Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Regarding hardness, spotted gum has a Janka hardness score of 11kN, which is not as hard as ebony (14), but it is harder than rosewood (8) and maple (6.4), so it could probably do the job. Among Australian natives, gidgee is harder (16) and so is ironbark (14). Of all of them gidgee is my favourite ...

Lillian Please send anything that you can. It is incredibly hot and dry here. The city of Sydney has such low water reserves that we just instituted severe water use restrictions to spare the dams. We haven’t seen significant rain in months, and everyones garden and lawn is getting crispy. You are o...

I am glad that your place is OK at present Martin. I would hate for all of that nice tonewood to be torrified! It is going to be a long and worrying summer. Smoke everywhere across Sydney for the last few weeks. I think the climate change truth bomb might have finally dropped - although our PM doesn...

Hi Ross. Where do you buy those ones?

I love the pale and stripy look of the camphor laurel. I bet it smells great too! What colour are you planning for bindings? The double cutaway shape is cool. Have you checked out Mike Doolin’s designs? I cant wait to see it finished.

A great looking set. Those two ladies are lucky recipients - and will the third be a keeper?

I think you are going to be OK with that. It might need some compensations built in later like a taller-than-usual bridge, or the fingerboard wedge that Steve suggested. It also looks like a fairly thick soundboard (or maybe I am deceived in the photo, what does it measure?), so you might be able to...

The physical forces are different to some degree (at least in my imagination). In the string through method the strings are pulling up on the soundboard, while pushing down on the bridge (which could improve their coupling). In the tie-down method the strings are putting a rotational force on the br...

Peter,I am sorry for your pain and inconvenience. This seems to be a major scourge of the web economy. I don’t make my living this way but I can see what a huge PITA it must be to deal with this - from individuals who are basically just vandals or extortionists. They should be the first against the ...

As Martin said - this one has been discussed before and a search will reveal some good methods. There are lots of ways to do this job. FWIW this is a post I did regarding my cheap and cheerful method. http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5758&p=66251&hilit=PVC#p66251 A thread also recently went ...

Trent, you really knocked it out of the park with that one. I love the classy austerity of the design. Very Shaker in the styling. Rosette, bindings, headstock - all really original and beautiful, but also simple. If it sounds good too, then it is the whole package!

My copy arrived today. Looks great. Congratulations Graham on another fantastic effort. I can’t wait to have a go at one.

The hotrod truss rods seem well regarded. Lots of people use them. The ones from Allied have been very popular also. A few years ago a group of ANZLF folks did a group buy of Allied rods, and I am still using the ones I got then. With StewMac it is not really worth the shipping cost to get one or tw...

Tassie oak would probably be OK for the blocks. Lets see if anyone here has tried it before? Mortice and tenon is a tried and tested system. How you attach them to each other is the important question. Pinned mortice is not a common way of doing a guitar neck these days - but it was used by Michael ...

Hi Robbie
We love your work. It is staggering how much high quality material you put out for the education of rank amateurs such as myself. Thanks for giving us access to the archive. I would hate you to drop dead on the job with treasures still unreleased to the world!
Best wishes
Mark

Good one Robbie. But I am concerned that you are filmed with the 2016 GAL calendar hanging on the wall behind you. Are you sure we are getting the LATEST information here?

Work out what you are going to do regarding the neck joint before you glue in any neck block, and ideally before you glue the heel to the neck. The most common timber used for neck and tail blocks would be mahogany - same as your neck material. But it doesn’t need to be the same. There are a few opt...

You are ready to glue in the neck and heel blocks. Next decision is what type of neck joint to use - bolt on or dovetail. You can get into a massive debate over this issue but pretty much everyone here at ANZLF seems to be in the bolt-on camp. I think it is definitely the right way to go. Even tradi...

I think the Grellier plan for a 00 is 14 frets clear of the body, and 633mm (24.9 inch) scale length. That would be fine, and no need to deviate from the plan unless you have a specific desire. For your first build it would be best to stick to the drawings - at least as far as dimensions go. You can...

Hi Joseph Looking very good so far. My only comment would be on the glue choice. Is the Gorilla PVA Glue the one you are planning to use for the whole build? I have no experience with it myself, but most people are wary of using PVA glues because of the issue of cold creep which can be an issue over...

My son went to the auction in Melbourne and put in some bids for me. The prices well exceeded the “bargain” estimates in the catalogue, so we ended up empty handed. He commented that it is interesting that unplayable old banjos are a lot cheaper than unplayable old mandolins. But on the other hand s...

If you have some left over after a glue up you can freeze it. I make it up in a small jam jar that sits in a baby bottle warmer during use. After the job is done just put the lid on and stick it in the freezer. Then straight back to the warmer when you want to reuse it. You can leave left-over glue ...

A fascinating project, and nice design. Shame it missed out on the scrimshaw treatment.
15 fret. Is that unusual?

The grins there are priceless!

So now I understand why it is called Qld walnut - it looks just like walnut, which is one of my favourite guitar timbers. That instrument looks great! How is it to work with? It is nice to see indigenous timbers pairing up so well.