I built the body from 16 pieces of 3/4 inch mahoghany that I cut from a couple of 36 inch long milled boards. I don't have access to a woodshop, so all of my work was done completely by hand. After glueing together all of these pieces with pipe clamps, I drew on the position of all of the elements, and proceeded to carve out cavities with a hand drill and a very sharp 3/8 chisel. To complete the outside edge of the guitar, I used a spindle sander which I picked up secondhand.