Building an Electric Archtop Guitar

Book excerpt: Master guitar maker J.P. Laplante shares the joy of guitar-making in this book. Here is an illustrated step-by-step guide to Building an Electric Archtop Guitar. Building an electric archtop guitar can be a pretty intimidating project but, it becomes much less so if you're guided, step-by-step, through the building process. With almost 20 years of experience in custom guitar making, the author details the step-by-step making of an electric archtop guitar using commercially available laminated top and back plates. Laminated plates have been the standard used on the vast majority of electric archtops since the 50's, and definitely represent a cost and time effective solution, especially for those tackling a first archtop project. Complete and comprehensive, all aspects of the construction are covered, from the initial design stage to the very final setup. The text is supported by over 300 high-resolution colour photographs positioned throughout the 15 chapters of the book. These pictures were taken as the three guitars featured on the back and front cover of the book were being built. For more info/background, visit my website at www.laplanteguitars.com