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From “No Way I Could Do That” to Four Custom Guitars: WittWorks Builds with Onefinity Elite + Redline
- Support Team
- 10 hours ago
- 5 min read
If you’ve ever watched an insane guitar build on YouTube and thought,“There’s no way I could do that… where would I even start?”you’re in good company.
That’s exactly where our friend Drew from WittWorks began.
In his latest video, Drew decides (in classic WittWorks fashion) not just to build one electric guitar, but four—as a complete beginner to guitar building. No lutherie background. No prior guitar builds under his belt. Just a woodshop, some good friends, and a mix of analog and digital tools, including his Onefinity Elite CNC powered by the Redline controller.
The result? Two gorgeous, fully playable custom guitars for the people who inspired his musical journey—and a powerful demonstration of how accessible guitar building becomes when you blend traditional woodworking skills with modern CNC.
The Challenge: Four Dream Guitars, Zero Experience
Drew starts with a pretty wild premise:
Build an electric guitar for the first time
Do it from scratch
Make it good enough to gift to his heroes
Have a real luthier judge it
And (in theory) do it in 30 days
Oh, and somewhere along the way, that “one guitar” quietly turns into four:
A Strat-style build with a tobacco sunburst for Travis
A silver sparkle Nashville-style Tele for Mark
A walnut-over-cherry Tele for himself
Another Tele for Tracy, who had a beloved guitar stolen (twice!)
That’s a massive leap for someone who openly says he’s “a complete noob” at proper guitar building. But this is where the magic of tooling—and especially CNC—comes in.
Three Ways to Make a Guitar Body (And Why the CNC Wins on Speed)
One of the coolest parts of the video is that Drew doesn’t just show one workflow. He shows three different ways to make a guitar body, ranging from traditional to fully digital:
Templates, Bandsaw, and Router (Classic Method)
Glue up body blanks
Rough cut the shape on the bandsaw
Clean up with flush-trim bits and templates
Drill and route cavities with a drill press and trim router
This method is approachable and familiar to most woodworkers—but it’s also the most physically demanding and repetitive. Lots of sanding. Lots of routing. Lots of chances to slip.
Shaper Origin + Bench Pilot (Handheld CNC Automation)
Uses a handheld CNC on a guided gantry
Great for creeping up on tolerances and doing test cuts
Bench Pilot moves the tool automatically, while Drew films, checks, and tweaks
This hybrid workflow is clever and flexible. It’s perfect when space is tight and you want digital precision without committing to a full CNC footprint.
Full CNC with the Onefinity Elite + Redline Controller (The “Push Button and Let It Sing” Method) This is where our favorite part of the video comes in.
Drew sets up a guitar body blank on his CNC table and lets the machine do what it does best: repeatable, accurate, low-stress cutting.
He originally bought his Onefinity CNC to manufacture parts for his product business from large plywood sheets—but watching it carve out full guitar bodies is a whole new kind of satisfying. Dust collection off, camera rolling, and you can literally see the guitar emerge from the blank.
For a self-described “digital maker first,” the CNC workflow feels natural:
Design and toolpaths in CAD/CAM
Load the file on the Redline controller
Clamp the blank
Hit start
Let the machine chew through the contours and pockets with machine-level consistency
It’s fast. It’s repeatable. And it’s shockingly beginner-friendly once the digital groundwork is done.
Why the Onefinity Elite + Redline Is So Good for Guitar Builds
Drew is honest: the hardest part of this entire project isn’t the cutting, routing, or even the fretting—it’s the mental game. The perfectionism. The fear of messing something up on a project that means a lot, emotionally and creatively.
That’s exactly why a solid CNC setup can be such a game-changer for guitar making:
1. Repeatability for Multiple Builds
Once Drew has a guitar file dialed in, the CNC doesn’t care if it’s the first body or the fourth.Drop a new blank on the table, re-zero, and let the machine run the same toolpaths again and again.
For this project, where he’s making multiple Strat and Tele bodies, that repeatability is huge.
2. Precision Without the Stress
Neck pockets, pickup cavities, bridge routes—these aren’t places you want to freehand guess. The CNC hits those features exactly where the file says they should be.
That kind of precision:
Makes final setup easier
Keeps intonation and playability within spec
Gives you confidence that you’re not slowly drifting off-template with each pass
3. Redline Controller: Modern Workflow, Less Friction
The Redline controller turns the CNC into something that feels less like a mysterious industrial box and more like a modern, connected tool:
Clean, visual interface for files and programs
Intuitive control over feeds, speeds, and job start/stop
A workflow that plays nicely with digital makers who are used to software, 3D printing, lasers, and design tools
For someone like Drew—who came from a background of digital art, Photoshop, and tech—it’s the perfect bridge between woodworking and code-driven fabrication.
4. A Clear Path to 3D Necks and Advanced Carving
In the video, Drew mentions his long-term goal:
cutting a full guitar neck, both sides, perfectly contoured on the CNC.
Bodies are the warm-up. Once you’re already modeling and machining guitar profiles in 2D and 2.5D, moving into 3D carving is a natural next step. The Onefinity Elite gives him the rigidity, working envelope, and accuracy to grow into that—without changing platforms later.
Community, Templates, and the Power of “Not Doing It Alone”
One thing that stands out in the video is how not-alone Drew is during this process:
Scarlet Guitars (Andrew) provided acrylic templates and SVGs, plus endless answers to “beginner” questions.
StewMac tutorials and specialty tools helped him tackle fretting and setup with confidence.
A local luthier checked his work and confirmed:the bridges and scale lengths were right on the money.
Friends like Mark and Travis not only inspired the builds, but helped with electronics and final dialing-in.
The CNC doesn’t replace that community—it multiplies what’s possible because of it.
When you combine:
Good templates and files
A capable CNC like the Onefinity Elite
A modern controller like Redline
And support from makers who’ve been there before
you get exactly what this video shows:a first-time guitar builder producing instruments that visibly move and impress experienced players.
So… Is Building a Guitar Actually “Easy”?
Watching the sped-up footage, it looks easy. But Drew is honest: it isn’t effortless.
There’s fear. There are mistakes. (Yes, including that infamous “accidental hole through the back of the guitar.”) There are moments where perfectionism and exhaustion collide.
But here’s what the Onefinity + Redline combo does brilliantly:
It removes a huge amount of physical labor from the most repetitive tasks.
It reduces the number of “one-wrong-move and it’s ruined” moments in shaping the body.
It lets you focus your energy on the parts that truly need your hands and heart—like shaping, finishing, pickguard choices, color, burst, and setup.
In other words, it makes building a guitar achievable for a talented woodworker who’s new to lutherie.
You still need taste.You still need patience.You still need to embrace the learning curve.
But when your CNC can hog out pockets, carve bodies, and repeat jobs with machine-level precision, the idea of building a guitar shifts from “lifetime achievement fantasy” to“Yeah… I could actually do this.”
Watch the Full Build & Get Inspired
If you haven’t watched the video yet, do yourself a favor:
You’ll see:
Traditional bandsaw + router workflows
Shaper Origin + Bench Pilot in action
The Onefinity Elite with Redline controller carving guitar bodies
Finishing experiments, sunbursts, sparkle paint, relicing, and more
And the payoff: two friends receiving dream guitars built by someone they helped inspire years ago
And if you’ve got a Onefinity Elite (or you’re thinking about one) and a guitar idea that’s been living in your head for years… maybe this is your sign.
Drop a blank on the table. Fire up your Redline controller. And start turning “no way I could do that” into your own first guitar build.
