b'Opposite top: Ready to go: back, sides and soundboard in rough form. It can take a long time to select these few pieces of wood from the thousands that I have in stock, and I actually select a lot more than this, before making the final choice after the first stage of sanding.Opposite bottom: Each instrument, be it a much-repeated design or a one-off custom order, needs an accurate wooden mould to hold the shape of the body. The heavier deeper ones shown here have been used hundreds of times, the simpler lighter ones, perhaps only once. Its the best indication of the range of the work we do, and the lengths we go to do it.This page: Top: This is an industrial thicknessing sander of a type that is particularly suited to guitar making. I have built my own simpler version several times, graduating to this proper equipment as soon as I could afford it. Its probably the strongest indicator of a border between hand and machine, but its misleading. If you want to become a professional maker, then you will slowly kill yourself trying to do this by hand, and your work and legacy will be inferior. Every serious guitar maker has access to at least a home workshop version, but this is so much better, we will live longer, our customers will be happier, and our legacy will be stronger. Left: And here we have the beginnings of a new device. It will be a bending former for Leonardo sides. The willingness to invest so much thought, time and effort into the facilities to make each guitar, is unique and will show throughout all the following pages. 157'