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Last year I came across the idea of building a acoustic kit guitar, however it seem that I would enjoy doing a scratch build as well.
Either way I have been introduced to sites like www.stewmac.com, www.lmii.com, www.bluescreekguitars.com, and www.martinguitar.com, who provides kit guitars and general luthier tools.

As all hobbies you need to invest in tools and equipment, however importing the minimum essential tools needed still cost an arm and a leg.

Where do the established luthiers in SA get their equipment? As this might be an exciting enterprise to make guitar for the pleasure of it and not for commercial purposes, but it seems to put me off before I even started.

Is the any suggestions on tools that I can use instead? (To use an example: Stewmac: Tools they support as necessary, the kit, shipping, other tools, scraps ect. sum total would cost the first hobby build guitar: R21000.)

During my investigations it appeared that wood is easily available in South Africa, however tools and other parts not so much. (Or am I just not aware of the places to get i?

I wondered if there is other guitarist (hobby builders) that is engaging in guitar building that would like to share their ideas and thoughts on my comment.

Till later.

Soppies uit.
    Depending on how far you want to go, there are no local suppliers of luthier specific tools. You can make some yourself with varying degrees of complexity and save a few bucks that way.
    Put simply, the more you progress, the more tools you'll want to get. I think R21 000 is fairly conservative.
      It makes no sense to me to sink 21k into a hobby unless you know you cannot be happy without said hobby. Build another instrument (Tele anyone?) that requires less of the same tooling, leave the specialist stuff to a pro with the tools (eg fretting, radiusing) and/or borrow tools you don't have. If hooked after that, sink away. Oh and if living in CT just do a Casimi course and forget buying tools.
        8 days later
        People have been building guitars for centuries (ok not electric) with just basic hand tools. There's no reason why you can't too!. With a bit of patience, skill and elbow-grease you can get a good guitar built with basic hand tools (saws, planes, long steel ruler, square, drill, borrowed router, lots of G-clamps, a few files, sandpaper & scrapers, etc.

        If you don't currently own ANY tools, then you are obviously going to have to shell out a lot for your first guitar -- but the tools are technically a long-term investment rather than a cost of production.

        If you ARE going to buy tools, 2nd hand is often a better deal because - they are cheaper and often higher quality.
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