cooltouch

Yes, but you did write "As I'm sure you'd agree, if I were to buy a guitar-building kit and followed the instructions to the letter, no matter how much care I took in building it, I could never hope to match the quality of a Martin guitar, let alone a custom built instrument from one of the masters." And that's what got me going because, you see, a guitar built from an excellent quality kit is a custom guitar in most respects. It might not be built by a luthier with years of experience, but it was put together by one. And so the end-user, as long as he or she is diligent in the assembly process, will wind up with a custom guitar that was designed and laid out by a master luthier. And it will sound like one. And if I may draw a parallel here, I'm sure it's the same with model ship building. The best kits will offer the best result no doubt because they were put together by experts in the craft.

Greg and Druxey, thanks for those links. I'll take a look at them. Bob, I appreciate your taking the time for your thoughtful remarks. Honestly the idea of attempting to make money at ship building hadn't even entered my mind until maybe yesterday, at which point I promptly shrugged it off. I reasoned -- apparently correctly -- that if there was money to be made at the craft, it would be made by specialists with many years of experience at it. I do want to call your attention to one comment you made, however: There are some very good luthiers who do not play. It doesn't have to stop a person from becoming skilled at the craft. But on the subject of kits, especially many of the good quality kits available now, you might just be surprised at how good the guitars sound. I think of my first guitar. It was scratch-built, not from a kit, and it was -- is! -- butt ugly, in and out. But I used good woods and I must have done at least something right with that guitar because it sounds way better than it would seem to have any right to sound. There's something about custom building a guitar -- even from a kit -- as long as you're assembling the instrument from quality woods and you do a reasonably competent job of assembly, I can almost guarantee that you will wind up with a guitar that, if you had to buy one that sounded as good, you'd be looking at an instrument costing in the thousands. Now, I don't have any experience with violin kits, but there's no reason why they shouldn't be the same, provided the same care and attention to detail is maintained. Building a guitar from a kit can be done using a modicum of specialty tools and it can be quite fun and rewarding. I've never built from a kit, but I know people who have and they were all amazed at just how nice their guitars sounded. The key, I think is in good kit preparation. Fundamental to it all is the premium tonewoods that are selected. Then other important details, such as the braces and how well they've been prepared, how well the neck is going to fit into its joint, proper fingerboard preparation, etc. All these details end up adding to the overall quality of the build. So, all I'm saying is, don't sell instrument kits short, especially the better ones that you can buy from places like Stewart McDonald (stewmac.com) and Luthier's Mercantile International (lmii.com). You get what you pay for -- just like model ship kits, I'll bet. With the better guitar kits, you're getting top quality tonewood -- and quality tonewood isn't cheap -- plus you're paying for all the exacting work that they've already done that will help make assembly go that much easier.

Thanks for the responses, guys. Druxey, I'll check out those kits, thanks. Chris, I have a pretty decent selection of tools. Examples would be chisels ranging in size from 1" to 1mm, planes ranging in size from 14" to 1". I have a wide assortment of knives, including those made specifically for carving and a large X-acto set, although there are only a couple of blades from the set I routinely use. I've collected smaller tools because they are often handy with detail work on guitars. I have a variety of precision drawing and drafting instruments as well. I don't use them a lot with building, but they can come in handy occasionally. I don't know how relevant they will be to model ship building, but I have them if I'll need them, at least. One aspect of model ship building I find intriguing is hull construction, where wood has to be bent into position. In the real world of ship-building, the hull planks are steamed so they become pliable prior to being bent into position. When I bend guitar sides, I use a similar process. But I wonder if this is necessary with kits. Are the slats naturally pliable enough or do they need . . . erm . . . "coaxing?" I suspect I'll find answers as I begin to browse through the various builds that are documented here. Makes me want to get started soonest.

See, it's like this: we moved to a new house a few years ago, and when we did, I lost my shop, which had been a cozy little room behind my garage, just big enough for building guitars. Since guitar building generates a fair amount of wood shavings and sawdust, I can't really do any serious sort of building in our house. And our garage, which isn't hermetically sealed anyway, is crammed full of stuff that we haven't figured out where to put yet. So I can't use the garage, even if I was able to figure out how to hermetically seal it. And yes, to build a guitar properly, humidity must be controlled throughout the build process. I really miss building guitars -- in fact I just plain miss building precision items from wood. So it has recently occurred to me that taking up the hobby of building wooden model ships might satisfy my cravings until I find a shop or a way to get back to building guitars by modifying the resources I have. I know nothing about this hobby. But if it involves building items from flat slats of wood, I'm game. Cuz that's the way I build acoustic guitars -- from flat slats of wood. Guitar making involves precise measurements -- in some cases, measurements to the nearest thousandth of an inch -- so I'm used to dealing with precision in wood. I've been looking around some regarding kits that are available. I found a variety of kits on eBay, many of which are cheap and coming out of China -- so I'm suspect of these. And then there's ModelExpo, which has some really high-end stuff it appears, but most of the kits they offer are way out of my budget. I'm not making any money building guitars right now, so I'm having to survive off a rather slim retirement income. Maybe scratch building would be the way to go to keep the cost down? Scratch building sounds good to me because that's the way I built guitars anyway. I dunno about sewing sails, though. I've never sewn. And what about the little blocks and tackle? Do you scratch build guys build your own tiny little blocks and tackle? How about anchors? Do you cast or forge your own anchors? Inquiring minds and all . . . . Right now, I have my eyes on a few vintage ships on eBay. These appeal to me, but I worry that they may not be complete and a couple that I saw, were poorly started, and I don't really feel like having to go back and fix others' mistakes before I can even get on with the build process. So, what do you recommend as a starter kit for somebody who already has some skills and lots of hand tools, but not very deep pockets? So anyway, that's me. Glad to be here and all.