Where to buy blanks for electric guitar body project in Toronto

[donnyjaguar]

Howdy all. I'm thinking of building an electric guitar out of the parts I have left over from other upgrade projects. Where does one buy wooden blanks for guitars? Can I just glue together 2 slabs of maple and cut and route it out? What body thickness works best for a standard Fender style strat neck? Can I get away without planing it? I want to do this on the cheap and quite frankly when it comes to woodworking, I have the finishing skills of a garden gnome. I'm pretty confident I can get the neck into the pocket and have the strings actually line up with the fretboard and pickups. Electronics is no problem.

I can hear the luthiers slapping their heads now... :)

[Giraffecaster]

warmoth has something that might be what you're looking for:
http://www.warmoth.com/showcase/sc_guitar_bodies.cfm?type=guitar&start=1&itemNumber=M344&menuItem=13&subMenuItem=4&subMenuItem2=0

[dpeterson]

www.warmoth.com (http://www.warmoth.com)
www.stewmac.com (http://www.stewmac.com)

1 3/4 for body thickness. maple for a body is not used that often, most likely basswood, alder or mahogany.

usually if you buy the lumber raw you get what is called 8/4 (eight quarter) which is 8 quarters of an inch = 2", plane or bandsaw that down to 1 3/4. neck stock you can use 4/4 hard maple / birdseye / flame whatever. they sell neck blanks too i believe.

dave

[m4tt]

I've never dealt with them but http://www.amwoodinc.com/ located in Cambridge Ontario (~1hr south of Toronto) provides blanks for bodies/necks.

[donnyjaguar]

I have access to Russian 11 layer plywood in 5/8". If I glue 3 of these babies together I'll get 1-7/8". Is this gonna work? Its pretty dense stuff so I'm wondering if weight will be an issue. Of course, it could sound like sh*t too. Thoughts?

[Distortion]

I have access to Russian 11 layer plywood in 5/8". If I glue 3 of these babies together I'll get 1-7/8". Is this gonna work? Its pretty dense stuff so I'm wondering if weight will be an issue. Of course, it could sound like sh*t too. Thoughts?
Do yourself a favor and buy a solid piece of wood for the body.
Plywood is not the way to go.

[donnyjaguar]

I heard Brian May's guitar is plywood. :)

What are the issues that you're aware of?

[Tarbender]

Exotic Woods in Burlington have some nice Alder blanks as well as some other choices including Ash.