The first steps.

So the first step I took was of course deciding what to build. I wanted it to be something special and also an addition to the guitars I already own. So I choose to build a 12 string acoustic archtop. But what should it look like? Some research on the web brought me to the stunning work of master luthier Ken Parker. His archtops are in a league of their own. Not in a million years I think I can build those guitars but I hope to build something that is based on his guitar called Mrs. Natural:

However this guitar is a 6 string and not a 12 string guitar. I discussed this with Outback Acoustics and they where able :-) to talk me out of this. Building an archtop as your first guitar is challenging enough. Building a 12 string Archtop nearly impossible. So a 6 string it will be then. Carving an archtop back and top as your first guitar is not really a good idea also. So we decided to go for some sort of Hybrid Flattop/Archtop by using a flattop which will be forced into an arch.
A very unique feature of the Ken Parker archtops is the way the soundport looks:

This is something I want to make use of in my guitar also. In what form I will implement this we will decide on later. The way how the neck is attached to the body is also very unusual. We have no idea how Ken Parker does this so my guitar will feature a "normal" neck joint.