Firstly, I must tell you that if you've never built an acoustic guitar before, you need to purchase William Cumpiano's. book Guitarmaking - Tradition and Technology. It is perhaps the most authoritative manual ever written on the subject of guitar building. Without it, I could never have built my first guitar. I have since built four guitars (I'm on my 5th now as of 05/01/01), and in some cases I have strayed from the book, or developed techniques that differ from William's simply because they suit my style better, or in many cases, suit the tool selection that I currently have available to me. By no means do I intend to compete with the information in the book. I am simply going to tell you how, with the help of the manual, I was able to derive a system of building an acoustic guitar that works for me. I'll post photos of my work where I think it is relevant to do so, otherwise, the photos in the book will suffice. With this "disclaimer" in mind, please enjoy the information I present to you here, and take from it what you will.

Other books you may be interested in are:

• Don Teeter's The Acoustic Guitar : Adjustment, Care, Maintenance, and Repair
• Larry Robinson's The Art of Inlay: Design and Technique for Fine Woodworking

The first step in building anything, be it a guitar or otherwise is to have a design in mind. Think about it. Go over the basic dimensions in your mind. Build the guitar to suit yourself. Once you have a design in mind, draw a sketch on a piece of graph paper. Make the sketch proportionally correct. What is proportionally correct? Well that's a matter of opinion largely. There are many examples of guitars built by craftsmen in the early 20th century. Take a look at this 1913 Martin 0-28 for example:

Notice how fat the neck is when compared to the small body? Does it look proportional to you by today's standards? It certainly doesn't to me. It did, however, to the designer at Martin's factory. Remember, this guitar was built in 1913 and back then, people had different views on proportionality. The neck was built fat because that's what felt good in the hand. I've held this guitar and the neck feels great to me. To another person though, the neck would feel like a log. I don't have particularly large hands, but the neck's proportions feel "right" to me. How it fits the rest of the guitar is another matter. I certainly am not saying that the designed proportions are wrong. They just don't suit my idea of proportionality. Personally, I think the guitar would look better with a thinner neck. But then, guitars aren't for looking at. They're for playing. I think the designers of this guitar sized the various parts to suit a certain size person - perhaps a woman (around the turn of the century it became stylish for women to sit in parlors and play guitars) - and then shaped it in such a way as to allow maximum volume and tonal characteristics from that design. Why the neck is so fat is a mystery to me. Maybe smaller hands have an easier time making the chords if the neck is a little wider, but I don't know that for sure.

For a first guitar, I suggest tracing the shape of a guitar you like. Many dimensions of an acoustic guitar are not critical. Many others are very critical. Perhaps the most important dimension is the distance from the 12th fret to the center of the saddle. If this distance is not correct, the guitar will not play in tune. It's that simple. The 12th fret is the center point of the guitar's scale length. The distance to it plus compensation is the distance the saddle must lie from the 12th fret in order for the guitar to play in tune. There will be more on this topic later on, with a great diagram by William. Suffice it to say that for the most part, the design of the guitar is pretty much free-form, but there are certain dimensions and design attributes which must neccesarily be strictly adhered to in order to produce a playable guitar.

First, let's talk about tools. You really can't do much building without a basic tool selection. Beware! You will always need more tools. If you are married, you can equate this to your wife's shoe collection when she starts in on you about buying "another tool". I have two pairs of shoes. My wife has more shoes than exist in the entire country of Rwanda. She has no tools. I don't question her choice to purchase more shoes, nor does she question my choice to buy more tools. It's an unspoken thing.

Tools This section now has a small online tool store. If you are going to order tools online, you might as well get them here!

Necks

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