Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Very chuffed you got it finished and looking so good Martin.

We were all following the saga and wincing along with you at each setback.

Good Stuff

Oh and by the way that is really neat looking binding/purfling on the mandolin.

Rod I was thinking about this as I made up cauls for the glueing. I decided that glueing the whole side as laminates would be quite hard. Unless perhaps you use a vacuum press...? Given my difficulties with the sharp cutaway design that I like (based on Trevor's shape) I am still keen to look for ot...

John that is already looking very smart. That back wood is very attractive. When I tried Aquacote recently I had to use several goes to achieve proper filling. Maybe my technique wasn't so good...? I seem to remember you didn't use hide glue in the past. Has there been a lightbulb moment? Cheers Dave

I am still having difficulty with cutaway bends. On the current one I got a reasonable bend but there were some flats between the ripples of some very nice maple. I decided that since I had already made the side pretty thin ~ 1.7 mm that if I was going to sand the two sharp bends to a smooth curve t...

Steve useful log of the neck repair.

I was interested when you used CA to lightly glue down the nut. Is this common practise on steel strings? My experience is with classicals but have made a couple of SSs and simply made the nuts a close fit.

Hi John anything new? With such a fast start I was expecting a box closure by now...? I said I was also starting a falcate classical but ran into a slight problem with the cutaway side so am starting over with a most beautiful set of rippled maple. This means I have a ready braced back when I can fi...

I was looking at some flamenco players last night and I realised that the very uncomfortable looking playing position they use (when sitting down) tends to leave the back of the guitar fairly free of body contact. This is very true of Vicente Amigo but also of others. So I wondered if this allowed t...

Not having a safety planer I set up a jig to do it with a router. As with G&G I thickness the underside of the neck and the head. It is essentially a trough with the neck supported at the shallow angle required, with the router running on the top of the trough. The bolt bar in the heel is useful her...

Well Allen I am assuming that the machine sold branded as Jet in the UK is the same as the Performax...? I have been pretty pleased with it. It is clearly a simply designed and basic machine but it has done what it is supposed to do with little fuss from day one. Maybe you got a Friday afternoon job...

Matt this isn't going to help, but may encourage. I have found bending the blackest of black arts! I have ended up investing in a silicone heating blanket and constructing various forms and a bending machine. Even then it is not always successful. Keep trying. The rest of the woodwork I find much mo...

I'm sure you've looked at this but maybe the manual at the source has some beter info...?

http://www.jettools.com/eu/en/p/16-32-p ... nd/629004K

John fascinating as ever. It sounds a bit mean but I see that like me you still struggle to work cleanly with the epoxy! I am starting a classical build myself on which I shall use falcate bracing, with a cutaway. I initially thought I would simply use Trevor's medium size steel string outline but h...

Thanks for the replies, particularly Nigel for your thoughtful input. As you will have guessed I was being a little tongue in cheek but there are some interesting points. Those of us coming to this after careers sitting in offices tend to start out with poor manual skills, and while we can improve q...

My understanding is that guitars can take increases in Relative Humidity reasonably well compared to when they are built. Everything can expand a bit, and particularly the doming of the top and back can increase to absorb this increase in width. (Changes along the grain are small). Note that the top...

For me Yes and Yes. My first build was a classical with essentially no jigs other than the Solera, and it came out sort of all right. It looked like a guitar, sounded like one, but was certainly not true to the original design and was pretty rough round the edges. (Obviously this would be true in ge...

Great stuff John. Your build threads are always very informative. As it happens I was making the scarf joint on a neck yesterday and the particular blade I have on the bandsaw is a bit rough and along with my poor guidance left a lot of work with the plane. Am using 'cedrela' which is incredibly sof...

I had a mis-sounding string the other day which took quite a while to find. It needed a magnifying glass to spot a tiny, shallow bevel on the body side of the saddle, causing a sitar effect. Quick file to get a clean beak point fixed it. I was doing a nut set up at the time and was convinced the sou...

Do it now, Tall Dad do it now. Don't reckon the pound is going to be going up any time soon.

Well today was sharpening day. I much prefer not to have to break off in the middle of a project to sharpen tools so I tend to have multiple chisels and planes of similar size. In between I really go for it and sharpen everything as well as I can. I even did all my scrapers yesterday which seemed to...

John that was what was on my mind. As an amateur furniture maker I have enjoyed the pleasure of a completed cabinet or chest of drawers and so on, but the musical instrument is qualitatively different.

I was doing the very first stringing up of a steel string cutaway that I have just completed the other day. This is going to sound a bit airy fairy, but it was the most wonderful feeling when an assemblage of pieces of timber changed, as the strings came under tension, into something that felt alive...

Sorry Craig but it is a commercial one. (Obviously chosen with care!) I have been concentrating on my building skills so far saving the time on rosette making. I do intend to do the rosette for my next build which is going to be a cutaway classical. I am on grit 2400 micromesh on this one so should ...

I was sceptical of the statements by many people that grain orientation was important for stiffness of softwood braces. I did some tests and within my experimental error I could see no difference between grain arranged horizontally or vertically. However James Blilie has reported some great work in ...

Well Martin I nearly said on the F It thread that you are going to be real good at necks. Anyone in South Aus with a problem with necks just go talk to Martin! Tall Dad while it's true the Spruce has been yellowed a bit by the lacquer, the ripple Maple looks grand under a finish. As an (amateur) pla...