I haven't built a guitar yet, but I am going to build a "real" archtop as soon as I can. I've been reading Benedetto's book and DVDs and I think that it is totally do-able, even for someone inexperienced, if I just take my time and think it through. I actually drew up some plans today using the cutaway side of a Gretsch archtop that I have. I'm going for a double cutaway, but I ran into a wall with drawing the plans; as I was going to mark the 17th fret neck join, I realized that my Gretsch had a 25.5" scale and I plan on building a 25", so that is where I left off for the day
So what is the body depth on the 335?