Fender Electric Guitar Bodies
Fender is a manufacturer of instruments responsible for some of the most popular and iconic designs of modern electric guitar.
The Fender Telecaster and Fender Stratocaster have become one of the most copied designs of guitar since their introduction in the 1950s.
While purchasing a complete instrument is the most common method of acquiring an instrument you can buy guitars in individual parts including guitar bodies.
An electric guitar body:
- Is often made from two pieces of wood
- Is usually made from cost effective tonewoods that have good tonal qualities
- Has routings to accommodate the pickups, electronics and hardware
Fender makes a number of guitar parts including bodies identical to those on a number of their full guitars.
Many people also remove the neck and hardware from their Fender instruments and sell them in parts making Fender bodies easily available.
Most commonly alder is the tonewood used to construct Fender guitar bodies.
Reasons to choose a guitar body
- Replacement – If you have a guitar with a badly damaged body the best option may be to replace it. This is no small job so you may want to go to an expert before trying this yourself
- Guitar build – If you’re building a guitar then you’ll need a body. Fender bodies are both popular and recognisable so they are a common choice of design for project guitars.
Some electric guitar bodies will be available loaded meaning that they come with the pickups pre installed or remaining in the body.
Unless you want to use different pickups this can be a time saver as it eliminates the need to do any soldering.
If you’re building a project guitar along with the body you’ll also need:
- An electric guitar neck
- A scratch plate for Fender bodies
- Pickups
- Bridge/ tremolo
- Machine heads
- Volume/tone knobs
- Strap buttons
- Output jack
- Any other necessary hardware