot first.
I sat the truss rod into the routed slot and dabbed superglue at both ends to hold it in place.

Now the fretboard goes on top.

Position-marker holes / gluing the fretboard onto the neck

Drilling for the position markers

I drilled holes in the fretboard for the position-marker inlays.

I used 6 mm white mother-of-pearl dot inlays.
(Bought online from Yamato Mark.)

I drilled 6 mm holes into the fretboard a little at a time, careful not to go deeper than the marker thickness.
That’s it for now — the inlays themselves get glued in later.

Gluing fretboard to neck

Titebond on both surfaces, press together, and clamp.

To avoid clamp marks on the fretboard, I sandwiched a sacrificial board between the fretboard and the clamps before tightening down. Then waited for the glue to dry.

Left it clamped (right photo) until the Titebond fully cured.

Body-to-neck joint — neck side

Now to the neck-body joint.
Starting with the neck.

I flattened the face that mates with the body using the router.
As shown, I clamped boards on both sides of the neck and rode the router across them, adjusting the bit depth to take down the surface flat.

Body-to-neck joint — body side

Now the body side.

I clamped MDF rails to the body to match the width of the neck I’d just shaped. To set them, I dry-fitted the neck on top of the body and pushed the MDF in from both sides until it hugged the neck, then locked the clamps. (Left photo.)

Before going at it with the router, I pre-drilled the waste with a Forstner bit to make routing easier. (Right photo.)

Routed the pocket using the MDF rails as a guide.
Body-side joint pocket done.

Dry-fit the neck and body together — fits like a glove! Actual gluing happens later.

Shaping the neck

Now I shape the neck with a rasp.
For a guitar build, a rasp is another must-have tool.

Shinto saw rasp, S size, E1101

I shaved the neck while constantly checking thickness and the back-arch profile.
A neat trick from more experienced builders: stretch a rubber band around the neck — it traces the cross-section and makes the shape easy to read.

Final fine-tuning happens later.

Setting the position markers

Inlay time — setting the position markers into the fretboard.

A drop of glue in each hole, push the inlay in. They’ll sit slightly proud of the fretboard surface — that’s fine, they get sanded flush when I shape the fretboard radius next.

I also installed the side dots — also white mother-of-pearl, 2 mm dia. Drill 2 mm holes, glue, drop them in, then sand flush with the side of the neck.

Next page: body work → joining body and neck → fretboard work.