Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Here is one of my recent mandolins. Very pleasing sound, really surprised me. I call it the Ash tone monster.
Top: Carpathian Spruce
Back and sides: Tassie Oak
Neck: Qld Maple
Bindings: Myrtle
Pickguard: Blackwood



Peter

You may very well be correct re laminating, but my (now ex) supplier does not like laminated shell and only supplies solid shell material so I don't know.

I wondered about that, but my US supplier (who is no longer my supplier becasue of the above BS), informed me that the southern Australian Abalone is not good for inlay because the shell is too thin. He did try a few shells, but was not happy with the results. So, it is not really being wasted being...

Point taken (i.e. every piece of wood is different), but I have made around 25 mandolins from Red Spruce, around 60 from European Spruce from the Alps and probably about 15 from Engelmann, the rest are King Billy and few other odds and sods. They all sound different, but on average there are some ch...

Bloody paperwork will kill the planet before global warming ever will. Ha ha, Well observed Nick. Just confirmed that even if only for personal use, the importer does need to fill out form 1-177 in order to be legal. If for personal use there is no inspection fee charged. This is what I got from US...

Great, thanks Bob. Very tasy looking guitar. Any more guitar makers used it? To date I have finished 4 mandolins with Carpathian Spruce and have been very happy with all 4. Two had European Maple back and sides, one has Big Leaf Maple, and the other is Tassie Oak. Currently working on the second F h...

Have any of you had any experience with Carpathian Spruce? I imported some of John Preston's wood from the US (logged in Romania) for my mandolins around 2 years ago and have been very impressed with the sound I get with this wood. It has a different sound from the European Spruce from the Alps, and...

I concur, cabinet scraper followed by sanding and elbow grease. Done that many a time. Yep, it clogs rapidly so make sure you have plenty of garnet paper. Metho is of limited use if you want to strip it completely.

Maybe I should start experimenting with ways to build a guitar out of Pinus Radiata Ha, ah, funny you say that. I just carved a mandolin top from Pinus radiata (known as P. crapiata by the builders around here). It goes bong in all the right places so should sound ok, but is so ugly I can't bring m...

I suggest you stock up on wood while you can. I don't have any problems with stopping imports of illegally harvested wood, just so long as it is implemented properly and has minimum impact on imports of legal wood. Harassing importers of very small quantities of wood or wood products is going to do ...

Interesting, what happened to Carbatec Canberra? Gone bust? If so I am not surprised, and serve them jolly well right right (long story). I just hope some poor innocents did not get caught up in it.

Yes it does apply to the US importer (but not if the instrument is for personal use only), but the US Fish and Wildlife don't know how much Abalone there is unless they inspect it. Regardless, if the music instrument is for commercial use (i.e. for resale), the importer needs to go through these hoo...

I have just weighed the amout of Paua in the instrument in question and it comes to less than 1gm! As far as the Lacey act business is concerned, and the problems with Ebony, I have been advised by my ebony fingerboard supplier in the USA that the Ebony is Diospyros melanoxylon from India. All my Eb...

Before the forum got hacked there was some discussion about the ridulous new rules the US has introduced that has effectively stopped export of shell from the USA. Well I may need to send an instrument to the USA shortly and it has some Paue inlay so I needed to find out the rules for import of shel...

Is it like a helicoil? the type of thing you would repair, say a stripped thread in a engine block with?

Yep. I don't have any pictures.

Has anyone read the article by RM Mottola in the Spring 2010 edition of American Lutherie? He found that a self tapping machine-screw insert performed better than the inserts meant for wood. This was especially true for woods harder than Mahogany such as Maple. This surprised me since like just abou...

Don't know about guitars, but I have used it in my mandolins. It is heavier and stiffer than Spruce, so you can thin it a bit more than Spruce. Soundwise it has a sweet tone with lots of fundamental, less overtones than Spruce, and the instrument I made was very responsive and loud. So if you want a...

I have both and both get used. The drum sander gets used for sanding sides to thinkness and making bindings etc. Is also useful for very highly figured woods that the planer would tear out, but I would probably use it less than a guitar maker. I did without a thicknesser/planer until recently when I...

Quote: I've invested in wood to take me into the next 10 years. I'm afraid it's the luthiers' addiction and is the only way to combat this lunacy. Me too. Laughing Trouble is I keep finding new woods I like the sound of more, and then the old wood I stocked up with becasue I though I would use lots...

Jeepers creepers that brings back memories. Aexion, whether you run your little guitar enterprise as a business or not really depends on your intentions. If it is a part time activity that makes little or no profit, and you have a full time job, then there is really no need to start a business, and ...

No need to be scared of an accountant. All you need to do is to make an appointment to discuss what is necessary to start up a small business. Do what they tell you to do and then all you need to do after that is to give the accountant all the information they need at tax time. There is no need for ...

Starting a home business - first find an accountant. They will tell you what paperwork you will need to do before you start and what paperwork you need to maintain to keep the tax man happy. I'm lucky, the other half is an accountant, so that bit is easy. There is a lot more to a small business than...

I have imported a lot of timber from the USA and from Europe over a 16 year period, but not from Stew Mac becasue their prices are not very competitive on timber. Never had any problem. Sometimes they open the package and it arrives looking like it had been run over by a truck, but there have been n...

Geoff As already mentiioned, most Luthiers have a "real" job. The best advice I can give to you is first to get yourself a job that pays the bills and puts food in your mouth. If that involves working in the music business then great. If not then at least you won't starve. I have had lots of queries...

I use metric unless there is no choice. Just had to measure an instrument for a case in imperial. Hated it. High probability of mistakes.
_________________
Mandolin and mandola maker