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I have long since wanted a Danelectro guitar and especially a DC. I just think they sound so cool. The Made In China reissues don't exactly tickle me though and being a lefty there aren't many old stock DCs to be had.
Oigun, my luthier buddy, told me to get a cheap righty from the interwebz that we'd rip the top off to make room for a lefty-fied top.
I'm an impatient SOB and in the last year every Dano I came across on the eBay either went for more than I was willing to spend or was a MiC.
Then I found this neck;

It's got the Coke bottle headstock that I like way more than the goofy new style heads.

Some nice D-stamped tuners!


I figured a Dano wouldn't be real hard to make, and since I won the auction for the neck, seller included some other nice Dano stuff too, why not give building one from (kinda half-way) scratch?

Hey Olav, that sounds great! Good luck to you and Oigun in getting this new project under way

How sweet!

had some trouble down sizing pics. we're off again in a minute.

Oigun agreed a Dano wouldn't be hard to build, but he's busy with all sorts of other projects, so I'd have to do the body myself.
OK. Here goes;
Oigun was nice enough to copy one of his Danos to make a routing template for me, which helps a LOT!

There you have it. The GUN made template, a piece of 18mm plywood (birch! don't use the hardwood stuff Oi says, that'll get you in trouble when routing the second or third channel), a piece of 4mm MDF, which is basically the same as Masonite which is used on Danos. A bunch of clamps, box set of router bits, bottle of run-of-the-mill wood glue. All in all €75/$100. I own a circular saw, a coping saw, a router, powerdrills, a B&D workbench or two, cleaned out the garage, let's get cracking!

Pencil traced the template on the 18mm plywood. You might have to lean in to see the lines, they're there for sure!

Rough cut the outlines with coping saw. I stayed away from the lines about a mm or two. Cut away as much as you can, remember to allow for room to manouvre the router base.

I need another skeleton cut to get to 36mm thickness

Drilled some holes to allow for easier turns with the coping saw.

Clean what you're working on regularly

Outlines show way better in this pic.