Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi, folks,

New joiner here! Aspiring luthier, looking to get into the craft... and before anyone asks, yes, I did run a search on the forum first. :-p

So as the title suggests, I'm looking for a good online course to build my first guitar. From what I've found in my search, the top 2 appear to be Eric Schaefer's and Robert O'Brien's courses.

I'd like to ask, has anyone here tried both of these courses? What did you like or didn't like about them?

Superficially, they both look great. Eric's course looks easy to understand and seems to be geared toward the person with little or no experience or tooling at home. As an added bonus, he's about 3 hours away from where I live, so additional hands-on help may be available. On the other hand, Robert's seems to have more forum testimonials and seems to be quite comprehensive.

Any other help/recommendations are certainly welcome. Thanks!

I haven’t paid for both; I have only paid for courses from Robbie. But Eric has plenty of free content on YouTube that gives a decent idea of what to expect from his overall approach. Either one will teach you good things, so no wrong choices. I choose to pay money to Robbie.

The StewMac guitar kits have the instruction books free and available for download for everyone and they are excellent. There are tips in there that I use to this day and I'm a professional repair luthier who used to build.

Also the StewMac videos for building guitars on Youtube, not sure they are there but StewMac has videos for building amps so I am going to assume they have videos for guitar building too.

If you can take courses in person it's my experience that much of what we do is greatly enhanced by our personal ability to feel and see what we are attempting to do. I recognize that we can't be everywhere but befriending a professional luthier in your area would be huge to me and was for me personally in my own development as a luthier.

I don't know Eric his courses came after my time but I did take a Robbie French polish course and it was excellent and highly recommended.

Lastly consider an apprenticeship as well, I did one part time for three years and it was the most significant influence to my development that I was fortunate enough to have. Real world, working in the trade Lutherie is vastly different than what you will read about on this forum and others. There are important concepts at the core of being a successful luthier that are never discussed here.

For example we all want to build light, high performance instruments and that's exactly what I built and set out to build when I was building. If one is a pro though they know about warranty claims and that guitar owners may abuse instruments in some pretty destructive ways. Martin has always been capable of building lighter and more responsive instruments but how do they do when left in a hot car in the summer....

With all this said I would encourage getting to know a pro luthier in your area and hanging out with them, apprenticeship if available and possible and if you go that route position yourself as a bonus somehow to the luthier because you will take time away from their billable hours.

And, welcome to the OLF Stargazer it would nice to have a first name to respectfully address you by even if it's not your's.

Lastly I became a builder first and then I met Rick Turner RIP in person, he built Jerry Garcia's peanut guitar and was Jerry's luthier much of the time. He also built guitars for Lindsey Buckingham and many others. Rick told me that I am a good builder but I "am not ****" if I don't also learn the repair side of the trade and that it will make me a better builder. He was right of course and I was fortunate to know him and have his guidance.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Robbies Obrien videos are well done and put together professionally. He has a lot of options as far as instrument styles and advanced details like cutaways, bevels, sounds ports and a more. I can't say enough good things about Robbies Online course and his in person too. His online classes are pretty cheap just buy it and check stout. A lot of finding the right teacher/ class is how you connect with he teacher. So one persons impression might be totally different the another.

I have np experience with Eric Schaefer.

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https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

You might want to think about getting a few books as well. Most of us started out with books. One of your first decisions is wether or not you couples prefer to learn how to build the neck joint as bolt on or a dove tail. Most of the better books can explain the pros and cons. So it's a good place to start to do some initial research. I would recommend the following listed below.

You also might want to think about making a ukulele first,, 99% of guitar making principles are the same as a ukulele. The one caveat about Ukulele is the materials are less expensive. Fyi the ukulele is not easier to make just because its small lol

A lot of these books can be had at Stewmac for 1/2 if you join their programs

John Kinkead
https://www.betterworldbooks.com/produc ... Y4QAvD_BwE

William Cumpiano
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDe ... _8QAvD_BwE


There are more advanced but must reads.

https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-a ... olume-set/

https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-a ... d-edition/

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https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

Stargazer

It would help making suggestions on where to start if we knew something about your woodworking experience level. Basic concepts of working wood all carry over into the instrument world and really should be mastered before a guitar project in my opinion. It's heartbreaking to see folks pour all the effort into making a guitar and miss following simple common woodworking techniques that can ruin the experience causing one failure or another that could easily be avoided. Are you starting with kits or completely scratch built guitars?

I know this is a bit off "course" but I'd recommend getting and reading some books. You can read at your leisure and go back as often as you like. And most books are cheaper too.

I'd recommend -- "Build Your Own Acoustic Guitar", Kinkead -- "Guitar Making", Cumpiano/Natelson -- "Classical Guitar Making", Bognanovich -- "Responsive Guitar" (2 book series, expensive), Somogyi. I don't think anyone follows them precisely but they can offer up ways to get over a building stumbling block. When I was starting I went thru them all a couple times.

It isn't just building guitars, you need to know wood too, and for that, I'd recommend -- "Understanding Wood", Hoadley -- and "The Wood Handbook, Understanding Wood as an Engineering Material" USDA Forest Service available FREE as a download - https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/62200 The Wood Handbook is an unbelievable resource available for FREE. Every wood shop should have both of these resources.

If you aren't starting out with a lot of woodworking experience buy some fancy figured wood and build a fancy box for jewelry or something, incorporate decorative strips of wood and inlays. Strive for perfect joinery. ALL techniques you will need to master in guitar building. When you can pull that off perfectly consider a guitar kit.

I still watch and sometimes pay for instructional videos and like Robbie O'Briens, (many are free). Especially when I want to hone specific skills or just want to explore how others tackle something.

Good luck and welcome to the OLF. There is lots of help here and many aspects of building have been covered here and often with more current techniques.

Opps, slow typer --- David Foster covered some of this but it doesn't hurt to hear it twice.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Welcome to the Forum!
I have taken courses on-line. I prefer something written so I can make notes, refer to it often, and use it as a reference. Video courses are not very searchable and not so convenient when you need to review something, and video is not so good as shop reference material.

Even if you do go the video instruction route, as others have recommended, you probably want to start building a library of reference materials on
@ Setup
@ Building
@ Finishing
@ Properties of Wood
You can probably buy every book you want used, from amazon.

I have a full library of guitar building/ repair books. The best book on Building, hands down, is:

Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar Paperback – October 20, 2021; by R.M. Mottola
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Steel-S ... =8-1-fkmr2

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I've taken several of Robbie's on line courses and definitely recommend them.

I'm a big book person, so I've also accumulated, read, and still refer to a large library of luthiery books.

I also recommend John Hall's (Blues Creek Guitars) videos on YouTube.

One side note - while it's good to learn from a wide range of resources, when you get to building, stick with one approach / method. Don't start by mixing and matching from different books and teachers.