WARNING: ALL INSTRUCTIONS ARE A WORK IN PROGRESS AND ARE LIABLE TO CHANGE ON A REGULAR BASIS TILL THE PROJECT IS COMPLETE!!

Buying vs building

[Discussion of pros and cons]

The main advantage of buying a ready-made guitar is the significant reduction in work needed as compared to building a fake guitar from scratch.  The primary disadvantage is that guitar bodies are designed to resonate and to amplify sound, which is not what you want from a speaker housing.  I've addressed this latter point in my build by gluing in layers of MDF inside the bodies of the guitars.

Buying

This option involves buying a guitar and then making alterations to it to make it suitable as a speaker housing.  (I'll provide more details about this later in the instructions.)

The main considerations to make when buying are guitar are as follows:

1. attractive shape and colour;
2. choosing one with that has an internal volume a little larger than required for the mid-range driver being used; and
3. location of internal framing, as cross-beams that are placed under the sound board can make the widening of the centre hole for placement of the driver quite difficult.  

This was the option I went with for this project, as I wasn't overly keen to build any from scratch right at this time.  Perhaps in the future...?

I was able to find some ludicrously cheap guitars online that looked okay but importantly were the right volume [see step XX below]. 

Building

Quality speaker housings are typically constructed from MDF (either painted or covered in a timber veneer) in order to provide a solid, dampened structure.  The ideal approach, then, when building the fake guitar bodies is to make them from MDF so you have the best of both worlds—a well-made speaker cabinet but one that looks like an acoustic guitar.

Finding a mid-range driver is the first step for this project, as this will determine an ideal volume for the guitar body.  Alternatively, you can 

[I'll add more information in here over time about the selection of drivers.]

[This will briefly cover 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-order crossover choices plus selection of quality electronic components.  I will likely heavily reference other sites here because I don't claim competence in this area.

I'll also talk about options for tweeters in line with the previously chosen mid-range drivers.

Inductors, polyester NP capacitors, polyspeaker protectors, tweeter, and mid-range driver.]

This will detail the steps needed to make a temporary speaker housing that has adjustable volume. 

This step will cover the effect that ports have on speakers. 

This step will cover adding in a few ports of different sizes to the test housing, as well as covers to go over the ports.

• Music selection
• Graphic/band equaliser

Measuring the driver and tweeter to determine the hole sizes required for the guitar body.

The data sheets for the tweeter and driver may also provide this information.

[This instruction will cover the steps for marking and shaping necessary for mounting the driver in the guitar body.  Need to avoid the braces when widening the sound hole if possible. ]