Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I have bought a 610mm engineer's straight edge that I thought was guaranteed to be accurate to +/- 0.025mm. But that turns out to be for its straightness, not its length. So now I am wondering the best way to measure my straight edge to an accuracy for setting up a full nut/saddle compensated setup?

Trent did you make any modifications to the bridge design after you failures? I notice the "valley" between the tie block and the saddle ramp doesn't extend all the way across the bridge top. Yes the 2nd bridge really threw me and had me thinking hard about making sure the 3rd one stuck. The 1st on...

Drill using a depth stop, then rout the channel to expose the holes. That way you avoid any breakout from drilling the holes

18 hole bridge drilling jig

Lovely work Trent. Lots of nice individual touches. Well done with the 18 hole bridge. It creates such a clean look and good function. When I tried it once I got a good functional outcome, but mine doesn't bear close inspection of the regularity of the hole placement. Did you develop any good trick...

Very nice. Love the headstock design

More good tutes. Thanks Steve

Thanks all. Pretty happy to have it off my bench with 2 bridge failures for that one finally stayed on. As for the sound, to tell you the truth I am having a hard time telling any difference to Englemann. It is a little thinner at 2.1mm target thickness for what it is worth but how that translated i...

I have finally finished No.4. Lutz spruce (thanks Martin Kiwigeo), blackheart sassafras (thanks Bobthebuilder), mahogany neck, IRW fretboard, wenge bridge, flamed maple binding and arm bevel. It is full BOBO neck (using Strato's bolt-on Spanish heel), compound radius fretboard with EVO frets, MOP 12...

Welcome to the sunshine state Nigel. You could give Aaron Fenech a buzz, he runs a large workshop and school in Miami on the GC

+1 on the QLD maple and David Linton in Malaney

Beautiful work as always Allen

I agree. It was a good idea though, maybe just needed thinner strips near the SB, or the top contour to follow the substrate contour more. Or may just a more consistent colour scheme with the balance with the rest of the guitar. Anyway, I think it was an experiment and I appreciate you sharing.

I find the acquacote needs at least 4 or 5 applications. Also, make sure you seal with shellac first otherwise some colour can bleed into the filler while your squeegying or rubbing it in and you end up patches of a slightly opaque filler rather than clear. But actually at the moment, I am loving th...

Congrats Chris on passing the ANLF target thickness rite of passage

Well done. That is is a very attractive guitar. Do you have any shots of the interior we ogle too?

In practice it is very hard to achieve in order to get an exact, totally invisible blend. This adds to the complication of a sand through, of course. ... If you look at refinished standard shellac on old guitars, they always look pretty patchy colourwise. ...but this is what I feared. Thanks Trevor...

Crafty Fox wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:41 pm

If the "old" finish is only a few weeks old then won't the new finish soon catch up in appearance?

That is what I am hoping....

Well, I enjoyed that. I will have to keep an eye out next time I am over

It is hard to photograph but you can kinda see it here:

Well, I had a 2nd bridge failure that after removing the bridge has led me to routing a pocket and inlaying fresh spruce under the bridge footprint. When levelling the new spruce I have sanded through the hard shellac in front of the spruce. Last time I just sanded everything off and started anew. T...

Well done Jim A first and completely solo build is very impressive. Have you shortened the scale length?

Well that is my Monday morning productivity shot

We use Chris Ensors jig https://elevatelutherie.com/product/ult ... nding-jig/ and get good result on student builds (if they have done a decent job leveling their sides first).

Well, that was a fizzer! I do not understand at all what happened, but the fellow cancelled saying it was too overwhelming. All I did was give him some options on SB & neck and asked if he had thoughts on a scale length he'd like. Talk about hot and cold, he had been really insistent on trying to gi...

Lovely! Whatever that palm is, it looks fantastic