Evening all. Some of you on here will know that I have been planning on building a guitar for a while. After weeks spent on getting wood (easy Afghan) and tools sorted I finally made a start today. Special thanks go to Wez for loaning me his templates!
Very, very early stages so far as you'll see from the pics. The body is ash (from luthierssupplies.co.uk) and is 2 piece. The majority of it is from one piece - the join is on the very top left of the body.
I've not decided on making the neck myself yet - it may well be beyond my capabilities. Next stages are going to be routing for the control cavity and neck pickup and spending quite a bit of time on making sure I get the neck pocket right - I think I may have made a mistake on it already. It's all pretty exciting at the moment and I find my mind drifting towards my next build - I really must learn to focus.
Final special thanks goes to my neighbour. I've been living next door to him for 8 years and found out last week that he has a workshop in his back garden. He offered me use of it and the tools within whenever I wanted (a big band saw, belt sander, drill press, two work surfaces and a router table). He has also provided me with some free training on the tools. Not only did I find this out but I also learnt that he used to work in the wood industry and has some wood in his garage that might be made available - he has some maple, ash, sapele, elm (not sure if this is useful as a tonewood) and pine.
Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours.
Anyway, enough rambling. Here are the pics (feedback and comments much appreciated)

