Want to substitute? Visit our new LMI Kit Wizard! Kit Wizard allows you to make substitutions to the kits listed above. Here are a few reasons why you might want to do this:
International Shipping Restrictions: Many of our kits have either Honduran Mahogany parts or Ivoroid bindings -neither of which can ship outside the United States. Use the Kit Wizard the plug in substitutes for these items which will allow us to ship the kit to you! Send us an email if you need some suggestions.
Upgrade your kit: Choose a different top, back and side set or set of tuners to make you guitar one of a kind!
Downgrade your kit: Select lower grade woods to save yourself some money!
Our Serviced Kits differ from our Standard Kits in that they apply some of our shop services to the materials of a Standard Kit, doing the steps that might challenge the beginner or require special machinery. Unlike other kits on the market today, these kits are not “cake mixes”. You need at least a little woodworking experience and, though we provide a great guitar building DVD for most kits, a book or two that provides some theory and alternative methods is highly recommended. John Calkin says in the review he wrote for American Lutherie, “If [the guitar built from the LMI kit] was my only guitar I would be quite content, and it is probably the finest acoustic guitar to come out of my shop.” But he also says that our kit is the kind of kit that “makes high demands on the builder’s skill in return for an instrument that fulfills all the traditional expectations for that instrument.” As a testament to our clientele, we’ve never had a complaint that our kit was “too difficult.” To get a sense of what it is like to build a guitar with an LMI kit, and some great building instruction, visit David Painter’s photo journal.
Our “Industry Standard” kits are designed to compete with most guitar kits currently on the market. The soundboards are AA grade and tuners are not included. The “LMI Professional” kits offer AAA grade soundboards and they include tuners. All of these guitar kits conveniently provide traditional combinations of quality materials at a substantial savings.
To see a full list of items in each kit, you may visit the LMI Kit Wizard! and select the template that corresponds to the kit you are interested in. You may modify your kit if you wish, or return to this page to order the kit “as is”.