I’m proud of my achievement of building, and completing my 1st guitar at age 17! I started March 19th, then I stop the progress from July 17th to December 2nd so I could finish getting my pilots certificate. It has a cedar top, sapele back and sides, spanish cedar neck, and maple binding. It sounds so good for only 30 min. of playing, the volume almost matches the banjo. Drowns out my poor mandolin, and my sisters guitar. I can only imagine what it would sound like in the hands of an experienced player.
It was definitely a big learning process, not to mention the frustration that came with it! I did a French polish finish, mainly because everyone claimed it was very time consuming, and difficult. I totally enjoy it.
First Guitar Completed
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That’s a beautiful Guitar! It’s cool that your homeschooled and have a pilots licence, I am also homeschooled, along with a few others on the forum. I am thinking about making a dulcimer, thanks for inspiring me. Now you just have to post a video of you playing it… 
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Oh no! I’m terrible at playing guitar. A mandolin player only. I think a dulcimer would be fairly simple to make, so go for it!
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WOW, that’s pretty neat, you’re quite the craftsman Valerie. We’d love to see a video of you playing it.
Congratulations on getting your pilot license especially at such a young age. I got mine at 25. I have young who has been working on his, I thought he’d get it while still 17, but he’s 18 now. He has soloed a few times and is working on his solo cross country and still has to get his written tests done. I think he’ll be done by summer.
You know @BanjoBen is a pilot too right?
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My dad, older sister and brother have there certificates as well. I scored 85% on my written test, so not to bad. It was definitely a relief to get that done and over with!
My pretty antique wings!
I do know Ben is a pilot
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Well, when I was your age, I made a bread box out of poplar (with a cool sliding door) in industrial arts class…
I got a B+
Mom still has it!
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Great job @SPilot8319!!! I too am home schooled and was considering building a guitar this year as part of my woodworking class but I almost gave up on the idea. Now I want to even more 
! Congrats on the pilots license too, that’s really cool!
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Congrats on the guitar I know a lot of time and effort went into that and it turned out really nice. Is that your little black pup he sure is nice looking
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Great work!
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Beautiful looking instrument!
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Wow! That’s beautiful, Valerie! I’m a big fan of sapele for the back and sides. Not only is it nice to look at, I love the tone it adds to a guitar.
What radius did you go with on the fret board?
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That’s beautiful! Do you have a guitarist around who could demo it so we can hear? Are you going to camp in March?
I’ve wanted to build an instrument for a while, but I don’t have access to materials
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Beautiful Guitar Valerie we hope to hear more from you on the forum
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Nice job on the guitar and the license!
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Yep! To all who have yet to post a video, I say just do it.
I know I worry a bit about what people will think of how I look and how well I play, but, “To Hades with it”! This forum kind of makes us a family, dysfunction and all, so just put it out there.
It is whatever it is, and I guarantee everyone will appreciate the contribution.
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My brother plays guitar pretty good, but there’s no way he’d cooperate. No I’m not going to camp, I wish I was though. Maybe we could talk Ben in to using it in his next lesson.
I did a 16” radius
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