Official Luthiers Forum!

Meet "Dolores". She's my first build. She has an AAA Engelmann spruce top, EIR sides and back, ebony fingerboard and Honduran mahogany neck. The finish is a French polish. Built in the traditional Spanish style.
I'm really looking forward to my next builds. I have friends and family asking me to build them one.
I built her from an un serviced kit. It was very convenient to get all the wood in a box, knowing it's all guitar grade wood. Kit cost a little under $500 to my door.
My question is, how hard is it to source your own wood? I have all the machines necessary to saw wood. What are your thoughts? Start from a kit?
Thanks for any input!
Raul

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Good for you, Raul. It looks great!

I can only give my experience - I built a kit ukulele to understand some basics of instrument building and since have built 3 guitars and two ukes from scratch - sourcing the materials individually. I didn't find it difficult to pull the materials together from various suppliers. Maybe use the sponsors from here on the OLF? Most of their websites have categories so you can use that as a map to be sure you have everything you need. Or use the list of materials from your first kit as a guide.

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Beautiful first guitar!

It really boils down to your interest. If seeking out your tonewoods doesn't appeal to you at all, then by all means order the kits. For many of us, finding/picking out wood is a pleasurable part of the experience. That may not always be a good thing since it can kind of take over and have you spending a lot of time and money. Do what interest you.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

That's a great looking guitar, to nice to play on the beach

I think you are way past kits at this point. I'm not a big fan of kits really. But many people do like them. The analogy I like to use is it's kind of like blindly following a recipe. Take a Bernaise sauce for example. You can just follow the recipe and probably come out ok but in the end you really will have no idea what it actually takes to make a good one.

But more importantly you got the first one done and you obviously did a good job of it. You also have the tools to carry on with raw materials so go for it. You will save a lot more money that way for sure.

Sourcing guitar sets is real easy, just look at the sponsor list above.

Sourcing guitar grade lumber to cut yourself is an entirely different matter.

I'd say forget the kit. The top is really important, so it's worth it to get that from one of the sponsors. I'd recommend Alaska Specialty Woods, they have bona fide old growth Sitka, and Brent is really easy to deal with.
Resawing your own backs and sides is not all that difficult if you have the saw, and it's not nearly as important as the top. You do need a local source for hardwood, even some HDs have lumber suitable for instruments, good wood is where you find it.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I would submit that economically re-sawing back and side sets "is easy" provided you have the correct equipment, set up, process, skill and materials, which is seldom the case on the first efforts. For the most part I'd say ready to use sets from most suppliers are a bargain -- some even thickness sand to order.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

That is a really nice looking instrument.
If you don't mind using domestic woods for some parts (back and sides, necks, linings, brace wood, bindings,purflings, head plates, etc.) I would say go for it! By using domestics you can reduce the cost significantly.
If you buy AA grade tops a dozen at a time you can usually get a good price break, and it's hard to find spruce to resaw that is as good as the tonewood dealers supply.
If you have a supplier who carries exotics you - can - save money by resawing, but finding suitable wood does take some effort.
It can be hard to find a domestic substitute for fingerboards - most domestics either aren't hard enough or are light in color.
If you are building for friends and family try to get them to front the money and allow them to make the choices of the materials.

If you look at Chris Ensor's domestic wood guitar thread you can see that a stunning instrument can be built with domestics.

At what price? Are they willing to pay you a decent wage will you be "working" for $5 an hour?

I am sure this seems like a very fun thing to do --- but think it through, especially if you take money up front. The fun can quickly turn to frustration and misery (hobbies are fun, commissions are work) -- that usually starts when the person, friend or family member starts bugging you "when is it going to be done?"

Build what you want to build when you want to build it -- than offer it for sale. $.02

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I say buy more kits.
Your statement of "an un-serviced kit" tells me that you probably ordered from LMI who is one of our sponsors and among the best tone wood suppliers in the industry. Sure there are other suppliers with wood you can't get from LMI, but so what. You are about 20 guitars away from building consistently enough to start to figure out the difference sonically amongst the various species of spruce. Then there's the Cedars, then the backs and sides...
Buying a kit gets you exactly what you need to build a guitar at a controlled price point. This hobby can quickly burn up your available funds on great deals that you just can't pass up. Then you have piles of wood and supplies causing you to participate in ridiculous activities such as finding a way to track your inventory. I used to do that for work, sounds as anti-hobby as you can get.
I'm probably on the more reasonable end of the spectrum as I have only about $2000 stacked on the shelf. There are many here that have 2,4,10? times that waiting to be made into some special instrument. I'm not thinking of the professionals like Ken, Meddling and Blues Creek who need a supply ready to go. I'm talking about the guys like you and me who let the hobby get out of control. Guys who have more than likely have been dumbfounded by their SO telling them how they "saved money" because the un-needed item was "on sale".

Save your money.
Save your time.
Save your sanity.

Buy another kit and enjoy your time building.

Steve

"I'm probably on the more reasonable end of the spectrum as I have only about $2000 stacked on the shelf."

That's like what? One set of BRW?
Don't forget the tools - The resaw bandsaw and a wide belt sander can set you back several grand.
A good start to the insanity would be to buy a dozen tops and acquire the other wood as you need it.

You can buy enough wood to build a nice guitar for less than $100, and some of us do. Tuners usually represent the greatest single expense for most of the instruments I build.

You've built one now, so you have a decent idea of what bits and pieces you need. I'd say just source stuff yourself and forego the kit 'expirience'. Selecting woods is half the fun for me.

Of course, it can lead to a WAS (Wood Acquisition Syndrome) problem. Due to life getting in the way (PhD, residency, impending wedding, etc. etc.) I haven't managed to finish up a guitar in a few years, but I have enough wood on the shelf to build a good 60 acoustics and 30 or so electrics. And I can mix and match to my heart's content.

I think I can get cost down to around 150 dollars or so for a basic mahogany guitar, little bit more for a rosewood guitar, with cheap tuners. If you have all the woodworking machinery/tools you need to cut and thickness your timbers, I don't see much advantage to an unserviced kit.

Raul, where do you live? If you're out of the U.S., it might make a lot of sense to have everything come to you in one lump shipment. Shipping costs can definitely add up.

One of the reasons a lot of us buy from different vendors is simply because we like the product we see, or perhaps we're not picking up materials for an upcoming build but simply adding to our inventory. Another reason we might purchase from different vendors is that one vendor might not supply something we need. However, if one vendor has everything you need, it makes sense to pick it up. Why not?

I'm in southern California. The LMI kit I got was great. I liked the convenience of everything arriving at once, in the same box. I get impatient when I have to wait for shipping [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]
I'm thinking of purchasing another kit and exploring another build with some wood that I already have. Haven't completely made up my mind. But going order something soon! I want to start building!

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The other advantage to a kit is the discount you get from LMI. If you aren't dead set on a specific wood that LMI doesn't carry, the discount might be the thing that tips the scales.


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You might be surprised to learn that there are luthier suppliers outside the U.S.A.

I used the kit builder feature at LMI for the first three or four guitars I made, and really appreciated the convenience and cost savings built in.


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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Those discounts can add up. I was considering it for the next build. For us hobby builders who don't have stock it really makes a lot of sense.


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Keep with the un-serviced kits from LMI. They do very little of the work and you are still making you guitar mostly from scratch. If I recall correctly, you still have to do everything except make the bridge, kerf the linings and slot the fretboard. I bought my bridges and pre-slotted fretboards for my first half dozen guitars. I still buy my linings.
The people at LMI have a pretty good eye and will usually pick out nice wood for you.
It won't be long, however, before you start wanting to build out of unusual woods and you'll find yourself buying the woods separately.
You might consider going to the GAL convention this July in Washington. All of the vendors have booths there and you can rummage through stack of woods and sniff them.

Raul,
I too am in SoCal. Sourcing your own wood was very easy a year or two ago. I would go to Austin Hardwood, in Santa Ana, a couple times a year and and buy beautiful quarter sawn Honduras mahogany at will. And they always had all the ebony, Indian rosewood, king wood and whatever I wanted. Not so much now. All the wood I use is getting harder and harder to find.

The cities on rosewood is going to add to the difficulty and price. I suspect even for Indian Rosewood even though it is mostly plantation raised.

Even spruce is going up in price.

If you can find nice boards that will work I would buy it. It is good these days to have a year or so worth of wood on hand.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

The only supplier I know of who does unserviced kits is LMI, but I could be wrong. I've gotten wood from Rivolta, from Mattia above, and have Skyped with guitar enthusiasts in the U.K. every other week for two and a half years. I'm well aware of the strong guitar culture outside the states.


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