Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

That's from the treble side and clearly shows off the gaps between fingerboard and top and heel and body as well as showing the hex head pivot/yaw bolt on the treble side, the adjustment screw, and the locking screw (closest to the heel). Let's see about an internal shot: http://www.anzlf.com/phpBB2...

Dennis, you'll not find my acoustics on my website easily. Once again, be patient and wait for the Summer issue of Fretboard Journal to come out to see almost all of what I'm doing these days with acoustic guitars. Mass under the fingerboard is not needed if you stiffen it up sufficiently. I'll get ...

For tops and for bracing, the basic requirement is for superior stiffness to weight to density. This adds up to low damping, too. Then you also want material that has low shrinkage, especially with braces that are to be glued across the grain of the top or back, so relatively high longitudinal shrin...

I'll be teaching the first round of my "Build a Mandolin in Four Days" next weekend in Woodbridge under the sponsorship of the Tasmanian Adult Education Department and the Folk Federation of Tasmania. The class is full-up, but I'm hoping to get back in August for another round, and then I'll slightl...

The real question is not "why not?", but "why?" Does it have stiffness to weight characteristics similar to or better than, for instance, Sitka spruce? Believe me, I understand the desire to use local timbers, but you need to know the properties of each wood in relationship to the job you want them ...

Dennis, if you're looking at my Renaissance guitar designs, you're looking at totally the wrong instruments for this discussion. They have very little in common with the acoustics I build other than the peghead shape and the fact that they're mostly made out of wood. One of the confounding things ab...

Ahhh, but whose tradition? :-) From my point of view, what I'm doing has at least 100 years of tradition behind it, and that's not going back to Stauffer, Schertzer, Christan Frederick Martin, Zimmerman, etc. who were doing tilt neck guitars...with cantilevered fingerboards...in the early and mid 19...

I'll post some pictures, and the June/Summer issue of Fretboard Journal will have some great shots as well. Nothing I've done with this is patented, and anyone who wants to do it can do so as far as I'm concerned. Most of it is "prior art", and the rest that may be original to me is public domain. I...

I can only say that the way I've done it on about 20 guitars works just fine. Not in theory, not on paper, not in my mind, not in mock-ups...but in reality on real guitars that make real music. They're easy as can be to adjust. It takes all of about ten seconds...fifteen if you fumble with the Allen...

Have you considered cantilevering the fingerboard and freeing up the upper bout of the top so it can vibrate? Have you considered accessing the bolts with an extra-long Allen wrench through a hole in the butt end of the guitar so you don't have to loosen the strings? Have you built this yet?

Please understand that I was never advocating NOT thinking and planning, but what I have seen is some folks getting totally wound up and paralyzed by the thought process to the point where they are afraid to commit to cutting and shaping wood. There are so many "but what if" statements running aroun...

Note taken, but not needed as there was no criticism intended. However, I must say that I see a lot of luthierie discussions on the Internet where a good couple of years fixing guitars would clear up a lot of issues for folks who want to make guitars. There are a lot of discussions that would benefi...

Here's the thing, the best guitar builders I know put the blinders on at some point early in their careers, and they build one after another after another, etc. They spend a lot of time talking to musicians, and if they're lucky, they get someone who can give honest and helpful constructive criticis...

Ahhh, so I'm in the minority as a pro builder here? Hmmm... Well, being a pro does push a certain level of practicality to the forefront for me. I like elegant, simple solutions that are fairly easy to do in a small, boutique production environment and that serve the clients well. I like to design a...

Well, I did plan, and I studied some old guitars with adjustable neck joints. I added my own spin, but didn't get all hung up about it, and it works. It's not that I don't plan; it's that I don't let planning stop me from doing hands-on three dimensional sketching in wood. What I see here is an awfu...

Oh, yes, the two upper bolt heads are the pivot surfaces.

Correct, there is one bolt holding against the string tension. Why would the neck ride up and shift? Here's the thing...as I said it's really easy to get all up in your head, over intellectualizing and spun out imagining ways this won't work. Just build one. Build one your way, build one my way, do ...

The "yaw/intonation" screws thread into inserts in the face of the heel below the fingerboard, and they're counterbored (spot faced) into the heel face to minimize the gap. The faces of the head bear against the upper side outside the neck block and right below the binding. I'll be inlaying a metal ...

Aside from her, what I have to watch out for is the products of the Lark Distillery in Hobart! Lou plays there practically every Friday evening with one of her bands, Coyote Serenade. I'll be there Friday the 11th, by the way, so if any of you happen to be in the neighborhood, pop on in.

Mine is not necessarily the best, but it works; it's easy; and it's got a long, long track record behind it...not my own track record, by the way, I speaking of the Howe Orme guitars I love so much which, for their day, were a step above and beyond the Martins of that era (OK, just my opinion!). My ...

This neck joint thing is so fraught with myth and "old wives' tales" it isn't funny anymore. Nobody who has played a 100 year old Howe Orme believes all the malarky anymore about dovetails and lot's of surface contact and all that. The guitars blow away practically any instrument of that vintage wit...

One other comment on guitar weight... If anyone knows about how good some heavy guitars can be, it should be you Aussies! Two names: Greg Smallman and Jim Redgate... The classical guitar lutherie world has learned a lot, as traditionally bound as their aesthetics may remain. One of the things they'v...

Lose the top bolt, and put the yaw/intonation screws into the face of the heel with heads bearing against the outside of the guitar, and you've got it. Everything is adjustable from the outside of the guitar with full string tension on. I use 1/2" Baltic birch for the head/neck block and it's suppor...

I've cut the headblock down to absolute minimum and have dealt with the forces on it by using flying buttress braces...a double "A-line" of carbon fiber rods that take the pressure on the headblock and transfer it down into the sides at the waist. I've repaired too many guitars and mandolins that we...

I am NOT using hardware store variety tee-nuts...it's a brass shouldered threaded insert. I just call it a tee-nut because that's how it basically works. The only aesthetic concerns become the exposed pivot bolts, the gap between heel face and the end of the guitar, and the two holes in the heel for...