Ever dreamed of building your own custom electric guitar from scratch? In this 8-part series, StewMac’s Brock Poling walks you through the entire process — no big workshop or expensive CNC machines required! You just need a little patience, imagination, and attention to detail to create a guitar you'll treasure for a lifetime.
T-Style Electric Guitar Kit If you're new to guitar building this kit's a great way to start: this is the classic electric guitar design that's fun to build, and you'll learn a lot.
Episode #2 - Gluing up the foundation of your guitar
Now the real fun begins! In Episode 2, we’re making all the big decisions that will define your custom electric guitar. What body shape will you choose? What types of wood will bring out the tone you want? What style hardware will complete your vision? Join Brock as he walks through his own design process of crafting a stunning rosewood tele, and sharing expert tips along the way.
Episode #3 - Cutting a tele build to its final shape
A great guitar starts with a rock-solid foundation! In Episode 3, Brock walks you through the crucial steps of prepping and gluing up your body blank. Learn how to avoid imperfections in the wood, line everything up perfectly, and clamp it all together for a super strong, stable body.
Episode #4 - Cutting a tele build to its final shape
In Episode 4, Brock walks you through the process of cutting and shaping your guitar body. You’ll learn how to accurately trace your body template, make a rough cut on the bandsaw, and then carefully route the blank to its final shape. By the end of this step, you’ll have a guitar body that looks and feels like the real deal—and you’ll be one step closer to playing your own custom build!
Episode #5 - Picking hardware and routing the neck pocket
Now it’s time to gear up! In Episode 5, we’re going shopping for all the essential hardware that will bring your custom guitar to life—pickups, bridges, ferrules, knobs, jack plates, and more! Once the parts are picked, it’s back to the build. Brock shows you how to customize and use a neck pocket template to anticipate an oil finish, then carefully route the neck pocket for a perfect fit. To wrap things up, we true up the body sides using a variety of sanding cauls for a clean, pro-level result.
Episode #6 - How to get PERFECT bridge placement on your guitar
In Episode 6, we’re focusing on one of the most critical steps in your guitar build—precisely locating and mounting the bridge. A well-placed bridge is essential for great playability, intonation, and tuning stability, so getting this right is a must! Brock walks you through his method of using a surrogate guitar neck to dial in the exact bridge position. Then, we temporarily mount the bridge to the body to determine the perfect placement for the string ferrules—a step that can be tricky, but Brock shares a game-changing tip to get it right every time.
Episode #7 - Creative routing for pickup and control cavities
In Episode 7, Brock guides you through routing the pickup and control cavities using customized templates. He covers what to consider when positioning your pickups and explains why making your own jigs is an essential skill for any guitar builder. And if you make a mistake? No problem—Brock shows how to recover from a routing slip using rosewood dust and superglue.
Episode #8 - Drilling for electronics and prep sanding for finish!
We’ve made it to the final step! In Episode 8, Brock Poling walks you through the last crucial details—drilling holes for the electronic wires, locating and drilling the jack hole, and rounding over the edges for a smooth, comfortable feel. To wrap it all up, Brock carefully sands the entire body, getting it prepped and ready for an oil finish. After this step, your guitar will be fully shaped and ready for a neck!
Guitars represent a rich musical legacy and hold a special place in our hearts. The new Marcus King ES-345 is a beautiful example of that tradition—a recreation inspired by his main guitar, “Big Red,” the 1962 ES-345 handed down from his grandfather to his father and finally to him.
This modern version captures the look and soul of the original, with only the features that Marcus finds essential, including mono wiring, a pair of Custombucker humbucking pickups, a fixed Vibrola tailpiece for improved tuning stability, and a stud anchor cover customized specifically for Marcus. All the hallmark features of the ES-345 are still here, just refined through the lens of a legacy that spans generations and stages around the world.
You could call John Fahey the Johnny Appleseed of solo steel-string guitar playing, but Black Flag is probably a more appropriate reference. Like the punk progenitors would do many years later, Fahey not only crafted a uniquely rooted musical approach that would be adopted by legions of practitioners, he self-released his records on his Takoma Records label and hit the road, well before DIY was a common approach.
Joining us to talk Fahey is solo guitarist Hayden Pedigo, whose warmly sincere instrumentals balance the “trickster manifestations” that have led him to walk in a Gucci show and found him the subject of the 2021 documentary, Kid Candidate. His latest, I’ll Be Waiting As You Drive Away, was released this month on Mexican Summer.
Moths and butterflies are admirably, amazingly adaptable in flight. I mean, imagine you weigh mere milligrams. You’re trucking along, minding your own business, and a 45 mph gust blows you straight into the path of a garbage truck. As a moth, you have to be ready for anything. I’ve been in a lot of jams like that. The Moth Electric C. Regalis would have been a perfect companion.
The C. Regalis (the name honors the largest moth, by mass, found north of Mexico, making the moth in my earlier metaphor seem pretty lame) derives its own adaptability from blendable drive and clean tones. There’s nothing revolutionary about that idea. But the C. Regalis has a drive section that sounds great and is very versatile by itself and makes the whole very special. It has a flexible +/-15dB treble-and-bass EQ and a smooth/crunch switch that functions, more or less, exactly as advertised by adding even-order harmonics. The many possible tones from the drive section can, in turn, be compounded exponentially with the dirty/clean blend. All this room to roam in the controls means C. Regalis isn’t encumbered by a rigid agenda. It cares little about whether you use a Jaguar or an SG, a Fender Deluxe Reverb or a Marshall. The C. Regalis is eager to please. And it’s hard to imagine a player that couldn’t find a sound, or 30, to love in this pedal.
Master of Metamorphosis
Overdrive pedals, even lovable, essential, invaluable ones, can be pretty boring. And I can’t remember the last time I thought of an overdrive as a songwriting machine. But the C. Regalis is varied, forgiving, and intuitive in ways that facilitate fast movement between tones and make morphing between mere sounds and more concrete musical ideas fluid and effortless. There are many springboards and templates to work from too: Randomly choosing pedal settings, I bounced between sweet, toppy clean boost, hot treble-boosted tones, tweed Deluxe haze, Stonesy grime (’60s and ’70s versions), Dinosaur Jr. grind, and Sabbath sludge—and that was with a single guitar and amp.
Not surprisingly, for an overdrive and distortion with a clean blend control, there are strong hints of Klon, and I found many comparable tones in the C. Regalis and my fave klone at many settings. But the C. Regalis is also generally airer and less compressed than the klone, which translates to a lot of headroom and range. That range can reveal potential in the amps and guitars you already have. A few examples: I turned a raspy P-90 and Marshall combination into deep, pillowy Kevin Shields smoke. A Telecaster and vintage Vibrolux bellowed like a plexi, then ripped lines of treble-boosted acid twang. Curtis Novak Wide Range pickups in a Telecaster Deluxe plus the Moth sounded good with … everything. And I don’t remember encountering undesirable combinations that couldn’t be fixed with a simple, quick adjustment to the pedal or guitar controls (the C. Regalis is also highly responsive to guitar volume and tone attenuation).
The Verdict
Moth Electric’s C. Regalis is a really lovely, thoughtfully designed drive unit. At $179, it’s also a deal. The controls are smooth, precise, and situated in a clean, clear, and straightforward layout. And the simple, spacious design makes it easy to move between drastically different tones, mid-performance, without feet or presets. (Yes, bending over mid-jam kinda sucks, but if you don’t have enough time to pull this off, you’re probably playing too many notes.)
There are, of course, specific drive sounds that the C. Regalis can’t recreate. But it was hard to find any sizable holes in its performance envelope. And it can convincingly approximate almost any pedal, and many amps, at anywhere along the clean-boost to mid-gain distortion spectrum. If you chase specific pedal tones at super-granular levels, the C. Regalis might not always hit the mark. But if you’re out to craft a tone of your own that’s rooted in the organic, analog, vintage realm, C. Regalis has a very high likelihood of delivering.
