One of my first experiences working with other entertainers as a group left me feeling outcast at first. There were too many guitar players in the band and because my style of finger-pickin' didn't blend well with the format we were exploring the mandolinist handed me his washboard and said here you play this. I've played alot of washboard since that day twenty years ago. My board has and is still going through alot of metamorphosis. The idea of creating my own percussion gizmo has spilled over into my guitar work too. The last ten years I've been playing my own guitars. I have no formal training as a luthier. Rather I've just been unable to afford that which I've sought for in a guitar. Jug band music seems to tell the story. Musicians who did not let of lack of $ stop their pursuit of making music. They made due with what ever they could lay their hands on and improvised on things never intended to create music on with amazing results. I just followed their lead. I wanted an old resonator guitar but soon found that desire impossible to fulfill. Those with more money in hand always seemed to beat me to the deal. So after twenty years of frustration I figured I could more easily make a resonator guitar and I did. It isn't much to look at but I played that my first guitar for five years and then I took the lessons I learned constucting that first one and made a second. It's been about five years since I put this my second guitar together out of pieces of an old recorder player, door kick-plate, piano sound board, vegetable steamer, baseball bat, table leg, drum stick and I can't wait to do another. The caftsmanship in this second one is far above what I managed in my first and I imagine I'll do even better in my future attempts. If someone like me with only frustration driven desire and no formal training can do this I don't think it's out of anyone else's reach to do the same. Each time I perform I try to include the story about my guitar in hope that others will do the same and they have. Someone I'd never met before who had heard me tell the story during one of my shows went off and made two guitars, one for himself and one for a friend. The three of us got together and compared our labors. I was thirlled that someone took the idea and had such good results. Most recently I've been working with the mysteries of the musical saw. Now how difficult do you think it would be to make one of these??? Reggie