Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I'm Arnt Rian from Norway, 46, some of the oldtimers around here has probably seen my name in a few of the other guitarmaking forums. I think I joined this forum when it started, but I haven't posted here much... I built my first acoustic in 2000, and according to my friends and family, I've pretty ...

I finally broke down and bought the expensive SM endpin reamer a few years ago, after when I was tired of fiddling with several different drill bits, cauls and whatnot. This thing just works, with no danger of wood of finish chipping, and a perfectly fitting, straight, centered hole (at least if you...

There a few different ways to do this, depending of the order of building steps, among other things. I assume that Kentucky top in your picture is straight from their CNC machine, the Dudenbostel link shows how he used to do it (I believe ha also has a CNC now), which is probably closer to how Gibso...

Violin family instruments always have butt joints, as do lots of arch top guitars. I do A-style mandolins this way, but I've never done it on a guitar, on those I usually do the mitered side purfling thing. Here's a dread I just finished, which has no side purflings, so I thought about going with a ...

Hi folks, I haven't been around much lately, but I heard about the hacker episode. I'm certainly glad to see everything up and running again, keep up the good work.

I'm pretty sure Klepper didn't come up with the concept of the wedge bridge design originally, I have seen a number of 'contemporary' archtops that use variations of it. I believe D'aquisto was among, if not the first to use it. Brekke mandolin bridges use a slightly different wedge design, check ou...

I am making a 000 12 fret, here is what the inside of the top looks like






The back and sides are Madagascan rosewood, linings are willow.

I read quickly through the link, and perhaps it was covered in there somewhere, but I didn’t see it, so… "Universal motors", typically smaller high rpm motors such as those found in routers, are safe to use on 50 or 60 Hz. The problems, if they occur, are with larger "ordinary" electrical motors...

Hi Ervin, I had the pleasure of attending your "soundboard voicing" lectures at the 2005 AISA. Thankfully I took a lot of notes and pictures, so even without the video I remember it vividly. Other highlights of that symposium were lectures by the late Tom Humphrey, Dan Erlewine, a mandolin panel wit...

I am doing a "build thread" over on LuthierCommunity, here is an excerpt that covers how I do this. This will be a slothead, and I aim for a final thickness of 19 mm. I will use both front and back headstock veneers, which both will be 1.5 mm, so I need to thin the headstock to 16 mm. I mark this di...

Yeah i have learned the hard way, i made a few backs and tops, only to find that they are now so distorted i dont know what to do with them, they were braced, any ideas on salvaging? Ricardo, if the plates have not cracked or split, just chisel the braces off, make sure you give the wood time to st...

If you sealed the rosette channel prior to installing the rosette, it should be pretty safe to fill with CA. Personally, I would probably fill with epoxy, as I normally use epoxy for porefilling anyways, and I would apply shellac before and after the porefilling (like Rick suggests). Those pores sur...

New Stanley spokeshaves like the 151 can be greatly improved by upgrading the iron and some tuning. Out of the box, it is basically a kit and not a tool that is ready to use, in my opinion. Here's what I did to mine: * File away the globs of "Japanning" on iron's bed so it becomes a nice and flat ex...

Lars is pretty much my favourite contemporary Scandinavian builder and as soon as I manage to locate exactly where it is I am planning bulglarize his stash of BRW.

It is a beautiful rosette! When I make this type of rosette , I join the pieces (with CA), rout the outside and inside circumferences and glue everything into a matching rabbet on the guitar. It doesn't matter if it fits perfectly at this point, because I will rout for the purfling lines which separ...

Nothing you haven't seen before here, but since I made it and took some pictures, I thought I'd show and tell... It's a neck / body mortise jig, nothing fancy, in fact I should be ashamed of how shoddy it looks, but it works! Until now I have cut both neck tenons and neck block mortises on the table...

Hi Martin, I have some pear wood drying in the shed. I can slice up some bridge blanks for you if you're interested.

It's going to be a beauty, Martin.

Madrose 000 and my favourite chisel.

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Sorry, I don't have those numbers for you. The dimensions and angle of the slots etc depends on many things, like nut width, distance between nut and string post, headstock thickness... Unless you are following a good plan or copying an existing instrument, it is a good idea to draft everything with...

It should work just fine. The way I judge the temperature on my home made bending iron is to spray some water on the pipe; if the water just sizzles it is too cold, if it evaporates instantly it is too hot, so you need to be somewhere in between. The temperature can easily be adjusted by regulating ...

Nice tupperware, Hesh. Too bad they were out of pink. :lol: I tore up an old office desk and built a work bench around the drawer cabinets. I keep my sand paper in a deep drawer that has plywood dividers, which helps to keep things reasonably organized. Not up to Hesh’s standards of course, but fu...

had to see it again

...yeah, that's nice, but I prefer this method

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bVAAx3m ... re=related

I finally got around to some building again. Here's a Lutz / ziricote 000 with ash bindings and ash and rosewood pruflings http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i100/gitarian/ziricote%20og%20elgitar/bak.jpg http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i100/gitarian/ziricote%20og%20elgitar/foran.jpg Then there's th...