Custom Guitar Shelf

Hello! My name is Gradyn and I am a Junior at Illiana Christian High School. I did this project because I wanted to create an eye-catching but useful shelf that many people had never seen before. Sure, there are some great shelves out there but I wanted mine to stand out. While brainstorming ideas, my friend was actually the first one to think up a guitar for a shelf. I loved his idea so much that I wanted to make it a reality!

• Fusion 360
• 16" x 19" x 1" birch wood (4x)
• 15" x 20" x 0.25" wood panel (1x)
• Laguna iQ CNC Router
• Ryobi A25RT01 Router Table
• Ryobi Power Sander
• Titebond Original Wood Glue
• Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue
• Dewalt DCN660N-XJ Nail Gun
• Workpro Clamps (3x)
• DeWalt Clamps (2x)
• Black Ultra Matte spray paint
• DeWalt 20vMAX Brushless compact drill
• DeWalt 20vMAX XR impact driver
• Screws

The very first step to beginning the design process was to identify the problem. What did I need to accomplish with making this shelf? I simply needed to create a winning design that was different from all the rest of the competition. The next thing I had to do was to research some background information about types of shelves that were uncommon. I thought that angled shelves brought a fun new element to the table and I was convinced I wanted to make some sort of 45 degree shelf. I wrote down the class requirements for this project to remind myself of the parameters I had to follow. Finally, my favorite step came next; brainstorming ideas. I went into this brainstorm with the background information I had collected, and using my knowledge of angled shelves, I wrote and drew two angled shelves that I thought looked amazing. I still felt like I could do more, so I wanted one more idea to choose from. My classmate Sam saw me drawing and decided to help me out. He knew I played guitar so he asked, "Why not make a guitar shelf?" This blew my mind. I instantly fell in love with the idea and chose it as my main design.

The first thing I did was look for an image online for what I wanted my shelf to look like. This step didn't take long, since I found a near perfect image that was very close to the idea that I had in mind. I then imported the picture into Fusion 360 and outlined half of the image, and mirrored it onto the other side so that the sides would be even. I extruded the entire outline and shelled the shape down to 0.5 inches. After this, I designed a shelf so I could store books or some other objects in this shelf. I split the whole component into separate bodies in order to easily CNC these different layers down the road. My plan was to stack 1 inch thick birch boards on top of each other in order to get that well-known guitar body shape.

The next step was to design the setup for the 4 middle components. I was going to stack the 4 completed components to get the correct depth of the body. I used the SawStop® Industrial Cabinet Saw to cut my pieces to the correct dimensions (16" x 19" x 1") and the Laguna iQ CNC Router to cut out my designs. Since I had left some tabs connected to the pieces for safety, I cut these all off with the Ryobi A25RT01 Router Table and did some sanding with a Ryobi Power Sander for a nice finish. Once I had repeated this step 3 more times, I had the base of the guitar body done.

Once the body was finished I glued the four layers together and spray painted it a nice black, ultra matte color. The glue was Titebond Original Wood Glue and the spray paint was the Black 2X Ultra Cover Ultra Matte Spray.

The next step was to cut out a back panel and add a shelf in order to complete the look that I was going for. I used our school laser cutter to get the perfect sized back panel and then glued that to the body. Once that was finished, I measured the closest points from one end of the body to the other and then cut the shelf accordingly. The next thing I did was screw the shelf into the back using the DeWalt 20vMAX Brushless compact drill for the pre-drill hole and the DeWalt 20vMAX XR impact driver to get the screw in.

The final step of the entire project was to create the guitar neck and guitar head. These two pieces would ultimately complete the look of a normal guitar rather than looking like an oblong shelf. First, I chose a piece of birch that was about 3 inches wide, and cut it to around 2 and a half inches wide. I cut the length to around 27 inches so that the piece stood out and could be hung from a neck cradle. Once the neck was finished I moved on to working on the head. I cut out a 5" by 3" piece, then cut angles in the sides and at the base of the piece. The angles made the head look normal since almost all guitar necks have some sort of angled feature. Next, I glued the head to the neck and the neck to the body (along with some pin nails from the Dewalt DCN660N-XJ 18V XR using Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue.

And there we have it! Designing and creating this guitar shelf was a blast and I enjoyed every experience and challenge that I met along the way. Thank you for stopping by and checking out my shelf!