Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I have the 14 twelve and dont recommend it. I bought based on good reviews but have been disappointed with several problems. Maybe I was just unlucky and got a bad one...? I also had poor after sales service from the qld dealer which adds to my dislike of the machine.... (but great service before th...

As Allen recommends above, the bits from China work great for detail work (but i would not recommend the larger router bits from there... i found some to be dangerous and now wont use them).

Search ebay for CNC carbide router bits - from memory i got a pack of 10 for under $10 including shipping!

Awesome looking finish...

Thx Steve. I have been researching more and Robbie O’Brien has a video where he uses aqua clear to fix indents in the FP soundboard. I might have another go using the method he demonstrates and hopefully get it perfect.

Thanks for all these great walk throughs..

For my two cents i’d redo the join. Cut it down the centre, replane everything and join again. Then flip it over and rout and install a new rosette on the other side. Depending on the size of the boards you may also be able to join the current outside edges, if you dont mind the wider grain to the c...

Nice one, Steve. I assume u have to be pretty careful to not sand through the finish, with the risk of superglue staining the spruce? For repairing a ding in a french polished soundboard what would you recommend? I recently had to do some minor repairs to a FP top so steamed a ding first and then re...

I’ve never seen one of these before.... very cool! There are so many ways this could have gone wrong (well, if I attempted it...) but it has worked out great Way to turn the difficulty level up to 11...

Inspiring work.... the owner has got to be happy with that!

Very cool guitar. i like the rosette a lot... kinda like stars in space. I reckon it would look nice all the way round the rosette too..but the mosaic is nice also. The tap tone on the huon pieces i have come across has not been all that good... but it seems to make for excellent guitars and ukes so...

Also Alan, what is the finish on this instrument?

Lovely looking guitar, Alan, very classy. I havent received your email, sorry - can you please resend? I took the FE17 over to an experienced dealer over the weekend to get his thoughts on it/what I can improve and we compared it to some veeeery nice (read, expensive) guitars. It held its own for so...

Thanks for the advice, Jorge

Hi guys Have any of you built an all wood lattice soundboard? I'm wondering about the rough numbers for the build - about how thick for the soundboard and how tall to make the braces? im keen to avoid CF and epoxy, and have played some great all spruce lattices previously. They appeared thin on the ...

Looks great. I have some purple heart in the stash but have not yet worked out how to feature it. This looks a bit like a military uniform ... very neat and tidy lines, classy.

Looks fantastic! Great design and colours

Make sure your humidity control is good and the wood is well seasoned... I bought a guitar from a luthier in the Philippines a while back... a couple of months after it arrived this happened: IMG_8620.PNG It is now sitting in the corner of the workshop for fixing "someday"... I'll probably end up ru...

Thanks... it looks like a flawless finish in the pics

My mistake... I used Australian red cedar and assumed you had used the same. Youhave turned that WRC a nice colour. I'm a fan of WRC too... interesting thoughts you make on needing to be careful with it. I once owned a Bernabe guitar that had a cedar top and hardly any bracing at all... just one bra...

Looks fantastic, especially that neck. What finish have you used? Wish mine ended up that shiny...

Some great colours in this one. I used red cedar for a soundboard in a recent build and thought it had pretty good tone. Very strong in the midrange in particular. I also used it for the neck of my last guitar. It looked identical to some spanish cedar i had (although diff species) so I actually use...

Thanks guys

Alan, email all good but I'm also in Canberra so could bring it over for a chat and demo sometime..

Just about to kick off the next build... same as this but in maple. Waiting on some rain first tho... RH has been down to under 20% the last few days

Hi guys - thanks for the comments.

Alan - happy to answer any qs. Im going to be building the same again with either maple or blackwood b and s next I think.

Thanks Bruce, all assembled during construction. It is glued straight onto the soundboard and the transverse braces/soundhole braces then butted up against it with some more glue. Let me know when suits and I'll bring it round sometime ...

My third classical guitar build (5th overall). Torres FE17 inspired shape but a touch wider at the waist, 7 fan braces with an mini-tornavoz (18mm). Indian/Engelmann with an Australian red cedar neck. I still need to finish it properly (have just put on the first couple of coats of shellac on the bo...

If you want to wait for the international post, I found these. Don't know if they are any good but cheap! https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/GuitarTechs-FRET-TANG-NIBBLER-Sheet-Metal-Nipper-Cutter-Luthier-Tool-/281107329606 I got one of these a while back and it doesnt nibble properly - it just bends the ...