Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I haven't read Ervin's books but I've seen a number of his articles. And there's nothing in these articles that's original to him in terms of describing guitar behavior and response. The articles are often vague to the point of being useless. I think he's a very talented craftsperson, but also someo...

I have great admiration for folks who have such well organized systems dealing with sandpaper filing. Mine seem to just be located in a general area of the shop. I always mean to be better organized, but it's sort of like dating a nun - it's hard to get into the habit... :wink: aloha, Dave Hurd http...

Nice idea John. Solving problems without leaving the shop is always satisfying. My version uses 1/2" grid plastic "eggcrate" material that's normally used as a light dispersant for fluorescent lights. Readily available from the hardware store. I found it necessary to make a cardboard/plexiglass hood...

Somehow both my Makita and Ryobi hand held random orbit sanders behave like the "wild mouse" ride when used at full speed on smaller areas of an instrument. Solution: I plug either one into a router speed controller and dial the speed down to ~ 2/3 of the original speed, at which point both sanders ...

It could be true...but, ouch!
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.ht ... _page_id=2

aloha,

Dave Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com

When I was doing a mixture of both repairs and building, this sign greeted customers as they entered my shop: http://www.anzlf.com/phpBB2/userpix/167_repairshopphilosophy_1.jpg It always got a smile although it took a little longer for some than others... aloha, Dave Hurd http://www.ukuleles.com

G'day Hip,

It turns out that golf balls make wonderful handles for files and such. Of course, as the ceiling of my shop near the drill press will testify, the liquid center ones should be put aside for another purpose...

aloha,

Dave Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com

After I've joined the neck and fretboard to the body, I do some fine tuning of the heel and neck with a chisel, scraper and sandpaper. In order to hold the ukulele firmly on the bench I came up with a simple two-point clamping system: http://www.anzlf.com/phpBB2/userpix/167_UkuleleHolder2_1.jpg The ...

I like the free software XnView: http://www.xnview.com/ If the file I want to upload is too large (read larger than 200 K or so), I open up XnView, then bring up the file I want to downsize and press shift-s. At that point you can easily bring a file size down from 2 meg to 100-200 K which will stil...

Aloha Richard, Well, since nobody seems to be picking up the gauntlet, I'll give it a try. The following approach works for my ukuleles and nylon string guitars. I used a 3/8" square rod of graphite epoxy composite although as mentioned in earlier discussions, the same size/shape aluminum rod would ...

"Can of Worms" that intonation of ukes.Such a short scale length and lovely stretchy strings . Seems that tiny errors are magnified.Getting the action nice and low to make them easier to fret is about all you can do.Cheers. Actually, that's not quite true. Because string stiffness increases as stri...

I built my own drum sander as well and I've probably put a mile or two of wood through it. It's capable of very accurate thicknessing if you're just patient. Here's the link to pics on my website:

http://www.ukuleles.com/BuildingHowTo/sandthck.html

aloha,

Dave Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com

yes.

aloha,

Dave Hurd

I've always used these metal clamps from the stationer's store and been very happy with them. They're inexpensive and last a very long time.



Dave Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com

Very nice work. Clean and very attractive. I would make two comments: There doesn't appear to be any soundhole backing patch to prevent cracks in the soundhole in the future. The bridge looks to be ~ three times the size of a regular soprano. This will definitely have an adverse effect on tone and v...

If you just want a simple software tuner that works from a PC, this one is fine:

http://www.aptuner.com/cgi-bin/aptuner/apmain.html

A shareware price of $35 USD seems pretty reasonable...

aloha,

Dave Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com

Hi Dom, Well, you haven't really given much in the way of details as to whether it's the shipping company or the packing part so I'll try to give you a little of both from my experience. Packing. Of course a decent case is a good beginning. And when you put the guitar in the case, the neck rest must...

Here's a more general solution until jiefu gets it together...

http://www.ukuleles.com/Technology/calcarc.html

aloha,

Dave Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com

Hi Allen, No problem. Here are some ukulele measurements: 1. Royal Hawaiian 4-string soprano ukulele -- 10 mils 2. Martin 4-string soprano ukulele -- 13 mils 3. Kawika (me) 4-string tenor ukulele -- 12-13 mils 4. Gibson 4-string tenor ukulele -- 13-14 mils aloha, Dave Hurd http://www.ukuleles.com

However, measuring with the strings slack and then under tension and taking the difference and doing this at your two points plus over the bridge (using the side rims as reference) would give an indication of the deflection change for each instrument pretty much taking arching out of the equation. ...

Jeff, I have deflection measurements for four different nylon string guitars. The instruments had been strung up for varying periods of several weeks to several months. Measurements are in mil (thousands of an inch). 1. Kenny Hill Palo Escrito #3027 Classical -- 28 mil 2. Ramirez R31993 Classical --...

Whenever an instrument is strung up to tension, the top deflects downward on the soundhole side of the bridge and upward on the tailblock side of the bridge. No news here. But if we knew the top deflection of an instrument which we deemed to be successful - neither turning into an ashtray within a f...

G'day Jeremy, For the past several years, I've used aluminum flashing as a sheet metal source for my bending slats. It's dirt cheap in rolls from the hardware store and very easy to deal with. You can cut it just with scissors! But don't use your wife's good ones...:wink: aloha, Dave Hurd http://www...

Aloha Matt, Very, very lovely work. So clean and uncluttered yet tastefully detailed. Did you glue the bridge on using Schneider's vacuum clamping approach? Have you had the chance to do spectrum analysis on the tap tones and if so have you noticed the individual effects of the small soundholes as w...

Hi Jeff,

This jig might be useful for you to get a better handle on steel string vs. nylon string compensation values...:

http://www.ukuleles.com/Technology/compensate.html

aloha,

Dave Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com