Official Luthiers Forum!

hey guys, so I've been playing for about 14 years now, and I've been in the army for about 3 of that, I only have about a year left in service. I've been researching a lot on guitar building bc that's what I want to do as a career when I get out. I understand that it isn't an over night process by no means, this will take some time. More or less I'm trying to find someone who will point me in the right direction with all of this...any advice would be greatly appreciated .....

Welcome! This forum is a great place to get advice, but you'll need to ask more specific questions to get specific answers.

A good place to start is to read all you can and decide what sort of build style sounds the most fun to you. Mine is all hand tool focused, pretty similar to the Cumpiano & Natelson book, but with no workboards at all (see my various build threads in the doc-u-build section if you want all the details). Most people use outside moulds, bending forms and radius dishes to get the geometry more exact every time. But I like making new shapes all the time, and have extremely limited space... no room to store a big pile of forms.

Are you going to be building steel strings, classicals, or all sorts of guitar-like things?

If you are in Texas I would go visit Collings...

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

Well, I'm more of an open tuning percussive style of player, so I'm interested in "hopefully one day" building like a Greenfield or Stonebridge style of steel string acoustic. Don't get me wrong. I love an old D-28 or a Gibson j-200. But it's just not really my style

Order a Stu Mack catalog and read it from back to front a few times a week.

Hopefully you got the basic wood chops down... if not, go take a wood shop course and learn the basic skill of how to use the tools and machines first.

Building guitars is about the ultimate test of being a wood butcher and trying to learn the skills and build a guitar at the same time ain't so easy.
In fact me won't even consider mentoring anybody unless they gotts 5 years of cabinetry under there belt. Ain't worth the hassle for me or them.

Good luck.

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Just ordered it .

Thank you for your advice!. I've been working with wood for most of my life.. weather it was building furniture or stuff for the house or just logging all sorts of trees down to keep warm in the winter. Hopefully that will help me a little bit

Sudds, not quit sure I understand the question. Do you want information on building or becoming a builder? The first opens one entire thread - what tools and experiences do you have, should you build from a kit or jump right in to a scratch build and so forth. One of the best references (besides this forum of course) is Cumpiano and Natelson - should be on every builders bookshelf.

The career part is a lot more difficult - questions there might include do you want be a solo builder or work in a small shop, what is your business background (including finances, unfortunately), are you willing to apprentice to an established builder - questions like those are best answered by our professional members.

My humble background - I've built about 15 so far, a couple of kits at first, more scratch now. Self taught using all the various resources available - books, internet, the GAL. With each guitar I add one significant tool to my shop - something that I wished I had on the last one. I've kept most of them, given a few to family and did one commission for the price of materials plus a buck. This is strictly a hobby for me so I can't comment on the business side. I can tell you that it is expensive, frustrating, sometimes rewarding and addictive - much like playing 'em. Good luck

I would like to be a solo builder, I am definitely open to apprentice into an established builder. I would prefer to start off with some kits first. Then move in to doing it from scratch. To get a better basic hands on knowledge of the whole process. I plan on purchasing cumpiano's book this week I also ordered a catalog from stu mack . I understand that it will not be a career at first. It will be more of a hobby. And that's okay. But hopefully down the road I can learn to put together some instruments that people will enjoy playing. That's really my goal through all of this

I'm only building my third at the moment (when I have time ) but I reckon there's at least three ways to start...

1: Buy a kit
2: Buy a book like Cumpiano's and go for it.
3: Build you first under the supervision of someone with experience.

I went for the third option but kinda wish I just went for it on my own. Considering I'd never made anything before that, and that my teacher created a relaxed atmosphere, and that I didn't have to invest in tools, and that I just didn't really know what to expect, I probably did the right thing. But for someone with furniture making experience, I reckon you could easily just buy Cumpiano's book and go for it. Before long, I'm sure you'll want more advanced reading and maybe a specific course or two.

Good luck!

Thanks alot Nick!. I bet it's a pretty cool feeling to build your first guitar. I'm excited! It's nice to be able to talk to guys like you. Instead of people who look at you like you committed a crime when you tell them about your plans for something like this. Ha

Haha! Funny, I saw an old mate recently who I hadn't seen for a couple of years and when I told him, he really did look a bit like I'd admitted to strangling hamsters! Then he assumed I must've made a rubber band guitar... Only when he came over and saw them did he start to accept that they were actual guitars! Maybe he just never saw me as "a maker".

Looking at a guitar you've built is a great feeling! I have had a couple of moments of intense pride but I try to hold them off till I've finished, pride coming before a fall and all that. Coming from a sales and then IT background, I can certainly say that building guitars is a much more satisfying thing to do than hitting targets or fixing bugs. I can't think of many hobbies equal to it. For me.

And this is a great forum! If it weren't this place, I'd know one guitarmaker... And not well enough to see him without good reason!

For me, the guitar stuff is the easy part - precision wood whittling and joinery is my greatest challenge.

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wah
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Have you guys ever heard of Wayne Henderson ?

That helps a lot. I think starting with a kit is a very good idea and there is a kit oriented sub forum here (but it is very slow moving). Basically a kit will allow you to do all the work without a huge investment in special tools or doing some of the operations (like bending sides or mitering a fretboard) that are easy to screw up. You can buy kits in different levels of completeness - vendors include Stewart MacDonald ("StewMac" to most of us), LMII, Blues Creek, Martin themselves and some others. If you don't do anything else with StewMac at least download the free instructional pdf - that will give you one more thing to read.

Also be advised that neither StewMac nor Cumpiano use a true body mold - most of us do. You should read a few build threads on line - that will help you see how others have done things (and the mistakes that they make). I can point you to a couple that I wrote if that would be helpful.

If there is any way to get hooked up with an established builder, go for it. That is the traditional way people learned - apprenticed to a master builder. But if you can't do that, this forum is a pretty good place to ask questions - you will be amazed how helpful these folks will be.

Here are three of my first ones - all kits of various levels, all very playable instruments. The little 000 (on the right) was my first one and is still my daily player

Yeah, some people here know him. I've watched the vids on YouTube and read the book, "Clapton's guitar", (not that there's much to learn about guitarmaking in it). Seems like a great yet incredibly humble guy. Builds beautiful Martin style guitars. (And, as a foreigner, I can't help but remark on the great accent! )

I'd say read the books, watch the videos and build a couple of kits to get your feet wet. If the fire is in the belly take a well established course with a proven track record or even go to one of the schools like Red Wing, Roberto Venn, Brian Galloup, etc. Years shaved off your learning curve and the schools will give you some repair chops to improve the cash flow.

Good luck

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Wayne Who.............????

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Ha. I've literally only had this forum for like 8 hours. And the people on here have seriously giving me the best advice I've ever had my whole life.lol. thanks to everyone who has talked to me today and givin me great advice and tips on building and everything else.. it is GREATLY appreciated

Hi Sudds

If you are coming out of the Army you should have the GI bill available to you. I believe they will pay a considerable part of your tuition at one of the established guitar schools. Look into that, as studying with a professional can speed up the learning process a great deal. Good luck - Mike

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Wayne Henderson? didn't him create the muppets? or was that Jim Henderson?

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Greetings Suds,

I am in the process of building my first one right now. I have been seriously fixing and repairing guitars for 20+ years but have been working on them for over 40 years. It started out just fixing up guitars for myself and then for friends. I now have my own shop where I buy, fix, and sell guitars as well as do repair for clients. I have always wanted to build them but never really had the time with real life and fixing guitars. Now I have the time I decided to jump in and build one so here I am a newb guitar builder...

Building and repairing are two different critters (as I soon found out). I thought I could just pick up some wood and start cutting and gluing but the knowledge of fixing a guitar is quite different than building one. I can tell you that I know a lot more than the average "wanna be builder" and that has really helped me a lot in learning about how a guitar really works and is put together.

From my perspective I would suggest that you go out to your local pawn shop and buy a few really cheap guitars and try to learn how to disassemble them without breaking anything. After you have a good idea how to take them apart then start looking for a guitar that is in need of repair and learn to fix it and make it play well. You won't learn guitar building but it will give you the basic understanding of what makes a guitar work and the geometry of why they work.

The main thing you will learn from that is stuff like fret work, bridge work, crack repair and a whole slew of things that cross over into guitar building. Plus it is an inexpensive way to get started learning about guitars. It will also test your skills at making or improvising tools which is a really big part of guitar building. Unless you have a few hundred thousand to lay down on stuff from Stew Mac and other commercial vendors. A good tip would be to look through some of the guitar tool catalogs and different forums and start figuring out what tools you can make as opposed to buying them. It gives me (and my wife) great satisfaction knowing I built a jig or tool on my own and saved a couple hundred bucks in the process (thats the part my wife likes)...

I would also suggest that you build your first one from a kit. It will save you a lot of frustration when you learn you don't have a lot of the specialty tools needed to build from scratch.

I can't add much else that hasn't been said by the other replies, but coming from my perspective as a repair guy it may help you learn more before you actually start building.

Cheers,
Bob

Thanks a lot Bob for the advice!. In all honesty. That's kinda how I viewed myself starting out with all of this....I have a couple of guitars I could work on at home like you said. So I'm gonna go in the direction you were saying. Basically learn what makes a guitar . a guitar....ha. thanks again! Much appreciated

Welcome Sudds! I think this is really good advice. I made my first with a pro builder, which helped me learn how HE did the processes and what tools he used, but it would be great to get a broader experience of learning like you would in a school. Beware....once you start this, you're gonna want to keep going! Hope you can dive in soon. The people on this forum are an incredible resource. Don't forget, if you're following a thread and it has information you want to refer to in the future, use the "bookmark" option. I've many times gone back through my bookmark library to recall a discussion that has helped me with a new or difficult process.
Best wishes, and thanks so much for your service! Beth

@Beth Mayer, and all..

There is a free program called PrimoPDF that I used when I ran Windows which just adds a new printer in your print menu. When you want to save a web page or forum link you can just print it to a PDF file. It comes out with all the pictures and text in PDF format which you can save and keep on your computer. Then you are not relying on a specific web page or forum to still be live.

@Sudds, I would do a search for the above program as well as a utility to download YouTube videos. When you find good info save it off for future reference.

Just my 2c...

Bob