Well, it might have been better for you to post this in the Luthier's Corner.
There are all kinds of ways of doing it. You could try to find a luthier who is looking to hire an apprentice, but it would probably be hard to find one. I'm going to the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, Arizona right now. It's a 5 month course where you learn about repairing and building guitars (and basses and all kinds of stuff). I've heard of a couple of other schools too, but from what I can tell this one is pretty much the best. People come from all around the world, we have one guy from Japan in my class, and last class there were 4 people from Japan!
www.roberto-venn.com
Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions, I should be able to answer most of your questions.
