Considering a kit

[Isnuffer]

I’m new on the board. I’ve been playing off and on since a freshman in high school, so about 14 years. I’m to the point I can play well enough to impress most non-guitarists, but still have a lot to improve on in my skills. But I really love to play, especially in the periods where I rapidly improve before plateauing out again. It really relaxes me, and gives me an outlet in a way.

So I a while back when looking into handcrafted guitars, I thought it would be a fun trade to teach myself to build one, as I’m good enough playing to appreciate the quality of a fine guitar and absolutely love the aesthetic beauty of a well built instrument. Looked a good deal into the subject and came across kits and the like, but given a lack of time and money at the time I put it all in the back of my mind.

Well I finished up Master’s classes about a month ago, and now have plenty more spare time than I did. Had the idea come back to me a week or so ago that learning to build a guitar would be very intriguing! Learn a deeper understanding of how the instrument works, the opportunity to make something with my hands, have a hopefully decent quality instrument as an end product that I can take pride in and as a conversation piece, and potentially find a new interesting hobby that in 10 years or so I can make a bit of extra money from.

I doubt I’ll jump on it for at least a month. Give me some time to think on it and read up a bit. I currently don’t have much of a workshop to work in. The basement in my apartment floods and isn’t well sealed off, so I figure this will make a poor location for humidity control. That leaves me with my kitchen as the only other reasonable place to try and work, put some plastic down over the tile. With this in mind, I’m thinking of starting with a StewMac kit after looking fairly deep into it given that most of the cutting seems to have been already done and what I hear of their customer service, along with purchasing their tool kit. Per advice I’ve seen in other forums, start with the ukulele kit to get my simplest assembly mistakes out of the way on something cheaper before diving into a dreadnaught. Use this to have a gander of whether or not I enjoy it and to get the hang of the steps of assembly, and if so try and secure a workshop space and go through Robbie O’Brien’s virtual class to get a better understanding of the construction of the individual parts. From there, I figure I would have a basic understanding of the process and decide from there whether I want to continue or not. With the math, I’m thinking this will set me about $2500 as a whole which hurts the wallet a bit, but I think I can reasonably afford it.

Any feedback on my plan to teach myself, or any advice you would offer to someone intrigued with luthierism?

[Budman1]

Look online for schools that teach luthier, guitar building, take the class, keep the guitar. You’ll save on tools.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Isnuffer

...potentially find a new interesting hobby that in 10 years or so I can make a bit of extra money from.

There is an old joke about guitar making:

"How do you make a million dollars making guitars?"

"Start with two million dollars."


If you are good at it, there is money to be made in repairs, but it is difficult to make much money from making guitars. There is an enormous amount of competition in the new guitar market.

Budman1's advice is good. There are now many, many schools of guitar making from which to chose, offering a variety of situations and at different levels of expense, form community college courses to dedicated guitar making schools.

[PeteD]

Here's some guitarmaking porn for you while you consider the hobby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAeXskZHC2o&t=1015s