Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Has anyone on the forums built any African Acoustic Instruments.... I'm Tempted to build a Malian mandolin/ banjo called a Ngoni...It's got a damn nice sound. Strings are usually fishing line and the neck is usually made from a sawed down broomstick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k0GlhNWa9Y Typica...

Cheers

How do you guys go about selling your instruments? Or is it more of a case of people come to you and ask to have a custom instrument made?

Can anyone see any potential problems for using African Rosewood as a body base for a bass guitar then routing/ hollowing the almighty Christ out of that piece of Rosewood (to reduce the weight from 4-5 kg to 1.8 kg ish), then gluing/ adhering a drop top of Sheoak or Myrtle Burl or a pair of Flame M...

Oh right, that's because it isn't glued yet...

The jarrah wood used to be a kitchen Benchtop (bit of recycling) so it has a zigzag join connecting the planks of timber to make the bench... It's not ideal but it does the job. Really nice idea with the chambers, I'll definately have to start doing that when i start using single pieces of wood.

Cheers.

Is Tasmanian Black-wood a good tone wood with which to build a guitar body? Is it likely to be too dense/ heavy?

I'm going to build a simple strat design with a Seymour Duncan Hotrails, and 2 Fender Noiseless pickups or some equivalent. Trying to find a nice piece of Myrtle to put on top of a piece of Queensland Maple...Is there a better pickup/ wood choice perhaps?

Something i threw together with some fairly cheap parts i had lying around. Specs: Neck: Dr Parts Bridge: Dr Parts Neck Pickup: Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack Bridge Pickup: Epiphone Les Paul Standard pickup Body: solid Jarrah (split piece) I didn't end up using volume pots and tone pots because i wan...

Yeah i know all of those brands. I use Duncans in my custom electric guitars. But this is the first bass i've made. Have you heard of Brierley Pickups? Made by a guy called Mick Brierley...

I tried to upload some pics of my guitar on the forum but the upload feature is a tad broken for me.

I was thinking of getting a pair of J Bass Di-Marzio Pickups - they're about $259 AUS a pair... Anyone had any experience with these pickups or similar ones by Di-Marzio... My other option was to have a guy in Adelaide hand-make the pickups for a similar price. http://www.dimarzio.com/site/#/pickups...

Sometimes you can drill a hole from the neck pocket through to the neck pickup rout then continue to the bridge pickup rout and then to the control cavity. Sometimes if you have a side mounted jack you can drill from there through the control cavity into the bridge pickup cavity. That's a really go...

Thanks guys, really helpful stuff. Is there any problem using really hard and heavy/ dense woods for making guitars/ basses. I have a stack of Jarrah timber in my garage that is 40 mm thick. It makes guitars that are about 4-7 kg. Despite the weight issue. Is there an issue with the wood not being t...

Hi, I'm currently building a P / J style bass guitar from two pieces of Jarrah Timber (i know that is not ideal) (P style neck, J Style Body, J style Pickup configuration) What is the best way to get the wiring from the two J bass style pickup cavities to the tone and volume pot cavity? I was thinki...