Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Very nice tutorial. Thanks! Any comments on doing the sides and neck?

I know it's a long term investment, but maybe it's time for us to plant some indian rosewood here? The climate would work well enough right? If you have a frost-free location, my guess is that you could grow it. From Wikipedia: It is primarily found growing along river banks below 900 metres (3,000...

Another vote for Titebond.

Note: that's Titebond regular, not Titebond II nor Titebond III nor Titebond Instant. It usually is pale yellow in a bottle with a red label.

For much of my stuff, I use Peterson's iStrobosoft tuner on an iPhone, with the Tuning Tools option and the Extended Frequency Modes option. Grand total in US dollars: Tuner $9.99 Tuning tools $9.99 (includes spectrographs) Extended frequency modes $4.99 (includes sub-bass) Grand total $24.97 It doe...

Graham Long wrote:The tail piece was cut from some brass, thick shim material I think.
1.2mm anyway. Then cut out with a jewellers saw.

Did you do the engraving? Or send it out?

Chlamidia??? The brand of clamps is Klemmsia. I expect Kamusur was referring to the potentially deadly condition in pregnancy called eclemmsia marked by a sudden and severe rise in blood pressure: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/preeclampsia/basics/definition/con-20031644 If you wante...

If it was my uke, I think I'd make up a little thin square of spruce or some other softwood, goop some liquid hide glue on one side of the square, reach in through the soundhole and put the patch over the crack on the inside (with patch grain going crossways to the crack). The idea would be: I cant'...

Google the phrase "shipwright compass" and then look for a set of instructions that make sense to you.
A shipwright's compass is a relatively easy way of drawing curves with a large radius.

Obviously, I need to find a route to work that allows for deeper and more thorough thought. Perhaps via Peru.

I was thinking about bracing and the way the Gore-Gilet method uses graphite while I drove to work today. It isn't a long drive, so I don't have any deep thoughts but here is what I came up with: 1) An objection I have heard from repairmen to the graphite/hardwood bridge plate is that using epoxy to...

Interesting. I don't think I have ever tried a lubricant on my plane soles. I'll give it a try! Thanks!

Trevor Gore wrote:Stack 'em on edge, hold between finger and thumb of one hand, high angle block plane in the other. It's all I've ever done. No drama at all.

Ah, but you keep your planes sharp.

Well, I would send them an email. The web page that shows the plans: http://www.lmii.com/products/kit-wizard/plans/plans-steel-string/1709-plan-j-200-style-guitar/flypage-noimage sure shows a side profile. If those aren't the plans you got, then you have reason to ask them what is going on. At the v...

Yes, I agree. A slow start, but interesting.

Man, sounds like a hell of a demonstration. I'd love to see/hear it!

The top is Englemann and was furry as hell even after several egg white sizing and sanding back sessions. The sheallc seal coat raised enough grain that the fibres were breaking through the shellac after a few body sessions. I haven't ever done this with a guitar, but I learned something from my fu...

Torrefaction is actually used in two different ways. One is to create a fuel that is lighter, easier to transport, and more dense in terms of energy per unit of mass. It really is a modernization of the process of making charcoal. I don't want to do that. The other is to drive imitate the process th...

kiwigeo wrote: The toughest part of the experiment would be explaining to the fire department why you're cooking up a load of wood in your oven .

I dunno. Tough call between that and the wife.

Only one comment from me.....if the process requires absence of oxygen then I don't think wrapping the wood in aluminium foil and bunging it in the oven is going to be a valid test of the process. Yeah, it might not work. But I gather the only reason for the absence of oxygen in the process is to k...

I've been hearing so much about torrefied wood in guitar magazines that I want to learn more about it. I know (1) it tends to make the wood lighter and stiffer and (2) it is done by exposing wood to heat in the range of 200C to 300C (400F to 575F) in the absence of oxygen. Ordinarily, this process r...

If it were me, I think I would be seeing if I could find a third-party electrical motor that I could use to replace the motor that came from the manufacturer. Maybe I wouldn't be able to to do it but maybe I would. If I could get a better motor in there for less money and was able to figure out how ...

When I was having noise pollution problems, I
- used a microphone with a long cable
- turned off the lights (mostly fluorescents)
- piled pillows on top of my laptop to kill the disk noise
- put the mic in a nest of pillows with the only open space pointing at my soundboard

That helped.

I'm suspicious of peaks at exactly 100 hz and 200 hz. I am wondering if there is noise pollution at those peaks. It might be interesting to see a spectrum of the background noise, with no thumping of geetars.

Is anyone working on procedures for doing this at home? I am thinking I should take some of my crappy tops, bake them for a while, and see if that improves them. Has anyone experimented with this?

I'm glad to have found this thread. When I was practicing with all of my tops a few months ago, I wasn't getting any difference between the Long and Cross grain frequency results. I inched the point where I held the tops down bit by bit from the long grain until I basically got to the middle of the...