Any Small time Luthier out there?

[Sage Runner]

Hey guitar junkies—New member here. I’m Just a small individual luthier. Not a profession for me. I’ve Repaired/restored Vintage instruments since 1983’. Let’s Hear from a few small time Luthiers out there!!!! I Crafted a handful of personal Flat-tops over the Years since late 1980’s. I’m old school with tooling. Even cut the Abalone from the raw shell. It Takes me untold hours to build One but I enjoy. This is the Wovoka’ Guitar. Named after the Paiute Indian Holy-Man from Mason’ Valley NV. It Sports 50 year old seasoned Honduran Mahogany B/S and 25 year old Seasoned Adirondack top. Rock hard ancient jet Black Ebony FB/Bridge. Rosewood Bindings. Traditional Set Neck. It Took me 6 months to build this one. Finished it in 2018. It’s my slight take of a 30s Gibson Nick Lucas’. 5” Deep at Butt. 15” wide at lower Bout. Keep on picking!!

[Simon Fay]

Hi Idaho,
You should check out the OLF (Official Luthier's Forum) -- wide range of folks from full-time builders to novices working on their very first guitar. It's also a nice way to find other builders that might be in your area.

Nice work, BTW !!! I'm a big fan of Mahogany back/sides. Most of my customers opt for the Rosewood or Rosewood-esque tonewoods but I personally really enjoy Mahogany. One of my favorite guitars recently was an Engelmann/Cuban Mahogany guitar.

[Sage Runner]

Hey thanks Simon. I’ll definitely check that site out. The Last one I crafted and finished was in 2019. I matched up my last set of old seasoned Indian’ RW with a set of old master grade Engleman’. That combination turned out great. I Only have about 7 sets of very old woods left. 3 Brazilian/ 2 Maple/ and 2 Walnut. That’ll keep my retired hands busy for rest my Days. Take care!

[Craig Wilson]

Small time builder here. I started building in retirement in 2013 after completing Sergei de Jonge's lutherie school.
I average about one build a year and have given half of them to family, kept the rest. Dread, OM, SSS, 12 string and classical.
My current build is a Engelmann/Maple Benedetto 17 carved archtop (pic posted in your recent archtop thread). Next up is a Sitka/Sapele OM for a teenage grandson.

[redir]

I build about 4 per year. Built my first guitar in '92 I think it was. Currently working on #71 now. I also to repair and restoration work as well.

I dig the shape of that guitar.

[woodbldr]

Nice looking guitar!

I am working on number 12 now, my first cutaway. I recently completed a purpleheart OM size guitar for my mother-in-law, and a koa dread for my father-in-law, both with adi tops. The inlays are abalone, MOP and abalone zip flex. The flowers on my MILs fretboard are purpleheart. They designed the inlays themselves. I really like zip-flex.

https://imgur.com/Je4y1yA
https://imgur.com/YLiiGYh
https://imgur.com/2a1H89z
https://imgur.com/ODHc2lv

[Sage Runner]

Right on friends. Thanks for sharing. Nice work from you all. Very cool to see some of you passing on your guitars to family. Boy has times changed. When I first decided to build a guitar from scratch late 80’s. There wasn’t many doing it. You had the Sloan’ and cumpiano’ Book and ya got most of your prior experience from repairing old vintage guitars. There’s thousands of builders now and the tooling is high tech.

[redir]

Cumpiano was early 90's IIRC. I built my first right out of Sloans book which I still have today. Then I adopted Cumpiano's Gurian school of building in the Spanish style on an open work board building off the top. Been doing that ever since.

[Alan Carruth]

Another good on-line group is the Musical Instrument Maker's Forum (MIMF), which goes 'way back.