Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Assuming you are talking about western red cedar and you are making a steel string guitar neck? Even though you say it is very strong and works like mahogany, you might like to think about reinforcing it with a carbon fibre rod. Belt and braces.
Miguel

Very elegant and I love the way the sassafras and puriri work so well together
Miguel

+1 for sunburst but do the faux knot treatment first. That way it will look like you're trying to de-emphasise a couple of knots rather than stuff ups.
Miguel

Beautiful work. Will we get to see more student products in the near future?
Miguel

Thanks for all the positive comments, everyone. Much appreciated. What sort of thickness did you end up with in the recurve do you think? Recurve should be about 2 - 2.5mm but that's where the assistance of an experienced builder comes in. I would carve and Trevor would flex the top/bottom until he ...

Hopefully the soundclip will play if you click on the link below:
https://soundcloud.com/lauburu/archtop-sound-clip

As I don't have any tame virtuoso uke players at hand, I had to do the demo myself. Try to ignore the mistakes and focus on the sound.
Miguel

Thanks Allen and Micheal for your kind comments. Praise indeed from such esteemed uke makers. Bob: it's a 17" tenor though the body's a bit bigger than most tenors. I would say the whole thing was hard as building requires an entirely different way of thinking - anyone contemplating such an adventur...

Last ones

But wait there's more

More build pictures

Some build pictures

Archtop3.jpg In an inspired moment last Christmas, my beloved bought me a “build your own ukulele” voucher from a local luthier, Trevor Binford. Trevor, having worked for Bob Benedetto, is a skilled archtop maker so the voucher was really a “build your own archtop ukulele” voucher. Trevor was somew...

I've seen an old fridge, with an incandescent bulb installed, used to store tonewoods imediately prior to and during builds. According to the owner it worked well.
Miguel

Looks fantastic. Even if it sounded like crap it would still sell simply because it's beautiful. Any chance of a sound clip?
Miguel

Absolutely beautiful. Could you pls share how you changed your bracing to cater for 8 strings? Tx in advance
Miguel

There's a hobby glue - Tamiya I think - that comes out in little bottles with a brush/ screwcap arrangement (sort of like nail polish). It's available from the hobby stores and isn't overly expensive. I've used it once and it worked fine. Smells similar to Weldon so might be a similar product. Miguel

I'm a little more downmarket than antique shops. I find the local Hospice/SPCA/Sally Army shops are a wonderful source of really cheap, good quality mahogany. This timber, disguised as (now unfashionable) bed ends, coffee tables..... can be a real bargain. And the people behind the counter don't car...

Have just finished and strung up my third tenor ukulele. It was my first attempt at a bolt on neck so, though I avoided most of the mistakes of builds 1 and 2, I found a whole new bunch of ways to stuff things up. Still, it turned out well and will be a nice present for my sister. Top - recycled kau...

Could this be something to do with the way the bender is made combined with uneven clamping pressure across the wood being bent? There are 3 vertical components (2 sides and a middle bit). Do the ripples coincide with these? Ripples could occur if the sides were constrained in their ability to move/...

I'd love to be able to spray my ukes to a high gloss finish but a lack of skill, equipment and space makes that impossible. I find that many thin coats of Tru-oil provide a pleasing finish, requires little skill, no new equipment and minimal space. Tru-oil is available at gun shops and there are doz...

Have fitted 2 bridge doctors to guitars whose tops had bellied. Both solid spruce top, Asian-made brands. To my ears, they sounded appreciably better after the bridge doctor had been fitted.
Miguel

I've done two regrets with it so far and it works very well

Two refrets and no regrets........... or a Freudian slip?
Miguel

Just an other pore filling job from what I can see
Miguel

Fantastic work. A visual symphony.
Miguel

Allen, if you had've stayed quiet about the disaster, you could've put a much higher price on it and called it the first in a series of design ukuleles to mark the Year of The Horse.
Miguel