Acoustic Guitar Making: How to make Tools, Templates, and Jigs

First off - what this is not. This is not a step by step guide and doesn't pretend to be. You need to get some other books for that. It is not everything you need to know. Guitars are complicated and can be and are built in many different ways by different makers. If you already have a lot of the tools for guitar making, the book will be of less value to you. If you are a long time woodworker with a wide range of skills, much of this will be stuff you basically already know, but applied specifically to building guitars. That said, this is a fantastic beginners book with a huge wealth of accumulated knowledge for specifically building guitars. If you are wanting to build your first guitar, this book will save you a lot of money and time (for me more important). I'm an inventor by trade. I've never made a guitar, but I've played for many years and made some very nice things with wood over the years. I've had some ideas on guitar improvements and talked with some companies and found them totally uninterested. Not an unfamiliar occurrence, sadly. I still want to test these ideas, so I plan to do just that. I've found, in a life of building and designing things people have never made, that information is the most important tool to a success in anything; Second in importance is stubborn tenacity. The only way to truly fail at something like this is to quit. Many people do things different ways, but every time you read more about a subject, you will learn something. I like to cook and have a lot of books. Some of them only have maybe 1 recipe that is outstanding, but that makes it worth the price. You can't buy outstanding in most restaurants these days, unless you pay through the nose for it. So, such a dish can save me $300 at a 3 star restaurant and I don't have to go out and pay for the noisy, expensive and pretentious experience I really don't want. I get a fantastic meal with no fuss and I'm not broke at the end of it - and I can feed a bunch of my friends for a fraction of what that one plate would have cost me. Knowledge is not only power, it is money and time. Reinventing the wheel is a huge waste of time. If you are new (and serious) to guitar making, buy and READ this book and several others. You will be glad you did. The instructions for building a cheap wood bending rig are worth more than the price of the book. If you are an old hand at woodworking, you may not get as much out of it, but it might have one recipe you don't know, which could be very valuable to you or not. Unless you read it you will never know and you might be OK with that, too. I think it is a very good selection of very useful information for somebody like myself who has never done this. But, I will be reading quite a few more books before I go wasting my time and nice (and pricey) materials by doing a lousy job. And I know full well that any first time project like this will be a pain. But, the second one will go much faster! Reading is not doing, but it can keep you from making terrible mistakes. I take my hat off to anybody who takes the time to share knowledge. The book is obviously a labor of love and obsession. Thanks for the help! 06/11/2020 Update: I've been very busy with other things, but with this crazy virus situation, I've had a bit more time on my hands recently and have been re-reading ALL of my guitar building books. This one still stands out as superb for a beginning luthier. I built a large and very accurate CNC metal milling center in my garage for cutting aluminum prototypes. But, wood is not my most well understood material. The kind of advice that is in this book is well worth the cost of admission. It has a wealth of information. The section explaining some to the sonic consequences of different design choices is particularly useful to me, as I know very little about this and any tips here are good. Anybody who thinks there is nothing of value in this book, I believe, did not actually bother to read it or is already an accomplished luthier, or just boasting to boost their ego. Excellent book! I increased my rating to 5 stars. I've read a few more books now and this one was a bargain and remarkably practical. High value for the price.

This is really an excellent, up to date and almost comprehensive book on building guitars. All it really lacks is a step by step procedural explanation of what to do 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. so as not to paint yourself in a corner. All the steps are there I think, but not in order. This book is so much more up to date and practical than the other book I have: Guitarmaking, tradition and technology, by Cumpiano and Natelson. That book is comprehensive but was written in the 1980's! They still describe chiseling out the bridge slot instead of routing it! Brian's book is not only up to date but has lots of great ideas on jigs and the use and modification of common modern tools and equipment and local woods instead of the ridiculously expensive tools and materials sold by the luthier supply stores. It also has great info on the theory of how the build affects the sound of the instrument and how to do great finishes at home without expensive spray equipment. His tips on building jigs are great. Before I read this book I was expecting to spend over a grand getting tooled up to make some guitars, now I realize I've got almost everything I need in my shop already and I'll probably only spend a couple hundred dollars for a few odds and ends and luxuries like a dremel with a router plate. This is the best book on technique and theory, materials, finishes and jigs. If Brian just added a chapter on step by step building, it would be quite complete.

I'm a lutherie student just finishing up my first classical guitar build. I have the benefit of in depth instruction on fine wood working and a classical guitar instructor with years of experience and hundreds of builds performed by himself and his students. All told I'm still very much a beginner but I'd like to think I'm off on a much more solid foundation than the average beginner. That said I think this book has much to to teach someone starting out, but may be a little basic for an expert. I also think the title of this book is misleading because it includes a whole lot more than just tools, jigs, and templates. Honestly many of the jigs and tools aren't all that innovative or unusual if you do any kind of web research. What I found most useful were the sections that talked more about techniques and approaches. Before I hit a few highlights be advised that this book is NOT telling you how to build a guitar. Think of it more as a notebook of discoveries, techniques, and ideas that can help you build a guitar. This book is also focused more on steel string construction, though I'd say 85-90% of it can apply to steel or classical. There are tons of photos throughout the book. In many ways you might compare it to Bogdanovich's defining text on classical guitar building, however I think the photo quality isn't nearly as good (all black and white) and don't illustrate all the concepts quite as clearly. You definitely have to read and think through everything much more so than Bog's book. For me I found the following sections useful: - Finishing. A very nice overview of some basic techniques, how they can be used together or separately, and how to apply them. This isn't a comprehensive rundown on finishing but it's a great place for beginners to start. I'm painfully familiar with French polish but I really enjoyed reading alternate techniques. - More advanced neck and fingerboard techniques including binding and laminating - The quick section on inlays. By itself not very helpful in doing inlay, but as a quick overview of what to expect and basic concepts it was helpful. - Some nice theory notes on guitar construction and design. Again steel string focused but I think much would translate to classical - Tips and tricks for basic skills such as gap filling, sanding, gluing, etc. These skills seem simple, but I've really struggled to master some of them. I much appreciated an alternate point of view on these techniques. - And various odds and ends - even a little bit on making your own custom label using online tools For the price it's a steal, but you have to consider this a collection of ideas and techniques you can run with. Not as a definitive instruction book. I'm dropping a star just because I was hoping for more on classical guitars, and the photo quality isn't the greatest.

The book itself and the information presented is awesome. It is well written and presented in Laymans terms. I am looking forward to setting up my Guitar building bench. Having bought the book used on Amazon, it did arrive with a piece of the cover missing. No problem for me.

What a fantastic treasure trove of tips and clever ideas to make working on instruments easier, more productive and most importantly more rewarding. Reading these chapters was like being an apprentice again and listening to the skilled "journeyman" spill his guts and unlock the chest of hard earned knowledge. Every topic is a streamlined explanation of "how to" knowledge that's clearly taught by a guy who's gained learned his skills through tools and materials not books... The best part is how grateful I was to read the book written by the rare craftsman who decided to transfer his real world education and chops to the black and white page. This book is a text book. I would call it required reading for hobbyists and apprentices of the luthier trade. If I had to suggest an improvement it would be that a video companion series would have saved me some time turning the book clockwise and back again as I tried to visualize the physical steps descibed in the photos. Great book!

Excellent book for the extreme DIY guy or gal

There is a lot of useful information in this book. However, it is difficult on the eyes to read because it’s basically copy machine quality on draft mode. The text, while legible is light and hard on the eyes to read. The fading looking photos make the grayscale images even harder to see details. I highly recommend the author find a new publisher or increase to a better copy. I would have paid extra for better quality. The material deserves better.

This book covers a lot of topics that are often not adequately handled in “complete” guitar-making books. Lots of interesting jigs and tools. He shows how to make many fixtures that would otherwise be expensive. But I think the best part of the book is that it gives you a way of thinking about problems.

Lots of great info. Thanks

Wer die erste Gitarre baut, wird sich (vielleicht) wundern, wieviel Zeit für den Bau von Vorrichtungen, Schablonen... aufgewendet werden muß. Das ist mehr, als man an der Gitarre arbeitet. Mit dem zweiten Instrument kehrt sich das Verhältnis dann um, aber man muß da erst einmal durch. Und genau dabei hilft dieses Buch. Es ist ein unerschöpflicher Vorrat von Ideen zum Bau von allen möglichen Vorrichtungen und Werkzeugen. Vieles findet man natürlich auch in anderen Büchern, aber nicht so umfassend. Es wird immer Wert auf möglichst einfache und kosteneffiziente Lösungen gelegt. Manches ist hier schwer umsetzbar (wir haben zumindest hier keinen "Hardwood Store", wo man exotische Hölzer als Planken günstig kaufen könnte...), zeigt aber Wege auf, wie man bei Verfügbarkeit durch eigenes Aufsägen unabhängig von "Tonholzhändlern" wird. Schön auch die Kapitel über geeignete Maschinen und Finish. Ein gelungenes Buch (mindestens) für den Einsteiger, das viel (!) Zeit sparen kann und den Preis für seine 500 Seiten wirklich wert ist.

I went to luthier school back in 2009 and always enjoy reading new books about guitar building to compare ideas and theories about building. I stumbled on this book completely by accident surfing books on guitar building. The book is an excellent resource for those who are considering trying to build an instrument or are just looking for different jig ideas in their own shop. Mr. Forbes obviously has excellent experience with woodworking and it shows in the quality of the jigs and the layout of the book. I would recommend this to any guitar building enthusiast. Our last names are also a coincidence. The inside cover states that the author has a guitar website called Six Gun Guitars. Well worth the investment to buy this book

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YouTubeや洋書を参考に独学でアコギを作り始めた初心者です。どうしても知りたくても知りえない情報や加工方法に悩む中、この本を偶然見掛け勢いでポチってみました。 写真は背表紙ですが、ここに書かれている事がこの本の本質を示しています。ギター用素材を材木から製材する方法に始まり、ギター作りに用いる様々な工具の自作方法、ギター各部の加工方法は勿論インレイやロゼッタの詳細な加工方法、各種DIYerが入手可能な塗料の特性といった他の本では紹介されない貴重な情報が満載されています。 私自身、StewMacやギター用木材サプライヤに頼らず自力で道具製作や製材に取り組んでいた事もあって、この著者の姿勢と熱意に感銘を受けました。非常に明快な表記ですので中学英語レベルの読解力があれば普通に読めます。こんな素晴らしい本に出会えて幸運でした。