Getting started...

[Mike]

Hello,

I am sure I am not the first person to ask the following question, but at the risk of being redundant...here goes. I recently started playing guitar as a hobby about a year ago, and have had the growing desire to see if I could build a guitar on my own. Although I have limited experience with woodworking, I am good with my hands, and have built things all my life. But, I know that I have to crawl before walking or running, and want to start our right. I am looking to you very experienced luthiers to perhaps point me to a good place to start learning not only about the building process, but what tools I would need to acquire. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

[griff]

Do your research. Read at least "Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology" by Cumpiano and Natelson (there is also a good section of minimal tools to get started), but also anything on the subject you can find at your local library (usually you can get a hold of Irving Sloane's books, etc). If you're really starting from zero, you'll need to learn some tool use as well, so local woodworking classes in routing, sharpening, planes and chisels, table or bandsaw, etc. will be very helpful in cutting down on the frustration factor.

If possible, find a local guitar maker (or any stringed instrument really, it's all helpful), if he's the kind of guy who would be helpful, he'll be happy to talk to you all day about building.

Start with a kit. Go to http://www.lmii.com/ and use their kit wizard feature to put together a kit at your level. Then next time, plan on doing more of the work yourself. and so on... Assembling a glue-together kit is crawling, but there's still a lot of fundamentals there to learn.

Have a "beginner's mind" and learn from mistakes.

[Ned Knepp]

Besides what Griff said;

Take the time to digest the Frets.com site. It may take a while but there is a lot of information about how guitars are made and repaired.

Look at Kathy Matsushita's site here: http://home.comcast.net/~kathymatsushita/
You can learn a lot from her since she pretty much started out where you are.

You might consider building a ukulele to begin with simply to get your feet wet.

Ask questions here.