Acoustic Guitar Construction

Hello all,

Just joined the forum but am a long time lurker. I bought an L-00 kit from Ken ~10yrs ago. Got the MegaMold too. I built a nice workbench and started the kit but got derailed by life. That said, I'm getting back into it and hope to be posting here soon. Many thanks to JohnP. for keeping this site going. Thanks also for preserving Ken's original instructions.

I originally got interested in building because I love old ladder-braced guitars and it was pretty challenging to find good ones at a decent price. At that time, very few new ladder-braced steel strings were being made. Of course today we have the very successful Waterloo line. My ultimate goal is to build something like my Kalamazoo KG-11 which is just awesome. That's the dream anyway...

-rick

Good luck with your progress. Feel free to post progress and ask questions as you go. There are a few on the forum that followed Ken's method and I believe I understand it.

Hi Rick, Welcome.
Well, I am no expert on ladder bracing, but here are some who made a few. But if there is a question I can help on, I will jump in.
Herman

Many thanks fellas. I have a million questions but will do my best to keep the noise level down

Hi Rick, good to have you on board!
A few of my students have made ladder-braced instruments and they all turned out well. Here's a thread on this forum of one of them. Tom.
There are some sound clips here somewhere also.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2345

Dave Bagwill wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:08 am Hi Rick, good to have you on board!
A few of my students have made ladder-braced instruments and they all turned out well. Here's a thread on this forum of one of them. Tom.
There are some sound clips here somewhere also.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2345

Many thanks Dave. Is this the L-00 - https://youtu.be/vODgk3CLfdc ? Definitely has that ladder-braced "bark". Really nice work!

Rick - that is the guitar, but a rough, low-quality take. There is a very good clip that really shows off the sound, and I'm looking for that now.