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ok, so I made it through Siminoff's "Luthier's Handbook" and am about 1/3rd through Cupiano's book. My confidence is building every day, and I'm considering just building from scratch where I can.

So, I can get mahogany, walnut, and hard maple locally for a decent price and I have a re-saw capacity of 12 inches on my bandsaw. The cheapest of those three locally is the maple. How do you guys feel about using maple for the neck, back, and sides of a steel string? I realize it will be blonde over all, but I'm also figuring it will be easier to take the mistakes with wood that's only $3-4 a bf. I do have a blonde Alvarez jumbo that I like so it would be similar, I'm guessing. any considerations I'm not thinking about?

Also, I would be buying the fingerboard and soundboard from LMI most likely - probably just some 2nd grade Sitka or Englemann to start out with. One thing that I seem to be having trouble finding is the spruce billets for the bracings. any suggestions on where to get the rough stock?

Maple is good, but if you are doing a first guitar, you might be wiser to use a wood that is the easiest to bend. Of your choices, my guess is that walnut is easier.

I buy My Spruce from www.alaskawoods.com . They do offer smaller quantities however the shipping may be high . what I bought was about $160.00 worth and that was half freight cost . If you have some idea what you need I could probably part with a little . There may be someone close to you out there that has some as well. Let me know.

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There is no reason you have to match your neck wood with the B/S wood, unless its an aesthetic preference of yours.
Get mahogany for the neck and whatever you want for the back. Like wbergman said, walnut is the easiest of those choices to bend.

-maple's a bit tricky to bend for your first guitar but if you must...
-i've had better luck with stew mac for bracewood rather then lmi. my last 2 orders of sitka from lmi had about 1/3 usable for x, utg, and back bracing due to hidden runout when i split the billets. gotta lotta soundhole and finger braces out of it though. the SM sitka i got was 100% usable end to end. really nice, even stuff.

Same here on the LMI bracewood. Most of them I can only get 12" length of 3/4" pieces due to the runout, not long enough for X braces. Usable for everything else though. Can get long enough pieces for the other top braces, and just leave a little runout on the back braces since it's not so critical there. Lot of waste though.

Never tried StewMac's bracewood, but I got a couple of split billets from Shane at http://highmountaintonewood.com/, so now I have a massive mount of wonderfully straight grain... as soon as I find something to split the stuff up with And this ought to be very little waste, since I can split to the actual dimensions that I need instead of using a full inch height of rectangular billet to get a 3/4" high X brace. Shipping from Canada is rather pricey though, and you might be better off buying in smaller quantity for your first one unless you're sure you want to build a bunch.

And I would vote walnut on the back/side wood to use, because it's pretty cheap too, and doesn't show scorch marks Plus I hear it's easy to bend anyways. And mahogany neck, because it's so easy to carve you can focus more on the shape and feel than on getting the stuff to cut. But of course all-maple is a classic and looks great.

You know I'm gonna say it...don't dismiss QS white oak. Makes a wonderful guitar!

Hard maple for a neck right out of the chute? A bugger to carve compared with mahogany, walnut, or sapele--actually, compared to most everything. You don't want to scrimp on the topwood. Even if you're not a stellar craftsman yet, you have a better chance of ending up with a nice sounding guitar with a 3A top or better. And I second the motion on Bob Cefalu's materials--and also Steve from Colonial Tonewoods. Brent Cole out of Alaska has some wonderful spruce, but like someone said earlier, the shipping will nick you. Anyway, good luck in your maiden voyage.

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michael propsom
www.propsomguitars.com

We have sitka bracewood from split billets in stock.

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Whole heartedly agree.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

All of the options listed are viable. My point of view (and a perspective on building first guitars IS something I have some experience in.... ) is that the main objective for the first guitar was to GET IT DONE. For me, that meant using a silver maple tree from our back yard which had some sentimental meaning to me. I won't build with it again, and it's not a wood I would recommend, but it met the purposes of the first build for me. I'd build with whatever local, relatively inexpensive wood that gives you the best vibes. There will be times when this process gets frustrating - expect perfection and you'll be frustrated. Sounds like you know that from your comments.

Sounds from your comments that you prefer to do it yourself, hence the interest in resawing back and sides from local lumber. If so, go for it! The only suggestions are to make sure it's seasoned, dried wood (might want to let it acclimate to your shop for a month or so before building with it) and learn something about grain orientation (if you don't already have experience). You can certainly build with cuts other than quartersawn, but if you're resawing your own sets, flitch cut and flatsawn sides can be tricky, especially in joining the backs, and in their reaction to humidity changes.

Welcome to the addiction. And you've come to the right place. Without this group of people I never would have gotten my guitars built. Enjoy!

ok, so I should come clean and mention that I was leaning towards maple because I have a couple hundred board feet of it in my basement. it was drying out for a workbench project. that being said, I was also thinking about it more and I'm not sure if the walnut and mahogany my lumber dealer has available is quarter sawn. I'll have to talk to him about it. I'm sure he could get some QS walnut since walnut is easy to get here in upstate NY. of course, so is cherry but I was under an impression that cherry doesn't bend as well, either.

I really appreciate all the responses. I realize using a wood that is difficult to work could really hinder my progress and be a bit discouraging. i was mainly looking to save some money and do as much from scratch as I can - it just seems to mean more to me to start as raw as possible.

Another vote for walnut back and sides. I would also suggest you consider it for a neck. I've now carved 5 necks using mahogany, sapele, and walnut, and the walnut I have carves beautifully and easily. It goes just a little slower than Honduras mahogany, but it isn't prone to tear-out (a problem with the sapele I used) and working with it is a real pleasure.

Cherry is said to bend easily, though curly wood gets wavy if you use much moisture.

It is often said that 3A and 4A tops sound no better than 2A; the grading is on esthetics. 2A usually looks pretty nice. I'd rather have a stiff, lively 1A top than a perfect-looking one that taps like cardboard...

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