Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

From rubber feet to the plane truth in this thread...rubber feet are available from Clark Rubber if you can find a shop! Bunnings also. The white ones don't leave a black smudge, but given time they go hard and slip off the work rather than grip. Martin's (Trevor Gore's) cauls are a good solution......

Repairing cracks in the butt area???

Hope the ticker has settled, Steve. Hospitals aren't nice places, I'm stuck in one myself at present! Cheers! Ross

I have been playing and assessing acoustic guitars for many years now. Has anyone noticed a "compressed" sound from blackwood B&S guitars? It seems to me to be a bit similar to using an audio compressor... Also as a Gypsy Jazzer, there seems to be a correlation between what is referred by players as...

Dropbox works and is free...you just upload your files then click on 'share' then up load a link for those interested to download. Here is a link to me playing a Jazz Manouche tune:https://www.dropbox.com/preview/Phoebe%20%26%20Dad/Mystic%20Minor.mp3?role=personal (I won't leave this link active for...

Also.... Did you 'spring' the bass bar? Ross

Excellent! Any chance of some soundbytes? What pickup system did you use and what kind of strings have you fitted? Cheers! Ross

Nice work Mark! The pic is the right way up on my iPhone. More pics of that build please! I like your f holes too!
Cheers Ross

Although we have segueyed off the original topic here, in a way, the discussion is probably quite relevant to you Gassy. Jack Spira who is a very good luthier and great guy to boot makes a nice Irish Bouzouki. You could google his website and have a look at them. Anyone who tells me that they are in...

My favorite Potuguese guitar is the Combirra. 20mm longer scale archtop with a curved fingerboard. Played with special finger picks using a "pinching" finger movement with the picking hand plectrums. Faster single notes played with picking finger upstrokes. The tuners have been adapted from the Engl...

I thought I'd chime in as I'm stuck in a hospital for a while! My opinion is that the techniques for playing a Bouzouki need to be accommodated ie the "feel" to the player along with the tuning and tonality. The shape is not as important. But definitely string tension, neck shape, action, responsive...

blackalex1952 wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:29 am

iPhone and iPad users-go to app store and search for "photo size comprrssor". Some free apps there to download. Cheers Ross

Typo there, its "photo size compressor" that found some for me, but all the old iPhone 4's won't run anything past OS7 which excludes me from most new apps!!!!cheers Ross

iPhone and iPad users-go to app store and search for "photo size comprrssor". Some free apps there to download. Cheers Ross

Thanks Rod. Love yr work! Yeah it's an electric world and I'm a good hand on a strat, an archtop or an acoustic Selmer, having learnt how to play using the traditional downpicking with a plectrum that evolved from India and was carried by the Gypsies to the West thousands of years ago....Hendrix, St...

Hey Pete. My early career as a performer and guitarist in the 1970's saw me doing three month seasons in a huge theatre restaurant in Melbourne. The previous occupant of my personal dressing room on one of those three month engagements where I worked every night, was Mick Conway of Captain Matchbox ...

One more comment from me: I have found that with dovetail necks it works better and is more manageable to fit the neck prior to gluing the fingerboard on last. Just make sure that you have the right curvature in the first brace so as not to have to wedge or accurately taper the fingerboard where it ...

I totally relate to your wife's situation if her ailments are indeed that serious...I confront a similar thing personally and am on my own with it...too late for a caring commitment from a caring partner, in my case. My interest in luthierie is a good way to keep my mind off my worldly problems alon...

If you are ever in North East Victoria try pm'ing me and I will introduce you to a friend in the area who makes very good "banjo killers" as the Bluegrass scene call the old style Martin build. He is also a Scot and a fine piper!
Cheers! Ross

So I cut the female first? That's what most people, myself included, do. The issues with a dovetail are a tight fit of the dovetail, achievable may ways including by hand, along with both neck angles ie. alignment to the centreline of the instrument and the neck (skew) and bridge break angle for th...

The hand cutting is all in the marking up and the accuracy with hand tools, coupled with understanding the main mating surfaces which need to be finessed accurately using chalk and a sharp chisel, in my case along with the usual method of a strip of sandpaper. But take faith in the kind of methods u...

Beautiful work as usual Rod. However, my understanding having admittedly never got to the position and tooling of building an archtop myself but hope to begin soon, is that the bridge needs to be lightweight, and the soundboard and bracing needs to be such that a lightweight soundboard gives volume ...

My most indispensable hand tool is a pair of extra "chemist" shop reading/magnifying glasses perched on the end of my nose in front of my prescription glasses!!!!!! That and my sharpening stones, planes, knives and chisels. All of my silly learning curve mistakes have been made with vibrating teeth ...

I have just fished a ringed gidgee fingerboard out of my stash with great expectations, only to find that (yes, I should have stickered it!@!!) -it has developed a twist. I had assumed that it was pretty stable, but I guess the upside could possibly be that it has not twisted post neck assembly and ...

HD camera on ebay $10 or so...works on a PC or Android. Works a treat inside the guitar, it even has it's own "headlight"!-Ross

Try a Canadian supplier. The exchange rate is better and Canada is full of spruce! Cheers! Ross

My best approach may be to do a new top with known properties and use the back with the current thickness (2.4 mm.) This sounds like the most simple and direct response to the issue...keep it simple and BUILD!!! Jeff's point re testing the disassembled plates is valid. The soundboard does most of t...