MIMF

Beautiful work! As a novice builder, doing something like this looks unattainable, but I suppose its like anything, incremental improvements over time. How long have you been building?

Alexander, if you have wood working skills you should be able to make a very nice guitar your first time. Granted, your guitars will likely get better as you refine your skills and build familiarity with the process.

Thanks very much for the continuing comments.... Overall it's far from perfect but I am really pleased with the outcome, I read the Benedetto book form cover to cover before I started, there were a lot of construction/woodworking tasks which I had never attempted before and I was never quite sure whether I'd have the skills to build it.. Now I look back at the construction photographs and I still end up scratching my head. I learnt so much during the build and the additional skills I picked up along the way have certainly helped in all my guitar builds.

To answer a question, I've been building guitars seriously for about 10 years but they've all been solid or thinline bodied. When I see pictures of archtops people have made that are their first guitar build I'm just amazed, some are outstanding and I really don't know how the hell they've managed it! For me the experience gained on building simpler solid bodied guitars was invaluable.... But I guess if you take your time and pretty much follow the Benedetto book then it is possible for some people.... But not me, I need the practice!... I can see the evolution of my skills through the guitars I've built, I guess I'm the type who learns through mistakes! But mistakes or not it makes me so happy building guitars and I would advise anyone who is thinking of "jumping in" to just do it!