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Hoping to get some help locating a private guitar builder who has a CNC machine that can build a guitar, body and neck to my specs. I will provide the woods, can manage the finishing and assembly.
If you know of someone who has a CNC, experience and is resonably priced, please let me know....thanks!!

Andy Birko
http://www.birkonium.com/

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

If you're looking to have a one-off design drawn, programmed, and cut by CNC, I would keep in mind that "reasonably priced" is going to be very subjective. Actually, this type of job priced fairly and reasonably is likely to be quite expensive.

CNC'd parts are pretty costly to make the first one, and generally only provide savings compared to custom hand work when you are cutting reasonable sized quantities of a product. If you want to proceed Andy's work is certainly top cut. Just be aware going in that "reasonable pricing" will include a fair amount of one time fees for all the setup and programming, not to mention administrative costs of processing even a small order.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

+1 on "CNC" does not mean cheap unless you intend to do a relatively large run.

We recently got a CNC machine at Palomar College in San Diego for use in the Luthier program. As one of the few people there with experience using one, it is not uncommon for students to approach me with the impression that CNC means you just push a button and a guitar pops out. For one thing, they rarely see the hours I spend modeling the parts on a 3d CAD program.

James, maybe you already know all this and are quite familiar with CNC prototyping and manufacturing. No disrespect meant. But if not, you should know that for a single custom guitar it would probably be cheaper to go to a traditional custom shop with traditional shop tools to make you your guitar. I am sure there are a number of luthiers in New England near you that can build you your dream guitar.

If what you are looking for is to output 20-30 identical guitars, then CNC may be the route to go.

Thank your for the suggestions, insights and expertise. I've sent a couple emails and already received a couple messages from a couple nice guys.

Jim

+1 on Andy Birko, and +1 on managing expectations when getting someone to do a one off CNC coding and have it be "reasonably priced."