Fiddler this may help:
LMI: You can customize your kit from the huge inventory of woods that LMI carries. In addition you have the choice of "serviced" or "unserviced" kits where various tasks, some of the more tricky ones, are done for you in advance. Or you can receive a box of wood and go at it yourself. LMI kits come with Robbie O'Brien's excellent instructional DVD specifically tailored to LMI kit builders but with a tremendous amount of info that would apply well to any guitar building project.
Stew-Mac: The kit comes with many things done for you including the plates joined and sides bent. Radius dishes and outside molds are not required for assembly where Stew-Mac uses a unique assembly process. Documentation is excellent with both a great instruction manual (free for download in advance) and a DVD where Dan Earlywine provides some of the instruction.
John Hall - Blues Creek: These can be highly customized as well and you can pretty much have John put together a kit anyway that you wish. John does not come in the box
but he is available to help you via email and phone calls. This personal attention from John is unsurpassed in the guitar kit industry.Martin kits from Guitarmaker's Connection: Essentially Martin seconds that come with pre-bent sides. My beef with these kits is that they come with essentially a generic guitar assembly pamphlet that does not cut it IMHO...... There is no one to call for assistance either. My second guitar was a Martin kit and had I not already learned some things from my previous Stew-Mac kit I am sure I would not have been able to complete this kit.
