Guitar 1, a.k.a. "beginner's luck"

My first guitar sounds simply amazing. It has crystal-clear tone, great volume, low action, and the intonation is close to perfect (easily corrected with a slight compensation to the saddle). This is a really good sounding guitar. Certainly not the best sounding guitar I've ever heard, but significantly better than any "off the shelf" guitar I've seen (and better than many of the >$1,000 Martins/Taylors/etc I've heard).

It has an A grade stika spruce top & bracing, Indian rosewood fret board & bridge, lauan plywood back & sides, maple/oak laminate neck, and Gotoh tuners.

The top, bracing, fret board, fret wire, bridge, and truss rod were purchased from Steward McDonald. I bought the Lauan plywood at Mr Plywood here in Portland ($5 ;-), and the maple & oak for the neck at Home Depot (~$20 for both). Total cost in raw materials was just under $200.

I don't really remember exactly how long it took me to build, but it was in the neighbourhood of 2-3 weeks.

This is a pretty standard "Martin style" dreadnought, about the only things that a really unique about it is the body is a bit deeper than normal (4 inches) and the neck is bolted on, not glued. I'm a big fan of the bolt-on-neck now, I've done this on all of my guitars. It makes it so much easier to make adjustments, and does not appear to negatively impact the sound quality. I can always glue it later if I wish...

Without further rambling, here are a few photos...