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Hey I'm an aspiring builder in Lansing Michigan, our state's capital. However Lansing is more importantly home to one of the best music shops in the country, Elderly Instruments.

I'm typically a blues player and currently have a Heritage Millennium Double Cut as my main electric and used to play in a local open jam before the pandemic shut things down.

I enjoy working with my hands and learning not only how, but why things should be done.

Looking forward to review your building threads and eventually start my own kit D-21 project once I collect all the necessary tools to do it property.

I can also make really good sour dough bread.

D21 sounds like a great build. Welcome. I happen to get my cases from Elderly. Great in stock selections and they show up super fast down here in Indy. Post progress and questions..

If OP wants a 'bargain' D-21, he'll be bucks ahead to buy one. When accumulating guitar tooling, the cost of that stuff will vastly exceed the price of a finished instrument. And OP will never get, for sure as a first project, an instrument anything like a 'real' Martin
D-21.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to build a guitar. I am on #9 and am still building jigs. Still don't have - and probably will never have - a go bar deck or sanding dish. I built one guitar where my only expense was binding, rosette material, nut, saddle, tuners and frets.

I am a hand tool woodworker and that experience helped a lot. I enjoy doing as much by hand as I find reasonable. A band saw is the only stationary tool I would rather not do without - but I could. I have a cabinetmaker down the street do my thickness sanding if I don't want to hand plane - $20 per instrument on a professional, 4' wide, 20 hp machine is a bargain.

You will need a certain number of basic tools, and also a couple of jigs that are easy to build - like the mold. And a minimum number of clamps, a couple specialized, are needed. Clamps are the only thing I might buy at Harbor Freight, and they go on sale frequently. I bought a bag of 100 clothespins and a bag of rubber bands to increase their pressure. After 9 years the rubber bands are just starting to give out but they are still perfect for gluing linings.

A suggestion is to build a kit the first time so you can have the most difficult parts done for you and see how the whole thing fits together. It took me til #4 to do a complete scratch build. Now my 2 favorite parts are side bending on a hot pipe and neck making, although all of it is quite enjoyable.

My binding jig was $35 and after 9 instruments I still haven't made a mistake. The fancy jigs and fixtures make it all a little easier, but aren't we trying to build skills? Jump in - the worst that can happen is you'll have to do something over again.

By the way, my first guitar, 9 years old, is still one of may favorites for playability and sound, and my second guitar was a 12 fret 000 and sounds very much like my 1974 Martin 000-28. If you build a guitar the way Martin does, then it stands a good chance of sounding similar.

ruby@magpage.com wrote:You don't have to spend a lot of money to build a guitar.....

A suggestion is to build a kit the first time so you can have the most difficult parts done for you and see how the whole thing fits together....

...If you build a guitar the way Martin does, then it stands a good chance of sounding similar.

+1 on all this.
Built my first from a Martin kit and it's a darn good guitar.
Kits are a great way to get started.

Skarsaune wrote:

ruby@magpage.com wrote:You don't have to spend a lot of money to build a guitar.....

A suggestion is to build a kit the first time so you can have the most difficult parts done for you and see how the whole thing fits together....

...If you build a guitar the way Martin does, then it stands a good chance of sounding similar.

+1 on all this.
Built my first from a Martin kit and it's a darn good guitar.
Kits are a great way to get started.

I actually bought a kit from someone who bought it and never got around to it. 350 shipped to my door with everything but a truss rod.

phavriluk wrote:If OP wants a 'bargain' D-21, he'll be bucks ahead to buy one. When accumulating guitar tooling, the cost of that stuff will vastly exceed the price of a finished instrument. And OP will never get, for sure as a first project, an instrument anything like a 'real' Martin
D-21.

i just want to create my own guitars, it's not really a money thing. though i will say i get a lot less flack for buying tools than guitars from my wife. plus i'm really just going to off a couple guitars i don't play to finance any tools I need to acquire.

tooling can be tricky so ask questions before you but , but remember tooling is an investment cheap tools a cost

guycalleddave wrote: I actually bought a kit from someone who bought it and never got around to it. 350 shipped to my door with everything but a truss rod.

I recently rescued one of those myself. :-) I mostly bought it for parts, which I'll use in other projects.

I think I'm at 4 built from kits, some of which were modified, and 1 mostly from scratch. And about 3 on deck to build, 2 from scratch.

I am one year in to my effort to learn this craft. I've spent far more money in tools than I'd care to admit but none were required. I finished my kit with basic garage woodworking stuff. I too started out wanting to build the Martins I would never get a chance to hold, let alone buy.

100% I would prefer to play a hand built guitar like mine, especially one I built or know who built it over a stock $1500 Martin. I probably didn't feel that way before.

Sure, Martins are machine perfect even if they are hand done. Mine are full of faults. But they sure feel and sound great. $1000 Martin models vs mine? I think it's fair to say that any given player has a shot of wanting my build. Great! I'm not trying to build actual 30's Martin copies. Just guitars that act and sound similarly. Because everyone wants one. They sure sound great and are fun to play and the players can play the crap out of them and not damage their Martin museum pieces. For me it is more about the build process but this comment is more about the results. Build that d21 if you want it. I stamped D-18 in my kit thinking I was a fraud. It's not a fraud.

David Crosby said if that if you are going to buy a guitar, buy the absolute best one you can get even if you can't afford it as it will drive you to want to play it and that's what it takes to get good.