Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Thank you. I will draw it up this afternoon.
Graham

I am investigating making a small run of cast bronze mandolin tailpieces for a mandolin quartet building project. I am thinking that a 3D printed prototype might be used for the casting mould. I know little about 3D printing and less about casting bronze, so all suggestions welcomed. An alternative ...

Lillian I am sure we will eventually get to meet and have lunch, pandemics permitting. Your move could be another excuse to go back to New Mexico. You will have a very different climatic environment there. I was in Santa Fe for a few days some years back in mid-year and it was single digit humidity....

Try Interparcel. They got a ukulele to Mauritius for me last year remarkably cheaply.

Cheers

Rhodosphaera rhodanthema is the tree, didn't know it was called deep yellowwood. Thank you for that info. Could you take a photo of your tree and post it. I have no idea what the tree might look like! If I am still building in 15 years, keep me in mind if you cut it down 8-) It really is a very good...

Just strung up this morning, a classical mandolin, for want of a better term. 13" scale, with a body inspired by a carved top Italian mandolin I found a photo of years ago. The soundboard is Sitka, carved to an arching height of 1/2", graduated a little thinner than normal and X braced. The body is ...

You are making allowance for the soundboard before gluing the neck and sides together ....

A number of classical guitar builders in the modern Smallman style use NG Rosewood bridges. I don't know of any use as a fingerboard material. The large pores of the wood might be a drawback

Cheers

All sorted I think. Graham at Loggerheads says he has lots!

I had not contacted Graham at Loggerheads, as he only lists Gidgee and Mulga, but I have now!

We will see what happens

Cheers

Can anyone point me in the direction of some figured Brigalow for fretboards, I thought Pete McCurley might be a possibility, but he does not seem very contactable?

Thanks

Graham

I would keep in mind that this is your second guitar, and while having these resonance targets to aim for might be good, we don't have any idea on what basis you are aiming for these specific frequencies (other than they are in the usual range of such things) or how you have built the guitar - mater...

Once we are allowed out again, we should organise another Canberra luthiers dinner at a cheap restaurant somewhere. There are a dozen or so of us who have been getting together a couple of times a year and you would be more than welcome Bob. Hope you find the book useful.

I have long been a fan of the late Henry Strobel's book on violin making. Simple and step by step. For what it is worth he suggests the top resonance should be around F#, which I have found works well. The other important factor is the weight of the plates. H S Wake's violin building book is also a ...

Depends on on neck attachment and style of truss rod, but essentially the installation is exactly the same. The adjusting nut wants to be close to the heel end of the neck and you will need to drill holes through the neck block and the upper transverse brace that line up with the adjusting nut. Putt...

If anyone has bought a copy through Amazon and found the book useful, any short reviews on the Amazon page would be greatly appreciated.

The Amazon page is:
https://www.amazon.com/Ukulele-Illustra ... 226&sr=8-1

Cheers

Lillian,

Hopefully we can finally meet at the GAL convention next July. Looking forward to it.

Cheers

The wood does not look very much like it is quartersawn, more back sawn with the grain is going across the thin piece of wood. As back sawn wood dries (and heating it with a hot air gun is drying it very quickly) it is going to cup in that way. With some timbers it does not matter very much. I suspe...

Folks,

I have posted some info in the Buy, Sell, Swap forum about the availability of Graham's wood and there will be a memorial concert in Sydney at Linfield on November 23. Free, but bookings at eventbrite.com.au and search for Caldersmith.

Cheers

Graham

Thank you for the heads up on Windows10. That is useful. Installing pubs on iPads can be tedious. One workaround is to use Dropbox to get the file onto the iPad and open it in Apple Books from Dropbox.

Cheers

Someone sent an email from the forum, which I can't see here on the forum, but the question was about plans. I have done drawings of each of the ukuleles which are included in the ePub downloads, but will need to be downloaded separately for the hard copy purchasers. I have done them as big plan-siz...

The first copies The Ukulele have arrived from the printer and are now available, at least in Australia, to anyone who would like to purchase a copy. Go to www.mcdonaldstrings.com/ukulelebook.html to order either a hard copy or an ePub version. It won't be available in the US or Canada for another f...

We have been away over the weekend and returned home to a phone message telling us that Graham Caldersmith died last Saturday. For those of you who didn't know him Graham was one of Australia's finest classical guitar and violin makers, a world renowned expert on how they worked in a acoustic scient...

Lillian, I would be delighted to sign a copy for you, the only difficulty being that the copies ordered through Kickstarter for backers outside Australia will be mailed out from a mailing house in the US, probably in Los Angeles. That said, I am hopeful of getting the Guild of American Luthiers (GAL...

Gentles, I have a new book on building ukuleles ready for the printers, titled The Ukulele- an Illustrated Workshop Manual . I am pre-selling copies through a Kickstarter project, with the hope of selling enough to pay for the print run. It is the first comprehensive book on ukulele building that wi...