The Easel guitar-making community
Design your electric guitar’s body, neck and fretboard in Easel.
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Start in Easel. Build with the community.
Chris Monck of Highline Guitars curated the components needed to build the guitar featured in the video. You can build the same guitar using the Electric Guitar app in Easel, found under Apps → More Apps → Electric Guitar.
Follow Chris’s My Easel Project Guitar videos below as you move from design to carving, finishing and assembly. Whether this is your first build or your fiftieth, bring your progress and questions to the Easel community Hub.
Creating an Easel account is free. No credit card required.
Visit Highline Guitars on YouTube · Open the build playlist
Jump to your build stage: Design · Fretboard · Body · Finishing · Assembly · Share your progress.
Part 1: The design — Start with Chris’s guitar design before moving into the Easel project.
Part 2: The Easel project walkthrough — Follow the project walkthrough in Easel to connect the design with its carving files.
Part 4: Make a fretboard — Move from the design to making the fretboard.
Part 6: Make a guitar body — Follow the body-making stage of Chris’s build.
Part 7: Finish sanding and side marker dots — Continue with finish sanding and adding the side markers.
Part 8: Polymerized tung oil finish — Watch the application of the finish used in this build.
Part 9: Control cavity cover and frets — Make the control cavity cover and move on to fret installation.
Part 10: Polish the finish and install the neck — Bring the finished body and neck together.
Part 11: Begin final assembly — Follow the start of final assembly after the earlier woodworking and finishing stages.
Part 12: Make a guitar nut — Continue the assembly work with making the nut.
Part 13: Wire the controls — Follow Chris as he wires the controls and pickups.
The playlist currently hides three unavailable videos; the build stages above keep Chris’s part numbers. Open the full My Easel Project Guitar Build playlist for the latest additions.
Guitar Craftsmanship Part 2: Red Flags — Chris explains what visual craftsmanship can reveal about a guitar. This is a separate craftsmanship video included in his build playlist, not Part 2 of the Easel project walkthrough.
In Easel Podcast episode 3, Chris talks with Zach Kaplan about starting with a guitar for his daughter, moving to CNC and building more than 500 guitars. Listen for the story behind Highline Guitars and his advice for a first build.
Have a body sketch, a carved neck, a finishing test or your first assembled instrument? Open the Easel community Hub to share the stage you have reached and the question you are working through. Include a photograph and the component, hardware or fit you are trying to understand so other guitar builders can follow along.
If you have built guitars before, share the detail you wish someone had explained on your first one: how you checked a neck fit, chose your hardware or approached a finish. A work in progress gives newcomers and experienced makers something specific to learn from together.
The guitar projects in the Easel gallery below offer more builds to learn from. If you are keeping an existing neck and only need the body, the guitar-body guide covers that narrower task.
Begin with Chris’s walkthrough, then meet Steve, David and christopher. Their notes and remakes give a first-time builder something concrete to ask about—and experienced builders a place to share what they learned.
Chris shares his guitar buildby Chris Monck / Highline GuitarsChris opens his workshop through the My Easel Project Guitar series. Follow his design, carving and assembly stages, then bring the stage you are trying to understand to the Easel community Hub. The walkthrough link below is a free video, not a downloadable app-generated guitar file.
Electric Guitarby Steve CarmichaelSteve Carmichael calls this his first electric guitar. His instructions share the body, neck, fretboard and inlay work across separate files, alongside hand shaping and bought hardware. A first-time builder can follow the stages and use the project discussion to ask about a particular step; the main preview opens the body.
Picciuto Guitar Bodyby David PicciutoDavid Picciuto shares a different entry point: a replacement ash body using an existing guitar’s neck, electronics and hardware. His build notes cover the carving, hand-cut contours and assembly. If you are starting with a donor guitar, bring its neck and hardware details to the discussion; the pictured pickguard is not supplied in the body preview.
Walnut guitar with decorative inlaysby christopher cookchristopher cook describes this walnut remake of David’s project as his first full-size guitar body from scratch. His photographs and comment show how another maker took a shared starting point in a new direction, adding gold-colored decoration and a mirrored rear cover. The shared body file is not a complete neck-and-hardware kit.
See more guitar projects in the Easel gallery →
Creating an Easel account is free. No credit card required.
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Lessons from the builders
Bring a fret-slot question to Steve’s project discussion or a neck-fit question to David’s. Share the part, bit or hardware you are working with so another builder has context. Sign in to comment; a reply is not guaranteed.
In step 4 of Electric Guitar, Steve Carmichael cuts the fret slots first, changes to a larger bit, and cuts the fretboard profile without moving the machine’s home position. He also notes that the slot width must suit the fret wire.
Project notes by Steve Carmichael: read the source.
From Electric Guitar by Steve Carmichael.
Ask a questionDavid Picciuto’s steps 6–8 cut the neck pocket, then the pickup and control cavities, and finally the outside shape. He asks for a snug neck fit.
Project notes by David Picciuto: read the source.
From Picciuto Guitar Body by David Picciuto.
Ask a questionA body sketch, your first carved neck or a finishing test is enough to start a guitar-build conversation. Create a free Easel account, then bring your progress and questions to the community Hub. No credit card required.
Creating an Easel account is free. No credit card required.
