First Acoustic Guitar Building Question

[ceve4life]

I've been thinking about building my first acoustic guitar for awhile but haven't because building the neck bothered me. I was thinking, is it recommended to build the body and buy a neck or if I'm no willing to slave over a neck then it's not even worth bothering with? If anyone knows a really good site for buidling an acoustic guitar with step by step instructions, that would be great.

Thanks.

[Mattia]

There are a few good books, like Cumpiano's Guitarmaking: tradition and technology, or Jonathan Kinkade's newer book. Start with those. Then read through the MIMF.com forum library (archived discussions), read more, read the OLF, and then at a certain point just jump in and start building.

Neck making is actually quite fun, but if you're too daunted by it, go ahead and buy a pre-carved blank+block from somewhere like StewMac, LMI, or similar. The neck is the heart of the guitar, and you do need to get it right to have a guitar that plays well. But that's very doable with just a few good measuring tools and a bit of patience.

If you feel like snooping around, I've got a bunch of process pictures (without accompanying text) detailing the construction of my first two acoustic guitars, more or less:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mvalente/guitarpics/

[brian d]

I liked Cumpiano and Natelson's book. I think that if you can overcome the fear of building the neck, do it yourself. It's not that hard really, it's very satisfying and you can get it just how you want it.

Cheers,

Brian.