Thanks for all your input. It's really serendipitous that I "found" Steve. I happened upon the reference to Edwinson Guitars as I was browsing the sponsor listing in this forum. Don't quite know why it drew my attention, but the site itself and the guitars displayed was awesome. I paid particular attention to it's "About" and "Design Philosophy" section. What emerged was the profile of a man who truly loves making fine guitars and whose personality is a marvelous fit to mine. I decided then and there that this was the luthier I wanted to build my forever guitar. So I emailed him only to discover that his site was by his description "a dusty old relic that hadn't been updated in nearly a decade. He's apparently not making as many instruments as since he moved back to Alabama. What followed was a series of exchanges during which 1) I could feel a growing rapport between us, and 2) I just might be able to persuade him to build me a guitar. By this time, I'd seen a couple of his works with quilted maple back and sides with beautiful Adirondack Spruce. They were GORGEOUS!!
https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=543303
Steve said he had a few more sets of the same wood and he'd like to build another guitar using them.
Then came the job of convincing my darling wife to let me access some of our savings to pursue this dream. God! I love that woman. She surprised me by saying she understood clearly how much this meant to me, and that the changes she's seen in me since I've regain my love of making music made it worthwhile for her too.
So yesterday, Steve and I hatched this plan. I wanted a standard performance model with a fairly conventional neck configuration and that quilted maple for body and sides. The bindings will be Zircote or EIR. The face and back plates of the asymmetrical delta head stock will be book matched maple bound with the same wood as the rest of the guitar. I was trying to come up with a design that would keep the guitar's price at or near his base. So I'd begged off on any side ports, but Steve said he felt they were essential to getting the tone of his guitars just right and that he'd throw 2 ports in at no additional cost. What a man!! Long story short, I gave him complete artistic control to do whatever he thought he could manage for the money I was offering.
By the time I got off the phone, was soooo excited! Not only was my dream guitar becoming a reality, but I'd made a wonderful friend in the process. I'm still pinching myself
In a few days, he's going to send me some pictures of the maple sets he has available for me to pick from and some tops to look at as well. He said he though he had some bear claw Spruce kicking around, so we'll see.
We're shooting for delivery around April/May next year (fingers grossed) and I'll keep a running account of the build (with pix, of course) here.