Kbore

My first thought was "where do they source the wood"? I'm blessed to have a 25 minute drive to Hibdon Hardwood in Saint Louis, but that may soon be a fond memory.....

Look what I found: Greg Voros for MS – Acoustic Coffee

Yes, I have one and I use it to evaluate MY repairs.

Clamp onto a wooden block or "caul" instead of directly on the guitar wood. Attach heavy felt or cork to one side of your clamping caul. For an acoustic: You will need to clamp the fingerboard overlay from inside the soundhole. I use a clamping caul that straddles the braces under the fingerboard, don’t clamp directly on the braces..

Check out the kits at Stewart-Macdonald (Stew-Mac). They have several price levels....

You don’t “have” to do a set up, but your action will likely change. How much? Give it a try, change ‘em back if you don’t like it. I have a J-45 and 11s are fine, 10s we’re too slinky, for me. Give it a whirl....

Answering my own question here, ended up 3/32" above the front of the bridge. Posted Finished project pic elsewhere in this topic. I'm happy with geometry, looks like it was the right call.

Looking good. Can't wait to see it with your finishing oil.

Thank you for the link. That was without a doubt the best hour I've ever spent on Youtube. There are many many subtle carats of the craft in the video. The music artistry alone was worth the watch. Given the thicknesses sander alone was on the order of $10,000 or more, we should realize the enormous cost of a custom crafted instrument. One doesn't hand build guitars for the money. Awesome video.

I'm a fairly old dude, and have wanted to build a guitar for some 35 years. With a library of books collected over that time, and the marvel of the internet, I finally did it. Started with a "kit" from StewMac, which is basically a box of rough cut wood and parts, many of which I threw away and replaced with higher quality materials. I've spent 15 years putting together a wood shop, and so it started, in the wood shop. A year and a half and $5000 in parts and tools later, here it is. D-28 style dreadnaugh, Indian Rosewood back and sides, torified Sitka spruce top, mahogany neck, rosewood fingerboard, paua abalony inlays, tourtoise celluloid bindings, bone nut and saddle, hand made celluloid pickguard ( thank you Greg Voros for the material and your advise on setting the neck) and a nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Can't wait to start my second, likely a tobacco cherry sunburst dread. I can spread the obscene cost of tools over the next ones : ). Judging by the way it sounds and plays, I got my money's worth. Let's get the party started on this topic!!

Bone nut/ saddle blanks are pretty inexpensive on eBay....

A note on humidity and tuning: a guitar neck is basically a hygrometer, two dissimilar woods laminated together. When the humidity changes, the hygrometer moves, like a pointer, and your guitar neck is the pointer. The strings will stay in tune relative to one another, but the entire pitch will change with humidity- guaranteed. Add to this that an unfinished fingerboard will absorb and donate moisture to the air a two a different rate than the finished neck. A guitar builder buddy of mine posted a pic on FB of a hygrometer he made for his shop. He made it from 2 strips of scrap wood, mahogany and rosewood from a finger board, simply gluing the strips together. His hygrometer was about 25" long (surprise). It would move back and forth several inches, like a pointer, when the humidity in his shop changed. I was thinking about the possibility of measuring humidity by measuring the change of pitch in my guitar when it dawned on me, The neck indeed is a hygrometer, just like the one Bryan made for his shop!

You guys bought your ebony bridge pins yet? Inexpensive experiment!!?

Dohhh, I missed that....

Electric or acoustic? Do you know what model of Gibson?