Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

My little workshop is on the top floor of a heritage building, the ceiling is the roof of the building, 450mm of concrete with bitumen on top. Makes a great thermal battery, sucks up heat all day and pumps it out all night… was 35c at midnight a couple of weeks back. I don’t mind the heat much, ...

I don’t see the problem with putting a string recommendation on the label. If it has been built for light strings then why not say so, I know that I’ve puzzled over what strings to use on a few guitars over the years. I’ve also seen a few nice old classicals stuffed by idiots putting steel str...

Hard to go past 940 series 50 X 25 X 3 rectangular box extruded aluminium as a good straight edge that isn’t too heavy. usually easy to find at the local metal recyclers like Sims Metal or a sheet metal shop. If not give me a hoy, I’ve got a couple of lengths here that I salvaged from an shop re...

Here is a link to a timber auction this weekend near Grafton NSW could be checking out if you live in the area.

http://www.kimdahl.com.au/furniture.html

Cheers
James

If Tim doesn't have what you need then I'd suggest Mark at 043 turning, he has a good range of burl at a fair price. Just Google '043 turning' and you should find his site.

P.S. Check out the local art supply shop for Methylated Spirits (100%). I know that Langridge Artist Colours in Vic sells it.

Cheers

I was wondering if anyone has experimented with some of the old traditional varnishes? The old German luthier who got started used shellac as his standard finish but made a bunch of varnishes and finishing oils for special applications. Some, like the amber oil finish, were diabolical concoctions th...

Hi Sebastiaan I have a mate in Mackay with one of these meat saws he got on ebay... not real flash. You can get 220mm or so under the guide but you would need to be a brave man to stand next to it when the timber hits the blade. the guides and adjustment are flimsy. Maybe you could beef these up a b...

Thanks for the advice all… I just bent the first set of linings, the yellow cedar bends great and smells divine.

Yep good old chunk of steel pipe for bending. I'm using yellow cedar for the linings so should bend easy enough. Titebond 3 will have to wait until tomorrow... so much for the fantasy of getting to the binding stage tonight. It is amazing how much more you get done when the better half is off doing ...

Hi All Another couple of quick questions Is there any reason why kerfing/linings can’t just be steam bent instead of cutting all those little nicks out of them? (seems like a lot of work with a hand saw). Bindings… I’m using silky oak and would like to sandwich some 1mm rosewood between the bi...

Hi Trav and welcome There have been some great guitars made in Europe, perhaps you will add another. I've discovered over the past year that time, tools and room tend to be more of an issue than finding luthiery supplies most of which I have to have mailed to me (I'm in Townsville North Queensland a...

It’s no wonder that we’re not making any progress against climate change/global warming… it’s all the folk in Washington “warming! did someone say warming? Yes please we’ll have some of thatâ€

Very interesting! Love camhpor, looks and smells great.

I'm going to be playing with one of these portable mills in January. I'm helping a guy slice a couple of huge aust red cedars and Qld Blackwoods in Cairns. Should be fun and get to swap blood sweat and tears for wood.

cool... I've used something much like it to put the grain on stainless steel and no way in hell would I be putting a guitar under one of em.

Thanks all I've done some research and an Ingersoll Rand 150mm air powered beast is the one for me, seems to do everything and a nice low noise rating. It’ll tax my little compressor to its limit, but I can always have a quick swig or two while it catches up. While I was looking to see if there wa...

Hi All I’ve decided that while doing things with hand tools is nice, doing everything by hand it just too time consuming. I’ll be building a few more once the current projects are done so I've decided to lash out on a couple of power tools. I don’t seem to be capable of drilling a hole square ...

are we talking about his wood stash or something else???

Yep… Everything about it is gorgeous, from the general shape to the timber nut the whole guitar is just a brilliant demonstration of class and style. It just screams custom built quality instrument.

Looks great and I love the bunya top. Fantastic effort

Hi Chris and welcome I’ve just bent a couple of huon pine sides, I wanted them thicker than I would usually use so they were 3mm and they bent like butter on my old steel pipe. Then just for a bit of fun I bent a set from silky oak for a parlor guitar, they were almost as easy. Silky oak is one of...

A sharp plane is a beautiful thing… shavings are much easier to deal with than dust. On a related but unrelated subject, I was chasing a good size piece of cloth-backed sandpaper to glue down as a large flat sanding surface. As per usual when living in a regional town, you just can’t find what y...

Seems easy enough, tighten the belt until it stalls then put your hand on it
now back it off until it it runs.

Huge… massive! Online auction of woodworking machinery Hi All I just notice that Grays are having an auction of timber working machinery, most of it looks to be three phase but there is some good looking 240v stuff mixed in. There are also some odd and sods that may be of interest so some… like ...

Allen wrote:Lillian, there's a big group of us that would love to be looking over your shoulder when the time comes. Good luck with this.

and an engineer who hates messing around and just wants to pull em to bits and see what makes them tick