When I was 13,I started to build guitars up in Alaska. There was no one to show me how to bend sides. There were no books.You could not even buy frets and tuners or pickups as there were no suppliers. This was in 1954.
I tried several times to soak maple in hot water and bend it in a mold. It bent,but when it dried,it wrinkled across its width. I ended up making solid bodies for a while. My one and only pickup was a DeArmond,salvaged from the type that was sold to clamp in the sound hole of acoustics. I got some tuners somehow. I had no money at all,and got no encouragement or help from my parents,who thought it was foolishness. Ultimately,it turned into a career. As I made each guitar,I took the tuners and pickup from the last one and put them in the new one.Being hard headed,I kept on. Determination was the most important thing I ever had going for me,plus a natural artistic bent. I have no idea where that came from!! My grand mother had been a commercial artist,and drew the Maxwell House coffee label. It must have been from her. My mother certainly had no such talent. My father left when she was pregnant,so I've no idea about him.
We did not even have a 1/4" electric drill. The garage was unheated and only had tools for working on cars,and a greasy workbench. We made the garage out of reclaimed lumber from a demolished building. There was 1 light hanging in the center of the rafters. I could use the school shop to saw out the bodies. I turned a hacksaw blade upside down in its frame,and ground scallops in it to make a crude fret saw. I had to walk to a friend's house to use his electric drill.
Such was my state when trying to make guitars. But,even then I started to get pretty good at it. I worked sometimes at an out door furniture refinishing place(in the owner's back yard!),so I got access to spraying lacquer on the guitars,and learned how to rub the finishes. When I was a freshman in college,a friend had gotten a book about 1/8" thick,by the Clifford Essex music company in England. It showed how to bend the sides around a hot pipe. Then,I was able to start making acoustics. The book was not very good as their classical guitar had an odd shape,and a poor strutting pattern. But,it was a start. I had seen Theodore Bickell singing and playing folk music on a Clifford Essex guitar in Alaska years before. They used to send performers around Alaska when it was a territory,in an attempt to educate the kids and expose them to culture. We even had Annamaria Albergotti,a famous opera star at the time. I think the net result was that many young people got the heck out of Ketchikan as soon as they were out of school!! Fishing and logging was about it up there.
Today,you have access to everything you need,with numerous books and good suppliers of all manner of guitar making supplies. Have a go!!