Build Your Own Acoustic Guitar: Complete Instructions and Full-Size Plans

Lovely book with good pictures and clear explanations even for a novice like myself

This in my opinion is simply the best book on steel string guitar construction available. It differs from all others in that it's led by photographs and not by text, similar to a Dorling Kindersley book. There's more text than just figure captions, but it's sparse and absolutely economical: there's not an unnecessary word or digression (the author's editor was a genius and/or a total brute). Examining the photos is incredibly instructive: after a full 'read' of the book you feel almost like you've built your first guitar already, as you can see exactly what's involved with every step. This gave me enormous confidence before starting and also gave me an idea of what processes to think more about (e.g. alternatives) and what things to follow to the letter. The full size plans are excellent too- but I choose not to use them and nevertheless had no problem applying the methods to a different set of plans. The coverage is superb as well- from selecting woods to hand and power tools, to post-build set-up and pick-up installation. The author is also encouraging in that he argues that relatively few specialised tools are absolutely required, which is one of the reasons many people with the desire never even start. It's both instructional and inspirational and I return to it for both of those reasons more often than I turn to any other book on the subject (and as there aren't that many, I've got all of them on my shelf for comparison). I think it's an unsung classic - a truly under-appreciated book on the subject that quite literally shows you how it's done.

As a left handed acoustic player good instrument choices are somewhat limited so my main aim in buying this book was to get a better understanding of how acoustic guitars function and are constructed to ensure a considered purchase later. Having read through the book several times i may now even consider constructing one myself at some time in the future. The book is well written for the laymen and starts with a summary of guitar design then goes on to talk about materials - all important in obtaining the sound. A chapter on tools follows then a summary of practices necessary to produce a guitar. The process is illustrated throughout and tips are included along the way. I have a few books on this subject and this is by far the best practical book on guitar construction for the average person to understand i have read. i recently met the author at his workshop and he kindly spent some time with me talking about guitar construction. I was also lucky enough to get to see some of his guitars. He is clearly a very knowledgeable and skilled Luthier and one of life's gentlemen. If you are ever in the Bristol area and are into guitars i recommend you seek him out.

Awesome book has every knowledge on guitar making

this book is very good a interesting read and author is very helpful to. I'm a novice so I'm still finding it hard to get head round and on my 4th neck fingers crossed this one works lol but if you want make one I recommend this book for sure

I bought this second hand out of curiosity. Such a fascinating book with many, many clear photos and plenty of instruction. There's also a sleeved full-size plan inside the back cover to build the exact guitar featured, but Jonathan Kinkead encourages you to think about designing your own. Just one word of warning, to build your own guitar does require a lot of specialised tools, (some of which you could make yourself - also detailed in the book), and fairly expensive materials to do the job right. I think if you'd like to make your guitar you'd be best to consider it a long term hobby and buy the stuff as and when you need them.

I've been messing about with guitar kits over the last six months or so, built an archtop and am about to start on a dreadnought so this book has been an absolute godsend. Of course there's a huge difference between kits amd starting from scratch but this book is absolutely full of useful information. I'm no woodworker but with this book even I might be able to make a reasonable effort. Lovely clear pictures throughout make it easy to understand the process and the author's love of the instrument comes through. Excellent value.

I've read the book from cover to cover on more than one occassion! It contains the complete plans for building an acoustic guitar. The book covers all aspects of acoustic guitar building in great detail, leaving no stone unturned. If you are like me and only build electric guitars the book is still very useful as it encompasses the same principles required for any guitar construction and setup. Kinkade guitars are amongst the most valued handcrafted instruments available in the UK and this book demonstrates the passion that the instruments are made with. I own several books on the same subject but this one is by far the best.

Gostei muito, o livro é bem ilustrado!!!

Great resource for aspiring guitar builder. Although the author doesn't go as deep as I would like into some parts (Pretty much minor stuff that can be easily looked up on the internet), the book is well written and it reads great. Enclosed are plans for a guitar (I think it was drednaught model). The book is full of photos of many guitars and one of them is documented while built (Maybe it was more than one guitar, but nevertheless he didn't skip any part. The book includes many tips for (e.g. how to substitute certain tools that you may have not access to). On the other side that is the only problem as well. While the author assumes that you may not have for example thickness sander and presents a way to plane the wood by hand with few tips how not to chip or otherwise damage the wood while doing so, on some other page he assumes that you have access to something called Go-bar press, which I assume is not that hard to make, but as he himself claims you will probably not build one until you have built few guitars as it is not worth it, but he won't present any substitute anyway. Well, it's not that hard to think of something yourself. Maybe one other issue, he sticks to only one guitar design in the whole book. He discusses few other woods and claims that for example Hawaian Koa cannot be thickness sanded due to it's oily, figured nature, that it is hard to do by hand and things like that, but he doesn't discuss how to deal with these kinds of wood anyway. That was something I would love to know, I was thinking of building a Koa instrument as my first acoustic project. Well I guess I will not risk that now as the wood is too expensive to destroy on first attempt and he says it's not that easy to work with. Anyway, overall great value (for a beginner anyway, I can imagine there are some books discussing the subject deeper for intermediate luthiers), catching book and I think great gift for any acoustic player as I cannot imagine any who wouldn't want to learn about how that piece of wood he plays was made. By the way, I didn't really mind the "advertising" of Kinkade guitars. His guitars are nice and I can imagine sound great. After all it was Jonathan Kinkade who wrote this book, so why wouldn't he promote his stuff? Also, his own guitars are probably the best source for photography due to copyright issues and similar things.

Great detailed book

The visuals of the guitar building process alone is worth the price of the book. The book inspired me to take pictures and also document in depth the process I went through in building my guitars. I found this book an excellent starting point for the first timer to guitar building. It is also a good book to reference for the more advanced builders. The visuals help to get the creative imagination flowing. Any serious guitar maker should have this book in his library, but it should not be the only book nor the last. Overall this is quite a good book.

The very best!!! I have built several guitars according this book. All sounded great. Highly recommmending!!!!