Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

The curious thing about this company, with the unlikely name of one of the partners (Rev Archimedes Bailey!), is that I have never heard of them actually building anything. Someone put a lot of time and effort into those plans, but what happened. Any Melbourne forum members ever been to 140 Gold St,...

Folks, I have to do a talk on mandolin soundboards in a couple of months and I would like to have an old canted bowlback mandolin soundboard to show. Does anyone have a totally past all hope of restoration bowlback with an intact soundboard that is taking up otherwise useful space in their workshop?...

I did some research on behalf of the National Museum a couple of years back and I do have a database listing most Australian professional instrument builder (past and present, like back to the early 19th century). There are around 330 entries and around 130 have guitars mentioned. That number won't ...

I have been using lengths of 10mm dowel for 25 years, but they are 40-42" long, and that gives them enough whippyness to work in a go-bar deck the same height. I suspect the common 24" ones would work fine in fiberglass, but be rather stiff in wood. Alan, if you have built a deck of a, now fixed hei...

An unfortunate semi acronym which translates as Citterns, Bouzoukis, Octave Mandolins

A term I refuse to use

graham (grumpy on a wednesday night)

'afternoon, I gather what you are thinking about building is effectively a wooden bodied tenor banjo with nylon strings. A couple of things to think about. 490mm/19" is a funny inbetween scale length, a bit too short for GDae OM tuning, but maybe about right for a long Cgda mandola. My online string...

I think animal glue smells like animal glue. Its all just melted down horse's hooves or something. I rather like the smell, but I don't use it much

cheers

Folks, This a bit irrelevant to our foreign members, but for those of you in Australia and handy to an Aldi supermarket, one of this week's specials is a Chocolate Moulding Kit, the basis of which is little saucepan which sits in a small hotplate which gets up to 60°C, which is just about the exact...

Hello Steve, Thanks for the info on when they were cut. Chances are they will sit in the shed for several months at least. Do you have any opinion on the current fad for baking in the oven at around 90C for a hour or two. Lots of folks are doing it to guitar tops, and I have tried with one thicker m...

The mando tops arrived today. Not cosmetically the ultimate bits of wood, but I wasn't expecting that anyway. Nice scratch and bong to them, and of course it is what I do to them once they are glued up and cut out that is the important thing. Thank you Kim (and Steve in the US) for all the work you ...

If JW's guitar had a pickup in it it was not going to be a Smallman. I suspect he has a guitar for those sorts of gigs and the Smallman is kept for acoustic playing

They hadn't arrived by Friday, and tomorrow (Monday) is a holiday here. Parcels, even letters, can take a week or more across the Nullabor. You just can't those camels to go fast enough. I will report in as soon as they have arrived.

cheers

graham

Doing a group order from Just Strings might be an idea. I used to buy single strings from them until they decided on a US$75 minimum and then insisted on air freight courier to deliver them rather than the mail, which was another US$75! They have just about every string imaginable

cheers

graham

Couple of possibilities Lining the holes with a couple of coats of super glue and them re-reaming the holes. (a little bridge pin reamer is a good thing to have) or Making some thin shavings of whatever wood the bridge is made of and gluing them in the holes and then re-reaming, effectively bushing ...

The Guild of American Luthiers Lutherie Tools book has several articles on building such things. Most of those articles are 20 or so years old as that is what you had to do in those days. Carbatec and other tools shops will now sell you one for well under a grand and with a little tweaking they work...

I would certainly be interested in some EIR and purflings, though I only use a limited range

Good idea Bob

cheers

graham

Sounds like the right approach for the back. For the soundboard ding, try wetting it and see if the ding just swells itself away. If that doesn't work, wet it again, place a small piece of wet cloth (old tshirt or sheet) over the ding and steam it out with a soldering iron. If that doesn't work mix ...

I have been fretting for 25 years with a ball-peen hammer which used to belong to my father in law and ground down end nippers. I level frets with a 12" long medium flat file and/or a carborundum stone and then reprofile with a convex fret file and polish with wet&dry. Nuts with a set of Ibanez nut ...

If the bracing pattern works then, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just looking at it from a structural point of view, it would seem to be adding stiffness out towards the rim(where you probably don't need it), rather than controlling the torquing of the bridge and stopping any tendency for the sou...

I should say again that I have only finished the one instrument with the Hard Shellac, thinned somewhat with metho and sprayed with multiple coats. I was probably approaching it as I would with nitro and I may well have been doing it wrong. I love the idea of of being able to finish an instrument in...

Humidity control along the coast isn't all that hard. When I lived in Sydney I built a cupboard 2x1m with half of that space a go-bar deck with some storage and a de-humidifier underneath. It was framed up out of 2x4s into a corner and covered with foil insulation (sisalation?). Wasn't totally seale...

Canberra is an almost perfect instrument building climate. Most days (if not actually raining) RH gets to 40% around 2pm. It is then time for gluing. An accurate measurement of humidity is good. I have a little digital meter and our electricity supplier has current weather indications on their websi...

OK, here's the picture

My only suggestion is to think about the space between the courses. I got some very useful feedback about one of my bouzoukis from one of my customers about this. He said it feels a little more comfortable if the space between the courses is a bit wider on the bass strings, and a little narrower bet...

Good to see another Canberran here. Welcome

cheers

graham