I’m a little late to the party on this thread, but for anyone interested in building guitars there are two local groups that meet regularly for that purpose.
Luthier’s Interactive North Texas (LINT) meets every other month somewhere in or around the DFW area. The club has over 40 members, including several professional builders. Primarily focused on acoustic guitars/mandolins/banjos, but some members build electrics as well. They also put on an annual master class and have several mini-classes throughout the year. www.lint.org is their website which is kept up to date with the events and other information.
Guys Building Guitars is the other group and, I believe, more focused on electric guitars/basses. As far as I know they do not have a website but you can find their group on Facebook. They used to meet at a Rockler store, but not sure if that’s still the case.