This guitar was built for a contest held by the Musical Instrument Makers Forum (MIMF). The idea was to build an acoustic guitar for less than (US)$100.00 in parts and materials. I decided to build a nylon string guitar.

Since I had never built an acoustic guitar before, I was faced with many challenges. Firstly I had no way to bend wood for the sides, nor did I have time to make a bending iron or hot pipe. To simplify things, I decided to make a "Bo Diddley" acoustic… in other words, a square guitar.

All of the wood I used was from off-cuts and leftover pieces from previous projects. The top was made from some aromatic cedar that I had leftover from when I made some hope chests several years ago. The back and side were from some left over pieces of Hackberry that were too small to make electric guitar bodies from. The internal braces and linings were made from scraps of Mahogany and Spruce. The neck was from an oddball shaped piece of Mahogany that was just barely big enough and the fretboard was a piece of Cocobolo that I resawed too thin for a standard fretboard, but it was perfect for a fairly flat 20" radius board.

For a first attempt at an acoustic, I am pretty happy with the way this guitar turned out. It doesn't sound too bad, and it has given me the motivation  to build another acoustic someday and actually try and do it properly.

My costs totaled up to (US)$87.75.