My pleasure! I’m lucky to work in a field that I am passionate about, so anytime I can share the passion and possibly start someone on their own journey, I jump at it.

Voicing the top/back is largely about tapping the braces plates at key nodal locations and listening for pitches and relationships. From there braces are shaved back to allow for more flexibility where necessary.

I’ll admit that this is were the majority of the magic happens to separate an amazing guitar from a good guitar. Unfortunately, it’s almost entirely subjective and every piece of wood is different, so writing up a guide would prove challenging.

It you’d like to know more, Dana Bourgeois has some good videos on YouTube sort of highlighting his process.

Steam, pressure, and patience.

I essentially have an inside an outside mold that gets loaded with a wet piece of wood sandwiched between slats of spring steel and heating blankets.

As the blankets start to heat, the wood starts to soften and can be slowly pressed into position starting at the waist and moving out along the bouts. This takes a bit of technique as you need to move quick before the wood dries out and stops being pliable, but you also need be patient otherwise the wood could break from the forces.

It’s a balancing act that is actually a lot easier than it sounds.

Thank you very much! It’s still in need of some voicing and shaping, but should be ready to glue in an hour or two. I’ll snap some more detailed pics of the braces before I box it up.

Awww shucks… I’m gonna blush.

There’s some decent inexpensive kit guitars out there that don’t require more than an IKEA-level handyman, and some basic tools you’ve probably already got lying around the house.

Take a look around and you’ll be surprised what you’ll find. Stewmac has a simple cigar box kit going for ~$100 right now. Not a shill, they just have quality stuff. You can definitely find stuff much cheaper on eBay and the like, but Stewmac has great customer service and guarantees all of their products. Plus they have a surplus of reference videos and articles on their site that can guide you through the toughest dovetail.

I highly recommend working through the process at least once. There’s a lot guitar building can teach you about woodworking in general, but my favorite part is learning about the crazy custom tools, jigs and fixtures that different luthiers use to achieve essentially the same goal.

Steel string flat tops. Standard X-bracing for the most part.

Just wait til I show off my buttwedge

They’re all guitars.

From left to right: OM, slope shoulder OO, slope shoulder dread.

Those “corners” are tabs for machining. Location references for other jobs later on.

Thanks! I’m hoping to get the rims bent this week, and hopefully blocked up. Maybe if I say it on the internet then it’ll actually happen…

I believe the suspect that the police have identified was a firearms instructor at a military base down in Saco.