Official Luthiers Forum!

Since I feel myself sliding down this slippery slope, I might as well ramp up.

First, my shop inventory that theoretically should facilitate the process of guitar building:

Jet cab saw, 14 and 18 inch band saws, Rigid oscillating and Jet belt/disk sanders, 22-44 Performax, sharp hand planes (#3, 4, 5, 51/4, 7), miniature planes, spokeshaves, sharp chisels, lots of clamps, including homemade, benches with vises, routers, router table with 3 hp, Dremel, hollow chisel mortiser, lathe, jig saw, etc.

What do I need to compliment my tool herd?

At a minimum, here's what I'm thinking....

circle cutting jig for either my 1 1/2 hp router, or purchase attachments for my dremel

fret hammer and cutters,

???

Does anyone have a package deal out there?

Thanks so much for your replies.

FWIW, I'm just starting my first guitar, and have played for most of my life. In other words, I'm ready to soak up info like a sponge.

Arnie

You don't need a special hammer for fretting, I got by on the first 6 with a stanley finishing hammer, polished the head face. Basic cutters will do for the fret wire too.

You will need some type of saw to cut the fret slots in the fret board if you want to make your own fret boards.

You can make your own circle cutter jig for your laminate trimmer too. Take a look here for a great tutorial on making one.

Aside from these things I think you're well set up. I had much less than you when I built my first 3.

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Arnie-
Looks like you have lotsa stuff already!
Lots of jigs/tools can be improvised and home-built. Checking out some of the 'old' building/repair books from the 70s (Sloane, Young, Teeter, etc) can give you some ideas that work.
You don't mention it, but I assume you have good sharpening stones if you are keeping those planes sharp.

Circle-cutting jig- this is for rosette work? You can build a jig pretty easily for your Dremel. Don Teeter's book has details, and there are several examples on the web. I don't use the 'bigger' routers for much except making jigs/molds/forms and the like. Good for routing neck dovetails and mortises, if using that style.
Some people cut truss rod slots with a router.
For binding you can use the router in table (see David Russell Young's book); more popular is a laminate trimmer - many many jig examples around the OLF and on the web. The lam trimmer is a lot easier to handle than a router and much more powerful than the Dremel. You can use a lam trimmer for rosette work as well.
Fret hammer- a small dead-blow hammer can do this job and you can re-grind end or side-cutters for trimming frets for un-bound fingerboards.
Good books on building are 'tools' to me- the many,many different options on the web can be confusing. Keep it simple, use standard materials and techniques for your first build would be my recommendation.
For fretwork and setup the StewMac 'fret rocker' and 'setup gauge' are very useful (expensive, though).
You are going to love this stuff! (Of course, that's what the drug dealers say, too, I suppose Are you sure about this?)

Cheers
John

Arnie I've see a lot of folks come to the OLF eager to start building and that is a good thing! What else I have seen is that folks, me included, may make the mistake of purchasing things that they may not use once they learn to build guitars. I am about ready to pick-up my 3rd try at a bandsaw.....

So my suggestion to you is to dive in and see what tools you really are going to use. There are a number of instructional materials out here and not all of them use the same tooling. It may be that the method that works best for you will use a different sub-set of stuff than other methods.

Maybe visit some builders near you, review the various materials out here, and once you are actively building you will know what you actually will use.

Rule #1 in guitar building is that there are 1,000 ways to build a guitar.

I would say that you basically have all the tools you need....

Now.. Go buy a book and/or some videos and get to it!

As Hesh said, there are 10,000 different ways to build a Guitar... from the simplest, most manual, no-forms, no-powertools, freehand everything.... to Completely tooled up jigged production where every operation is done with some sort of jig and power tool... to CNC it all!

For example, one of the Pro builders I know roughs out his necks on a Bandsaw... then scrapes them to shape with broken shards of plate glass. This fellow also roughs out bridges with chainsaw files and sandpaper.

One of the Hobby builders I met built his own CNC router and does his own CNC necks, bridges, and inlays! He CNC inlaid his own herringbone into the back seam of his guitar... It looks like a Herringbone inlay strip till you look at it real close... and notice that the little bitty white blocks are individually inlaid into the back!

There are also builders here who bent their 1st sides with their wives curling irons!

The tools aren't the primary limitation.

Thanks

John