Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Thanks Mark.

Thinking about number 3, and 4 and 5! Number 3 will be very similar to this one, but it'll be an OM size, 12 frets to the body, cut away. I'll hopefully build it better using the lessons learned from No.2. No. 4 and 5 will be 335 style electrics at this stage.

Thanks for the tips gents. I'm a complete metal working novice, so any help is greatly appreciated.

I now have the raw materials and tools to make a dozen or so double acting truss rods. I reckon this'll last me for years!

Thats a nice looking guitar! Reckon you did better on your first than I did on mine!

Thanks for the replies gents, Why? Why not? I'm a bit of a DIYer at heart so I want to give it a red hot go. Also, as Trevor suggests, I could make any custom length truss rod I desire. Thanks Trevor for the tip on using 5mm instead of 3/16". That'll make buying the tools easier. One metric set of t...

Hi Martin,

"Bunnings should have something". Yeah, they should.... but they don't. At least not around here.

Hi all! I'm considering constructing my own truss rods following the instructions in the excellent Design and Build books by Mr. Gore and Mr. Gillet. I have a few questions though before I take the plunge. 1. Single acting vs dual acting? How many of you steel string builders use a single acting rod...

Thanks for the kind comments. It sounds good! Louder overall than I expected from a small body. Lower notes are stronger than I expected based on the relatively high frequency response of 108Hz. Upper mid range voice is stronger than on an X braced guitar. If I want to strum along to a song I need t...

Good Afternoon all, Well, No.2 is officially finished. This one only took 18 months... It's an OO size, 12 frets to the body, cutaway using the building techniques I've very amateurishly applied from "The Books". Body 460mm long, 360mm wide at lower bout. Too many mistakes, blunders, and mishaps to ...

Looks awesome!

How does it sound?

Bridge routing using the Book method. Works great... so long as you remember to tighten the router fence thumb screws... Bridge Crisis.jpg Oh well, an opportunity to practice some repair skills. Bridge Repaired.jpg Is there anything superglue and wood dust can't do? Bridge - you can't even tell.jpg

Thanks Greg,

Gratefully nicked!

Ready for filling, sanding, and finishing. Thought a small version on the heel cap would be cool.

Patience pays off.

Max 33% dynamic power, 6 passes. Then use a fine tip tool to clean the engraved area out a bit. No heat/burn damage to the surface of the wood and ~0.5mm deep.

Thanks for the tips gents. Here's a pic of my initial trial engraves. East Indian Rosewood. Lowest left hand pic used 75% constant power, max speed (6000mm/min), and 20 lines per mm. Got pretty deep, but there is some scorch marks surrounding the logo. Right hand pic used 50% constant power, all oth...

Hi all, Anyone have a laser engraver? If anyone has a laser engraver and has some tips and tricks - I'm all ears! I recently bought a 5W one and I plan to use it to laser engrave my headstock logo (amongst other cool lasery things). Currently playing around in Inkscape to create a vector version of ...

Hi Rod,

I seem to spend all my time building stuff and not practicing! So I won't assault your ears by recording my "playing"!

Another side project completed over the Xmas period. I upgraded one of my 1 x 10" amps to a 4 x 10" combo. Pine with Meranti racing stripes for fun. 3 alnico speakers and one ceramic - at least until I can find a good deal on a second hand 10" alnico speaker or two. The amp is a heretical blend of t...

Whatever the most difficult thing to do... that's what I usually end up doing.

Too many to list, but here it goes. Female fronted metal: - Epica - Lacuna Coil - Nightwish - Baby Metal - Within Temptation Rock Blues: - Greta Van Fleet - Kadavar - Dorothy - Marcus King - Blood n' Stuff - All Them Witches - Quaker City Night Hawks - Stonefield 90's Chillax: - The Sundays - Mazzy ...

I teased the D-style amp build back here: http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9390 Gratuitous gut shot of wiring progress. chassis - wiring progress.jpg Test fitting the chassis into the cabinet. Simple pine cabinet joined with box joints. Cab test fit.jpg I was shooting for a dark blue cab. So...

I have to say thank you too Greg. I downloaded your spreadsheet a while ago and then used it to step through the calculations in the book. I then made my own version using the constants and values in the book. Extremely helpful thanks.

What spray gun are you using? Full size or one of those modellers ones? I've been thinking of trying spraying if I could spray shellac that'd be ideal!

Also, what's the shelf life of that Hard Shellac stuff?

I'm currently building a 12 fret OO. I overlaid the falcate bracing plan from the Build book on the body plan to get what looked like the best saddle position. Together with a 630mm scale length resulted in 12 frets to the body. I also get 18 frets total. The result is quite a pleasing look to me. T...

Fancy! Thanks for the description. I actually found the root cause of my problem. I found I had to clamp the neck end of the top down to the head block! The UTB was correctly flattened, but longitudinally the top still had too much doming there. Once I clamped the top at the head block, the 2.5mm sp...

Hi Eric,

I was envisioning some sort of post inside the body to restore the longitudinal doming whilst the edges of the top are weighed down to the rims. I'm unsure how to envision what you're describing. Got any pics?