www.KitGuitarsForum.com

I do have the advantage of having a friend, Carter Ruff, who is a professional luthier, about a 15-minute drive from me. He's willing to do things like bend a set of sides for me if i ask, in exchange for various machine shop jobs I can do for him, so that reduces my need for a lot of the more expensive and specialized stuff. It *is* nice to have your own tools though.

I've never built a kit; all my instruments have been built from materials I collected. I think that choice has given me more freedom to experiment.

MaineGeezer wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 9:02 pm I do have the advantage of having a friend, Carter Ruff, who is a professional luthier, about a 15-minute drive from me. He's willing to do things like bend a set of sides for me if i ask, in exchange for various machine shop jobs I can do for him, so that reduces my need for a lot of the more expensive and specialized stuff. It *is* nice to have your own tools though.

I've never built a kit; all my instruments have been built from materials I collected. I think that choice has given me more freedom to experiment.

I think I need a professional luthier friend!!
Amazing you never built a kit and just started out with materials you collected.
I'm impressed.

Knowing Carter helped a lot. He provided guidance on what I needed to get for the first guitar. Now that you've built a kit, you probably could assemble what you need to build a second one without too much trouble. After doing one, you know you need back, sides, and top, kerfing, a neck blank, a fingerboard, head and tail blocks, bracing, fretwire, binding/purfling, tuners,....probably a few other minor details, but that's essentially it. I think a kit mostly saves you the trouble of rounding up everything.

This forum is about as close to having a luthier friend as you're likely to find, I think. Not as good as having somebody standing next you actively demonstrating how to do something, but John's videos come close.