Luthee

Be careful.....Wood can kill or cause cancer. It is usually ok for most of you take the time to wear personal protection....dust mask, gloves, etc... I am allergic to African mahogany, it made my lungs almost close shut......Ebony is another bad one too. Many people say that maple can cause cancer if sanding without dust masks a lot. be safe. Don't learn the hardway..... I use a respirator to work with sanding my guitars.....I would rather change a filter than my lungs...

That is a great notion and point you have. As small builders you can make body styles similar and sell them but when building entire guitars that resemble other brands the thing to watch or not copy is actually the headstock. Fender lost a Supreme court battle over body style copying, because the courts said that electric guitar bodies are all so similar they cannot copyright the body design and expect it to stick in court unless it is so unusual it is no doubt a brand, so companies can copyright the headstock instead. So trying to sell an exact replica is illegal, but selling similar guitar is not if you happen to change the headstock. Making a replica is called counterfeiting, and of course is illegal, so if your really so inclined to build a guitar that is really like another brand, change the headstock out of respect, and to make it all legal. Gibson won a suit against PRS regarding the les paul body design, and won, but the ruling was later overturned in favor of PRS for the same reason Fender lost it's guitar body design court case. So it's all good to sell a guitar you build, just don't copy anyones headstock, or special patent or unusual copy written item. Its not cool, and can cost you lots of money. If you really want to copy guitars of another brand.......buy a license from them, and your good to go. It took my company 6 years and thousands of dollars to design guitars and headstocks that have been trademarked, etc.... We literally had to do 100's of hours researching headstock designs that someone else has never done before. After all this time and money we came up with only three. It is very expensive and time consuming to build nice guitars, and if someone were to copy my stuff, I would either one, ask politely to cease and desist from selling them on eBay, then secondly send my lawyers to ask, and finally take em to court and sue them for back royalties owed. If people continued to do it to me, like in Eddie van Halen's case........I would go after everyone big and small.