(Part 3) Top products from r/Luthier

Here's the Renaissance Lute building course I was thinking of. He also sells one for building a Baroque Lute. Here's an interesting article on Medieval Lute building methods with photos. And here is a comprehensive book on Historical Lute Construction.

From what I've heard, you might want to practice building a few simpler instruments first before attempting a lute. A ukulele or mandolin, a couple guitars, and then a baroque guitar with inlays and fancy rose etc. should give you enough knowledge and skill to attempt it. There are courses available and plenty of info on guitar construction, and many of the principles will be the same. Note that guitar construction is MUCH heavier than renaissance lute construction. A lute soundboard varies in thickness from 1mm - 0.7mm in some places, and they're expected to form an S curve near the bridge when strings are tensioned. Also, string tension is barely half that of a classical guitar. European renaissance and baroque lutes are quite fragile compared to a modern guitar or oud, and feel almost like paper mache at first. They were designed to be as resonant as possible to get the most out of low (gut) string tension. As a side note regarding playing technique, if you're a guitarist with basic classical skills, you'll have to learn a very different way of playing using the 'thumb-under' technique i.e. single note runs are fingered thumb index (p i p i - with the thumb passing under/behind the index due to hand angle) rather than alternating middle index (m i m i) etc. Here's a great older video of Paul O'Dette talking about the lute. Great example of thumb under technique at 1:38.

Edit: Here's a classic instruction book on lute playing. It covers a bit of everything, including 3 forms of tablature.

Here's a fantastic source for historical lute tablature, mostly in French style (letters for frets instead of numbers).

If you're interested in jazz guitar get Robert Benedetto's Making an Archtop guitar. I think that's one of the best written guitar making books out there. On sound/tone I'd recommend reading articles by Dana Bourgeois at http://www.pantheonguitars.com/ (under tonewoods and voicing). For techniques I definitely recommend reading through Frank Ford's articles at http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/pagelist.html#Luthier

I have a copy of this book: [Lutherie Tools] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0962644706) which shows how to make your own tools.
You will of course need some tools to make other tools, but you can get pretty far and end up with most of what you need while learning some valuable skills along the way.

If you're talking about violins then this one, co-written by two English makers, is excellent. For bass (upright) the best one I know of is this one by Chuck Traeger. If you're talking about guitars, then I have nothing to offer, sorry.

+1 to Cumpiano for a basic guitar building bible.

Melvyn Hiscock's book is a pretty straight-forward no-nonsense book about building acoustics, but it's a little unconventional and it contains some opinions about structural mechanics that aren't really supported by, um, the known laws of physics. But it's also the only DIY book I know of that covers 12-string building.

How does design affect sound? Try Left Brain Lutherie if you're good at math and have a bit of an engineering background (and Air Columns & Tone Holes as supplemental reading to learn a bit more about the resonant properties of a body of air (aka the space inside your guitar)), or Ervin Somogyi's books if you feel like reading and digesting about 700 pages of essays on guitar building.

Check out Dave Hunter's amp book.

I actually built the amp in the back of the book from a kit supplied by Mojotone and it was very insightful.

Sites like AX84 are useful, as well.

And as always, be very careful. The voltages in guitar amps can kill.
Good luck.

This book goes into great detail about how guitars respond to certain changes. It's also very expensive, so maybe you can find it in your local library. I haven't read the book, but I've seen videos detailing it's contents on youtube and it looked very interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Responsive-Guitar-Ervin-Somogyi/dp/0982320701/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342335103&sr=8-2&keywords=the+responsive+guitar

Ive never built a lap steel and i dont own this book but it has good reviews so it might be worth a shot: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/3901314091/ref=mp_s_a_1_27?ie=UTF8&qid=1481862835&sr=8-27&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=lap+steel

Pick up a copy of Brian May's book- it has extensive plans and is fascinating even for lay people like me.

I bought this book 15 years ago and still go back to it. It explains all aspects of guitar wiring, right down to pickup construction.
Well worth getting, you won't be disappointed:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guitar-Electronics-Musicians-Reference/dp/0711902321

The only part of this I can add to is where to get the plans; you need this: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Double-Bass-Harry-Wake/dp/0960704868. I used Harry Wake's book on violins to make mine, and it gave me everything I needed to know. Seriously.

I've never built a bass, but if this book is anything like the one I used to build a violin (without having another one to check against) then this is all you'll need in this department.

You might enjoy this book on the making and history of Steinway pianos. It's not a guide to building one, but it gives a broad overview of the processes involved.

I started in the late 90's when I did not have internet access at home so these were my resources....

The Guitar Handbook - https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Handbook-Ralph-Denyer/dp/0679742751

Constructing a Solidbody Guitar Roger Siminhoff - https://www.amazon.com/Constructing-Solid-Body-Guitar-Complete-Technical/dp/0881884510

And I saw how Leo did it in "The Fender book" - https://www.amazon.com/Fender-Book-Complete-History-Electric/dp/0879302593/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473794173&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Fender+Book

That and watching a lot of episodes of "The New Yankee Workshop" and seeing how I could apply that knowledge to building a guitar.

This one?

I'm not sure how much information there is directly about tap tuning, but you could look at getting the Romanillos book and/or the Courtnall book

A more unknown resource is the Bouchet workshop diary though this is in French.

Nitro is a pain in the ass to work with. Look into synthetic finishes if this is your first experience with finishing. The New Wood Finishing Books is an excellent resource on general finishing and explains the pros and cons of different finishes.