If you said egg, you're not welcome here. Please discontinue reading immediately, you have not proven yourself worthy to view the innermost workings of the mind of a self-professed world grand master luthier. If you said the chicken came first, well then, feel right at home.
The truth is, dear reader, there are many ways to begin building a guitar. Every serious luthier that has ever publish has their own method and unique steps and traditions to accomplish the transcendental. Perhaps I'm already getting a little ahead of myself - there is one place to start, and that is you need to determine what you want to make and out of what materials. With those decisions behind you, it then becomes like one of those middle school choose-your-own-adventure stories. You know, the ones where honestly most everyone ends up in one swamp or quicksand pit or another about 10 pages into it. Well that won't happen to us; I can say this boldly because I have a secret I will share with you... go ahead, gather in close... I bought guitar insurance, yup that's right, if anything happens to my project, I'm torching the whole lot in effigy, running to Guitar Center where I will buy the most expensive guitar in the store, will write "Verdani Guitars" on the headstock with a sharpie and draw Tim's own scantily clad art nouveau rendition of Moucha's Muse of Music or Dance and call it a night.
No not really, but we'll see how tough this whole thing actually becomes... Well again, reader, I digress. I was limited to guitar style by what plans were obtainable. The two main websites I looked at were www.stewmac.com and www.lmii.com. Stewart MacDonald is a little pricier but I could see exactly what I was getting and they had a matching acrylic template for the soundboard and back which sealed the deal. I didn't want to go with the Dreadnought style - it's just too popular and overrated. I like the sexy curves of the more traditional parlor and jumbo styles far better. I figured a jumbo would be too big for the Adirondack Spruce I wanted to use for the soundboard (hard to find large plates in this wood), and they didn't have any "grand auditorium" or orchestra styles so I ultimately decided on the biggest parlor style guitar they had, the Martin 000 with 14 frets to the body (looks more modern than the 12 frets to the body model).
I made my final tonewood selections after I had ordered the guitar plan and template. I purchases everything initially from Stephen Roberson at Colonial Tonewoods, www.colonialtonewoods.com. I have to give a shout out to Steve, what and incredible help he was! Extremely friendly and helpful, I told him what my vision was and we went through a few iterations together until we found the perfect fit - a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind selection of American crotch-figured black walnut, with matching sides, and a unique Adirondack Spruce plate set for the soundboard. As Steve always said, "that red spruce is the redheaded step-child of tonewoods," and when I got the plate set I knew exactly why - Adirondack Spruce is unlike any other spruce species you see in guitar building these days (Sitka, Englemen, German, etc.) in that it has no consistent and uniform grain. Instead it can look loose and splotchy, but I absolutely had to have it because up until just after WWII, it was THE wood of choice by luthiers and was only replaced because of it's increasing price and diminishing supply. I compare my joined soundboard with a Sitka spruce specimen below so you can see the difference.
Well sadly, reader, I must go. I've whittled away all my available time, without much to show for it other than wordy diatribes and provacative pictures. Until I catch everyone up to where I currently am in the process, I fear my posts will be extremely scattered. Thanks for putting up with it. Until next time, live long and prosper.
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