Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

There's some gems in there, some of those instruments went for a bargain. For those who weren't aware this was the personal collection of John Hurlston or "Hurlo". I had the pleasure of meeting Hurlo a few times, great bloke, loved a yarn, amazing guitar and car collection. He passed away in 2015(?)...

While i don't know of this company in particular. I've had students rock up to my workshop with their own various Chinese jigs etc. When comparing the likes of the dremel base & circle/rosette cutter, the binding channel system, the fret slotting mitre box, and crowning files, we generally cannot de...

Ive repaired knobs coming off with both Epoxy and CA successfully.
I went through a period of using Rubners that kept doing this.

I'd be more concerned about the bearclaw then the wide grain....
In my experience tops with heavy bearclaw tend to be less stiff along the grain then those without.

Hey all. So i'm running a Guitar Making Summer Camp at my workshop (Sydney) in January where students will make their choice of a traditional style Classical or Flamenco guitar. See all the details here: https://toscanoguitars.com.au/guitar-making-summer-camp/ This is suited for the beginner guitar ...

I just place a clamp at either end of the pieces to stop them sliding back. Ie the side of the neck down to the bench and a clamp tight on the bench at the heel end, another at the end of the headstock. The neck and headstock will jam up against these clamps and cant go any further. When im over thi...

I use 3 species of neck timber:
Qld maple
Fijian mahogany
&
Toona (classical / flamenco only)


I have in the past used new guinea rosewood, but i dont like the way it carves.

Cant help you with nz natives, sorry.

Snap from its own weight??? Whats the grain configuration in the bindings?
Im assuming theres heaps of run out.

In all seriousness, i do remember seeing someone who had made a router jig (they made a video about the jig, and demonstration of use on Youtube). I've tryed to find it just now with no luck.
I thought it was Beau Hannam....

Hi Nigel,
Sure, here's my jig - .
Works a treat, takes about 5mins to do 6 notches.

Apologies Alan, missed your response. I don't have a close up handy, but you can just see the carving with the soundboard pic at the bottom of this thread - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=8447

Well done on the build John.
Looks and sounds great!

Not qld based.
But i get all my cnc'd stuff from john at Labels extreme.
He couriers to me in sydney, and very good prices to.
He makes a lot of luthiers stuff, so he'll know what you're talking about .

I dont have mahogany suitable for necks that im willing to sell.
However i have heaps of flamed quartered qld maple neck blanks and can courier some to WA. Send me a PM if interested.

I thought maybe 8 mm x 16 mm for the second transverse and leave the first one a 9 mm x 19 mm. That will work fine. Dont be scared to shape these right up to a point. After some research I found that a three ladder torres brace design for the back should be about B1 at the neck end 7 mm x 20 mm, B2...

Hi Steve, Thank you very much for your reply. You have shed light on a few things I was unsure of. The tops are still nice and stiff and weigh 150 gram with the rosette in and soundhole cut out. I will avoid gluing the struts against the transverse brace thanks for that tip. In Neals plan he has 9 ...

HI Alan, I'll break up my reply based on your questions The tops are thicknessed down to about 2.7 mm and the rosette's are fitted. Firstly, 2.7mm is quite a thick soundboard for a 7 fan classical. For good quality stiff engelmann I typically end up around 2.3 - 2.2 in the middle down to 1.9 - 2.0 a...

My question is what angle should the micro bevel be? I was thinking about increasing it to 45 or 50 degrees or is it better to stick to 35? As you are talking about a bevel down plane here the angle of the micro bevel will make no difference to the performance of the plane, it will however to the l...

Well done Trent! Your first of many students no doubt.
The smile on his face says it all.

Like Trevor said, a straight sole plane is important. And as others mentioned, don't join at 20mm, get your stock down to ~4mm. Here's my edge shooting setup: edge joining 2.jpg The plane is a veritas Low angle jack. I tried many methods to get to this point, mostly: - I started out doing Strato's m...

Make sure you use a left handed chisel..

Seriously : Only other things that i can think of are fret markers, saddle slot in bridge (compensation), and electronics if applicable...

i got the same. although already a stewmax member, so the only change is free (slow) shipping.

I feel your pain Peter..... Definitely agree; Stewmac should be chasing this (or if lost refunding you). I had a large package appear to go missing from them some time back. After a couple weeks of no movement on the tracking (sent express), i got a phone call from someone at the sorting centre, tur...

Those in and around Sydney should come visit Martin Taylor and Myself at the Timber, Tools, and Artisan (formally working with wood show) show this weekend... We have just a couple of guitars on display!! :) :) Not only will you see our faces, there's also plenty of great timber and tools available....

This is why i only put a very thin satin nitro OR french polish on my own guitars.
By the way, the sound will start to improve somewhat while the lacquer hardens.