Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

One of the advantages to making your own is that you can make it so the instrument will intonate better than it most likely will with a standard bridge. As for which type of bridge design will sound best, that is a much debated subject in the mandolin crowd... If you are used to the sound of the sta...

Nice stuff, everyone. Gawd, I wish I had something interesting going on in the shop! My building has been on the back burner for a looong time now, I'm still trying to finish fixing up my old house... I did score a couple of bolts of local spruce the other day, when the farmer just up the road was d...

I use 2 pipe clamps that have some light weight ply as the jaws. These are lined with foam. The work bench can have either some threaded bases attached so the pipe from the clamp will thread on, or in my case, some longer pipe and I just drilled holes through the rail on one end of my bench. Very e...

Another winner, Steve. Congrats!

Here's my main work bench. It is a pretty large island type bench that has a solid beech counter top (inexpensive, from Ikea) and a base made from recycled office furniture and construction lumber. It is quite heavy and stable, more than adequate for the type of work I do at it. I also have a tradit...

Another stinking guitar? I thought you moved out of that bathroom shop, what, about 10 guitars ago...? I guess that odor really lingers.

Nice job again, Buddy. The nut and frets look exquisite, I bet it is a pleasure to play.

It looks wonderful, Lillian. Congrats! About the side reinforcements: I like to have them span the whole height of the sides, not just the distance between the linings for fear of creating a weak point between the two. With side tapes, I believe most builders just glue the linings right over them (I...

Hello, little James Burns. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, James—God damn it, you've got to be kind. (With apologies to K. Vonnegut) Congrat...

Craig, your thickness gauge puts most designs I have seen, mine included, utterly to shame. What a beauty! I got one of these metric dial gauges from Axminster in the UK. http://www.axminster.co.uk//images/products/ADG_xl.jpg I put it in a simple bandsawed plywood frame with the rounded tip of a bol...

Hi David, as you can see some of the members on this forum aren't even close to any part of Pacific ocean, but the good folks here still made us feel welcome, so you shouldn't have anything to worry about as far as geographical location! I am thrilled to have a builder of your caliber among us, and ...

My warning to you all: Never, ever renovate. Buy a house that's ready to live in and you can spend your weekend working on guitars (or Basses Mathew) rather than wondering why the friggin roof hasn't fallen in and killed you. Man, does that sound familiar! :( We bought the house we are currently li...

Lillian, I am very happy for you, congrats to both Fan and you! (I can't think of anything clever to say, sorry!)

Ouch! Doesn't look like much of the bridge was actually glued to that poor plywood top...

Long ship rowing, now you're talking! No coincidence that our single gold medal is in rowing... single scull (funny word!), though. Kiwi, yes I imagine they try to catch as much sun as they can, lots of folks up here will get a bit silly and run around in their shorts as soon as the snow disappears,...

Summer Olympics, what's that? Too darn hot, that's what!!! Now, winter Olympics on the other hand... (this outburst has nothing, nothing I say, to with our meager 4 medals so far... )

Lovely looking guitar!

Hi Dominic, here's a link to a thread over on OLF with pictures of how I did my new workshop. My basement shop is probably quite similar to yours, like you I have one large window and several smaller ones higher up on the walls. http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=16908 I went...

Hi Allen, that sounds like a real hassle alright. How do you handle this with your other tools, not to mention woods? How do you control humidity in your shop? I love using the scraper for stuff like this, it makes it really easyto true up the sides and bindings, and you avoid kicking up so much of ...

Here's what I've been up to; a coco / Italian spruce steel string. The new shop already looks like a mess of course...




Here's a close-up. Gotta be a Sandvik scraper!

I do it the same way as Bob and Craig, and I have noticed the same thing; the neck feels more solid as you move up and you get less ‘dead spots’ in the higher positions. I probably can’t give you the right technical terms for this but it seems that a more solid foundation for the fretted notes...

Hi Dave that is a very generous thing to do (also a smart way to get some publicity for your brand I bet, nice move there :D)! The guitar looks unmistakably like a Dave White product, which I like a lot; both the product and the fact that you have such a easily recognizable style, that is. Unfortuna...

I have the Stewmac blade and ss fretboard template and I use a plywood/melamine sled with wooden runners. My table saw has a 20 mm arbor, so I had a local machine shop ream out the hole on the saw blade, but that was no biggie at all. Everything works very well for me One warning: These blades have ...

646 mm is pretty close to 25,4", so nothing unusual about that. One option that you didn't mention (and I don't particularly like this method, but I have seen it done some times) is shimming the heel with a contrasting wood, thereby gaining the necessary length to maintain your original scale length...

Hi Hesh, good luck on the move! Give us a chance to provide you with 50 contradicting opinions on your bench layout and everything else in your shop, all right? :lol: I moved into this house 8 years ago, most of it (except the shop) I've not finished renovating yet... If Sonny is half as patient as ...

Make one!