Guitar Making and Repair - All Levels

A desire to produce an instrument and a small dose of common sense are all that are required. No previous workshop experience is necessary. Knowledge of woodworking, engineering or certain other craft skills may help but are not essential.

You can further your knowledge by taking another course at the College. Please contact Martina.Collett-Creedy@stcg.ac.uk with any questions for future courses or this course.questions for future courses.

All courses run subject to demand and the content listed here should be used as a guide only. Course content may vary according to a range of factors such as course duration, campus, teaching staff and requirements from awarding bodies. Check our course and fee guidelines for further details.

Due to the many different options of woods that can be used and the different types of guitars that can be constructed on the course, students will need to buy most of their instruments main materials.

This allows students a greater selection of choice of materials for their projects.

Your tutor will help guide you through different options of materials, what to purchase and where to source tonewoods.

Steel String Acoustic / Classical:

• Soundboard
• Back and side set
• Fingerboard
• Neck blank

Electric guitars:

• Body blank
• Neck blank
• Top cap (optional
• Fingerboard
• Electronics

The Materials fee

The Instrument Making courses are quite expensive to run compared with most courses. The fee is a contribution towards these costs. The money is used for a whole range of items- some of which are listed below. The £50 materials fee for students covers the cost of :

• Mould materials (acoustic) or template material (electric )
• Abrasives, adhesives, blades for bandsaws, scroll saws, coping saws, jewellers saws, scalpels, brushes, cleaning chemicals, drill bits, sharpening equipment
• Routers, bits and accessories, screws & other fixings (nails, nuts and bolts) solder & flux, specialist tools
• Varnishes, stains and solvents.
• Various common Instrument parts: Fret wire, rosettes, purfling and binding, neck and tail blocks, bracing material, nut and saddle blanks,
• Lubricants and cutting fluids, machine maintenance,
• Reference books kept in workshop,
• Replacement of broken or missing tools

Is done informally as a natural part of the course. The project itself is a permanent record of progress but students are encouraged to keep notes and photos on the design and building process.