Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Gezuz Peter...there some serious bling going on there mate! A beautiful instrument.

Frickin spindle moulders.....I'm shit scared of those things! Machines like that should only be operated by blokes with tattoos

Cheers guys! Have you ever tried knives to carve the heel or volute etc? I bought a set of violin knives with the intention of using them for heel and volute carving but only used them once. I tend to rough out using Dragon rasps. the dragon rasps don't chew off as much material as a chisel with ea...

If I were the maker of that guitar I'd be confiscating it off the owner. What sort of person leaves a Gore creation lying on the floor????

"made to be played"? LOL....Made to be Repaired.

1. rough out heel with bench chisel. 2. shape heel with dragon rasps. 3. rough shape neck shaft using spoke shave (flat sole) working along facets marked along neck shaft in with pencil 4. rough shape headstock/neck shaft with dragon rasp and small wood files. 5. final shaping of neck shaft working ...

"survived a drop from waist height onto a wooden floor, landing on the lower bout treble side binding and survived virtually damage free."

But has it survived the ultimate test of resilience.....a full on bar room fight?

Matt_W wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 05, 2025 6:57 pm

Ive heard a rule of thumb "A year per inch thick, plus a year" for wood seasoning, so a 2.5mm top is about 10 weeks? Hopefully i don't have to leave it that long before glueing up

Think that rule would apply for green wood.

I reckon most of the bad workshop fires involve paint thinners.

TomBicknell wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 03, 2025 8:06 pm

Good point about the insurance, Nigel. There’s a number of fire resistant panels on the market, thankfully.

The issue here is cheap mainly Chinese made SIPs that don't meet the building code as far as inflammability rating of materials used in the SIPs. Of particular concern are panels with inflammable skins as well as internal insulating styrene that doesn't have a fire inhibitor added. Prior to construc...

Its my understanding that an instrument drying out is generally worse than having it take on a bit of moisture. For that reason you try and build at a RH that is lower than that of the final destination of the instrument. 30-40% was always my target humidity here in The Adelaide Hills. As I understa...

The cheapest and simplest dry box I ever saw was a cardboard box with an incandesant light bulb. Heat from the bulb was enough to keep the humidity at a reasonably low level.

The problem of course is finding an incandesant light bub these days.

Anyone with the balls to post up warts and all photos of his very first gets my full respect.

You're doing fine for a first build.....looking good.

I want to build it out of insulated panels - think what coolrooms are built of. The basic version is two sheets of Colorbond with 50mm of polystyrene between them for insulation, but you can get versions with PIR foam, which dramatically improves the insulation. They're self-supporting so you don't...

We're using the word "shed"......a term that conjures up images of cobwebs, dust and piles of stuff you should have thrown away years ago.

Workshop is a better term....

Wayne writes up a detailed plan complete with full scale drawings before eating breakfast each morning

Love the attention to detail.

Looking good mate. Nice score with that Stanley plane.

If humidity is an issue then you have a choice of controlling same in the whole shed....or isolating a small part of the shed (ie a cupboard) for humidity control at critical stages of guitar construction. I obsessed a bit about humidity here in The Adelaide Hills and started off with a dehumidifer ...

Had to do a double take there. Thought the thread title read "jockstraps" .

lamanoditrento wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 01, 2025 4:30 pm

Although I do normally know the pallet of woods I want to use.

Pallet loads of tonewood.......LOL

Nice work Wayne....a unique looking instrument with a lot of "personality".

Alan McFarlen will know.

malcolmw wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 21, 2025 11:22 am

Will have to see if i can borrow it from the BGMS library. There are a few things to decide, including soudhole size and back stiffness - lots of fun!

I have a first edition of The Books up for sale on Buy and Sell.

That's what happens when you let WAS get out of control.

Nick wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:25 am

Go west young man (West of NZ that is)

I think most of New Zealand is already over here in Oz..last one to leave please turn out the lights