Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Thanks for the offer of assistance Steve, I'm a bit wary of trying new things on other people's valuable (sentimental and/or financial) instruments. If you want the job I can see if they want to sent it to WA...just let me know what the cost of the repair would be and they can decide if the cost of ...

Hi All, Happy new year! One of my contacts has asked me to repair a torn vellum on an antique banjo mandolin - I have no experience in this area. If any of you can do this sort of repair, or know someone who can in Melbourne, please contact me (bdguitars@gmail.com) and I'll pass the details on. Here...

Gorgeous sound Ed. And I don't think you need to find someone else to show off the guitar's sound, your playing was beautiful.

Beautiful heirloom you have there Ed. As others have mentioned, the timbers are superb, and I really love the way the neck laminations show at the sides of the heel-really organic sort of flow to it. You must be very happy with the detail using your Grandfather's blackwood-it's come out so elegant. ...

Thanks for the quick reply Jeremy, I'll check it out.

Is there an Aussie version of trademe.co.nz? (I tried trademe.com.au, and the nz site came up)

Where would you look for good second-hand equipment in Melbourne - e-bay doesn't seem to be the place that good old machines go.

Very cool idea.

There are a couple of versions that use table routers (for those who don't have budget/space for overhead pin routers):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ubNo3pS0g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv-mLftEiRM

Thanks Markus. I think that either kitchen scale to shed or go-bar deck to kitchen would result in sharp knife to genitals. It wasn't difficult for me to bend the thick rods (maybe I'm just super strong? :lol: ) but the lifting of the bench makes me wonder about these rods giving too much pressure. ...

Thanks guys. Looks like I have some experimenting to do. I doubt that my wife will let me take her kitchen scales into the shed, but I'll try to sneak the bathroom scales out while no-one is watching, and see how I can get to just over 2kg per rod.

I'd agree, they are a bit on the heavy side. I got my wife to buy me 6 packs as I was interstate until last weekend. However, by joining two together and using a longer length, you get more flex and a bit more opportunity to control the pressure. I know that doubles the cost, but for me it will mak...

Thanks for the update Kim and for the idea Trev. Very useful info.

Another question - how do the K&K pickups without separate pre-amps go with mixing with magnetic pickups? Is the output strong enough to mix directly, or do they really need a pre-amp?

Thanks Kim.

Nice sound on that clip, but with the talent of the player I'm sure that any guitar/pickup would sound good.

The instructions use the pin holes to position the transducers. Any thoughts how to do it with a pinless bridge?

Thanks for the heads up, Paul. I headed down to K-Mart Chadstone today and scooped up 6 packs of the F/G poles. I even left a few packs for other ANZLF'ers. Does anyone have any guidelines for how much to flex them into place? That is, for the 700mm pole, about how much space should there be between...

Thanks for the reply Bob. How many layers do you have in your laminations? Are they all parallel grained, or do you have a cross-grained layer?

Thanks,

Brian.

Bob, if you're not using veneers, how are you getting to .040" in your laminations? Are you laminating thicker pieces and then thicknessing? What's the difference in end result between what you're doing and laminating veneers?

Thanks,

Brian.

Thanks for all the words of encouragement.

Can anyone identify which species it is from the photos? If it helps, I could probably find some leaves - the gutters are still full of them (another job on the list).

Brian.

OK, so here are the logs http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/brian64/eucaluypt/th_SAM_1082.jpg , which look like this from the top http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/brian64/eucaluypt/th_SAM_1081.jpg .As you can see there's already a bit of checking, so gotta get to work. I'm hoping that ther...

Paul, it sounds like you've done everything right. I usually use more coats than that, especially on the top. I don't consider myself an expert, but I have used more coats-around 20. I have only finished one softwood top with tru-oil and it is still going well after 4 years. There is a bit of a comp...

Hi Paul, Hardness has to do with how long you leave the product to dry between coats as well as how many coats. I have found that older Tru-Oil actually takes longer to harden too. In any case it will never be as hard as poly or nitro, if that's what you were expecting. Is the top a softwood (I don'...

Thanks for the replies Alastair and John, I'll have to get some paint on the end grain ASAP. Excuse my ignorance in these matters, but what are the alternatives to the chainsaw for cutting the initial fillets? Or should I just hit Bunnings on the weekend and get a chainsaw? I'm planning on using it ...

Hello All. We finally had a eucalypt from our back yard cut down today, which will save me countless hours of raking and cleaning gutters from all the leaves and twigs it dropped. Not to mention the fear of big branches falling on my workshop. I've had the fellers cut a few 25" sections of the trunk...

I've bought Tru-Oil at a gunshop on Clayton road in Clayton (Vic), but found then found it much cheaper on e-bay. If you buy a few bottles, (which will last better than a big bottle), it works out much cheaper than buying it in Oz. It is about $5.40 (A$) a bottle so it isn't difficult to beat the $1...

Thanks,

I went back to look for his e-mail address and found that I had downloaded the wrong version - I had the legacy mac version, when I should have downloaded the Java application - the Java 1.2 version works fine.

Brian

Thanks Martin. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. Got an error message when I tried to decompress with Stuffit expander.