Mattia

+1 for a cheap digital caliper. They're plenty accurate.

Honestly, I don't feel 'cost' is all that significant a factor. I've never had real trouble with thermal runaway, but I tend to mix up a small batch (weighed exactly using a digital scale) and use it pretty much immediately. I'm used to using titebond and getting more comfortable with hot hide, so I tend to work fast by default, and use gloves. As a cost comparison based on local prices: Z-poxy 30 minutes, 237ml: 20 euros West System 600 gr: 22 euros West System 1200 gr: 38 euros Titebond is about half the price, volume for volume. Still looking for a local place that carries the 207 hardener, but the 105/205 kits (boat supply stores) are easily found and good value. The amount of actual glue per guitar is maybe a dollar or two. Maybe.

Dammit. Now I want to build more strats just to candy coat 'em.

Rick Turner for one feels the best amplified acoustic tone can be had from a solid body guitar with appropriate piezo and post-processing. See the D-Tar mamma bear pre system or Fishmann's Aura system. I don't see a benefit to bringing this kind of thing on-board - better have it as a pedal to free up your hands and allow use with several instruments.

Polyurethane works well with coco. Some joints on guitars don't ever need to be disassembled (head plate veneers, electric set neck joints, body cap or body laminations), while others (fingerboard) may. Also, Epoxy disassembles just fine with heat. Easier than hot hide (which will want some moisture), and doesn't add humidity to the joint which is why a lot of people (myself included) like it for attaching fingerboards. I use either WEST or 30 minute Z-poxy for structural stuff.

2.5 kg is heavy for a body blank. Sapele's hardly known to be lightweight, though. The Lefty explorer currently waiting for a finish weighs in at just over 2.5 kg, and that's the entire body, neck, fingerboard without any of the metal bits or electronics. What kind of sound are you after? Chambering with 'just' holes will mostly just reduce weight without doing too much to the sound. Most rosewood actually has relatively low damping, so while you'll get rich bass notes, you should also get a fair amount of sparkle in the trebles. Your best bet is to choose pickups that complement the design best, or choose different body wood. Work with the strengths of the materials you have rather than trying to force the wood to be something it isn't.

I often carve the backs on my electrics (most chambered), and I love the look and feel. I do it differently from the top - more of a rounded arch without any recurve and less of a flat spot. Two shots that show it best on the last two I did that way (note to self: really need to finish up some more guitars). The belly cut is faired into the overall carve, giving the guitar a very sensual sort of feel.

After the carve.

Or a solution from RMC Pickups. They're just like any other piezo saddles with an extra circuit board/electronics - it's up to the customer to provide the synth to actually make use of the MIDI signals

Honestly, if you're gluing a joint I don't see any benefit to building a 'locking' joint. Just more shear faces and places where differential wood movement could theoretically pull things out of whack. Complexity for its own sake is not something to strive for.

Limba - local lumber yards Hondo mahogany - ditto.

Gotcha. So yes, Willams/Fleishmann style binding jig with drawer slides and an appropriately shaped 'nose' to ride the contour. The alternative is to go old school, mark it by hand and do it with a chisel.

I really like Maderas Barber for fretboards that I don't plan to use for the next few years - their exotics tend to be relatively 'green' and I've only ever gotten a few sets I would be willing to build with immediately. If you have the time to season the wood their prices are excellent, and max 30 euros of shipping to anywhere in Europe makes them a very attractive proposition. I don't use them for electric body blanks or necks (that are not rosewood), however, as it's really not difficult to find sapele, sipo, khaya (and maple, poplar, basswood, bubinga, wenge) and only moderately difficult to find limba and honduran mahogany at local lumber yards for very little cash indeed (10-15 euros for a body, 5-10 for a neck's worth. Tops). True rosewoods and ebonies are almost impossible to find here, however. I've ordere Honduran back/side sets from Maderas Barber before, perfectly good quality. Mostly because wide quartered hondo stock is not quite so easy to dig up here, and the cost effectiveness of reswaing it myself was dubious at best. Back when I did they also e-mailed me some shots of cocobolo sets (acoustic) I was considering.

What's an 'elbow cut', what instrument, and what's the problem exactly? I use a router-on-drawer-slides and a vacuum clamp to position the body for my acoustics or for carved top instruments that require binding, and follow the basic routing directions as outlined on StewMac's website: first go from 'peak' to 'valley' (so from wide part of a guitar to a narrow part like the waist), which involves some climb cutting, then finish with a single pass in the 'correct' direction (non-climb cut) to clean up the full channel. Using a bearing guided bit (sized, from LMI, StewMac or whatever) for the rabbet makes a big difference in getting a clean result. If you're using an edge guide of some kind use a spiral bit rather than a straight one.

Interesting....always good to have another source of headless stuff. I've still got a set of ETS single string headless units (they're slow, but they make fantastic stuff), but I'm filing that away. As for grounding, I don't see how this is any different from grounding any generic fixed bridge. Ground any part of the bridge, and you're done. The strings are all connected at said bridge, at the headpiece, and at the zero fret.

Like the wood and body work, not so hot on the headstock. It's too wild, too 'swoopy' and doesn't quite gel with the completely classic stylings of the body.

The mermaid one is only slightly creepy because, well, mermaids are creepy. But it's an absolutely stunning piece of sculpture in its own right. And a playable, acoustic instrument to boot.

Not sure it is - arch tops aren't tuned by fiddling with the bracing so much as by adjusting the carve of the top. And Benedetto never aimed to provide a be-all, end-all solution to archtop building, just a solid how-to guide explaining how to build an archtop in the classic tradition, complete with a plan.

If it's not raining or snowing, yes. It doesn't take very long to do, then move back inside with planes and scrapers for the detailing work. My shop (outdoor, with the big tools) is unheated, so if I'm building in the winter it tends to be acoustics (indoor shop, fewer large tools required) rather than electrics (which for me involves a fair amount of larger power tool use).

To be fair to Bob, in archtop construction, shaping the arch is much, much, much, much more important to controlling tone than the choice of bracing pattern - archtop backs aren't braced, in general, and tops either go with a simple X or simple parallel bar. Shape and height of the carve, recurve and thicknesses however are an entirely different issue. Can't really compare acoustic arch tops to flattop guitars in terms of construction and sound generation. Application and distribution of forces are very different.

Then a gouge it is. I still prefer to spend 10 minutes outside with the angle grinder than an hour inside with edged tools for roughing it in. I carved my first with a gouge and plane, and I'm not doing that again. Not with maple at least. Spruce perhaps, because that's actually fun to carve. The Lee Valley planes are in fact Ibex planes, same as the ones StewMac sells.

I don't carve inside. And yes, the angle grinder requires a light touch, but you can control in incredibly well. Let the speed do the cutting, do it outside, stand upwind, electric fan in the absence of breeze, and there you go. I always wear good dust protection anyway. Small finger plane I use: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Planes/Ibex_Planes/Ibex_Convex_Finger_Planes.html Largest one (47mm body)

Staining softwoods directly can be a major pain. Seriously consider simply sealing and spraying a tinted lacquer over the top. Or a combination of both - stains and sanding back to accent grain, tinted lacquer for an even final color.

Pretty much yes (re: ABG's). I recommend sniffing through (browsing, not searching) the MIMF archives, although I'm not sure how accessible they are right at the moment, as well as posting a few questions either there and/or at the OLF (luthiersforum.com). I believe Mark Swanson has written a few thing on the subject, and information on acoustic baritone guitars (from, among others, Dave Berkowitz and again, Al Carruth. most of it in various online forums) may be of use/applicable to design considerations for acoustic bass guitars. RM Motolla also has a few designs up and a bit of discussion on various design choices on his website: http://liutaiomottola.com/instruments/Tinozza.htm The Big Red Books also have a few interesting tidbits on acoustics and bracing/bracing design. I've never seen anyone actively discourage X braces on backs, just a few folks who have tried it expressing either a strong preference for the X, or a slight preference for 'traditional' bracing without hating it, because they find it easier to tune/control the backs as part of their overall system/approach. Most folks have just never tried it. I will note that I have little interest in and pay almost no attention to forums that focus on vintage instrument reconstruction as an end in itself; people building Martin copies will not be terribly interested in X braced backs, and may be more likely to dismiss them as a 'bad idea' if they believe the 'Holy Grail' exists, and is shaped like a pre-war Martin Guitar. Not all acoustic guitar builders are all that progressive in terms of experimentation and willingness to try new things. Counts double for most classical builders. Same sort of thing that you see in the Electric world with slavish reproductions of Gibson Les Pauls (including all the stupid design choices) or early Fenders. Not my thing.

I recommend an angle grinder and a flap sanding disk. And then fine-tuning with a small convex soled plane (I use the large ibex finger plane) and (french curve) scrapers. I usually use anything from 16mm (5/8") to 20mm (about 3/4") for carved tops, carved backs on my electrics are more subtle (and do not have a recurve) with a delta between peak and edge of about 10-12mm (1/2") tops. I've used a gouge (traditional style, like the first in your shot, rather than the woodcarving sets you've also linked to) for carving out the inside of a top before. In all honesty, for the largely convex shapes involved in tops, even a chisel will do a pretty good job roughing things out.