Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I'm not an electrician by any means, but I am remodeling my house and I just read a book on wiring. My amateur opinion is that you have two problems. 1) There is something wrong with the wiring in your amp. One of the wires somewhere in there has electrical contact with the chassis and that needs to...

On further investigation, I find there are even companies making UV-emitting LEDs specifically for UV finish curing.

There are UV fluorescent bulbs that are sold for the purposes of sterilization and for hardening of fingernail polish and cost US$10-60. I don't know if they produce the right wavelengths for the guitar lacquer, but if a cabinet from the lacquer supplier is $10,000 to $100,000, I think I would inves...

I have finished my Gore-Gillet falcate-braced steel string. I'm not much of a player, but as I have carted it around to folks looking for feedback, the responses have been VERY encouraging. The issues have been: - Fit and finish: I have not yet perfected my woodworking skills to the point needed for...

Very nice work. One of your headstock inlays is similar to one I recently did, though I have to say yours is more neatly done than mine. I have yet to master neatly and accurately excavating the inlay cavity.

Thanks, guys. I spent five minutes last night reconfiguring the nut slot and the string started sounding normal. One more fret buzz to nail and I'll be done.

Thanks for your help and advice.

First guitar made using The Book:

If I play the open note on the high E string, it sounds kind of like a sitar string. I don't notice this on the other strings nor it the second string is fretted to play the same note as the first string.

Anyone have an idea what might be going on?

Trevor- Wow! Thanks for the feedback! I had no idea anyone was paying attention and I had no idea I would be able to get so close! Woot! I suspect my actual execution was done with less precision than your modeling, but my guitar still plays pretty darned nicely as far as intonation goes. Thanks for...

Perhaps an abrasive flap wheel - basically a wheel with fingers of sand paper. You would need something temporary in the fret slots to keep that part high - perhaps stiff rubber would do it - but it might give the kind of wear you would expect from many years of being played.

I finished up my first Gore and Gilet-style steel-string acoustic yesterday. My wife was out of town last week so I was able to work on it pretty much whenever I wasn't at my day job. I spent much of the week at the dining room table, trying to get the intonation right. I tried using the Quick and D...

Mostly I think you are kidding yourself, but if you wanted to take a serious try, you could laminate the sides with the veneer and layers of spruce and then do a double-top style back with the maple, then nomex, then spruce. It might be crap, but it might be amazing.

Does anyone have any well-reasoned prejudices for slotting the bridge or the bridge pins when executing a steel string based on The Book? From what I can see: Slot the bridge and the ball end gets hung up on the end of the pin less often. Slot the pin and you don't start out with a bridge plate that...

The font used for the detail information and the decorative flourishes both have line weights that vary significantly and do not have a drop shadow. I would want to see what it would look like with the "Malu" in a font that had varying weights depending on line direction. I don't know if it would lo...

Well...

Perdomo Reserve 10th Anniv. Champagne ROBUSTO lacquered wood cigar box humidor

http://r.ebay.com/wbcVMY

Yup, leather dye will work fine. Stew-Mac sells Fiebing's black leather dye as their fingerboard stain. And, yes, I don't want to use real African ebony, either. Its ecological status is too fragile and, in addition, it expands and contracts too much to really be a good fingerboard for guitars. I am...

When I have been moved to start a cigar box guitar, I go on down to the local cigar store and offer them $3 or $5 a box. Is that not an option in Australia? If, for some reason, cigar boxes are rare and unusual beasts in Australia, I can mail you folks some. It would be a waste to spend a lot on tra...

Excellent!
1) I have a second reason to buy another tool (my wife would say "YET another tool")!
2) I have a reasonable way of dealing with the glue overflow!
and
3) I have a way of avoiding glue overflow.

That's what I call a productive forum inquiry!

-Doug Shaker

The Book recommends running a thin bead of Titebond along the fret slot and then pressing or hammering the fret wire in place. I have not had much luck putting a thin bead of Titebond accurately down the slot. Sometimes I get it right, but often I get slop on my nice sanded-to-400-grit fretboard and...

Good point on the plane width.

My wooden planes are bevel down with the chip-breaker positioned about a millimeter or less behind the edge. And the plane mouth about 0.25 millimeters from the edge on the other side. Perhaps I should just be using a scraper on wood this wonky.

I have had some success making wooden planes for my lutherie work. I'm currently working on some curly black walnut with one of my planes and it is obvious I need to make a high-angle version of my block plane to avoid tear-out. Does anyone have any prejudices about either the ideal width or the ide...

Good point about the case. I expect that bit of wisdom was learned through experience.

For others interested in the baritone question, a copy of Cladersmith's paper can be found at: http://www.csc.kth.se/utbildning/kth/kurser/DT2212/Guitar%20Caldersmith.pdf Caldersmith defines a baritone as a fifth below a standard guitar (C-C tuning). He aims for a main air resonance of about 72 hert...

Well, I see I haven't exactly set off a storm of discussion. Here are my thoughts, so far. 12-strings: Actually, you don't really want the frequency profiles to change much, so just engineer for greater strength. Don't change the body shape. Don't change the bracing pattern. Just make the bridge and...

I'm trying to think about how the design principles of The Book(s) can be applied 12-string guitars and baritones. The 12-string, obviously needs to be stronger to take the greater string tension. The string tension will be approximately doubled, so if the braces were 26% higher (cube root of 2 = ap...

One of the guys (can't remember who, now) ended up building an acoustic "nest" around his guitar using old cushions etc. to kill of the extraneous noise and got much better results. Looking at your plots, there seems to be lot's of noise and not much signal, so the root of your problems may be the ...