Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I'm still insisting you make it a square-neck though so you have to learn how to play slide!

Haha thanks Nick, was a nice quick and easy build. Yeah one day I'll get away from Sapele, it keeps following me, probably because I'm a poor student. No binding because it's a style O, and to make it nice and easy for the students to do, not just because I didn't want to thank you very much! (Thoug...

Hey guys, this was an instrument that I built whilst helping Tony Francis set up a bit of stuff for a ukulele building school that he's going to run for some locals in Kapiti. They'll be working off kit sets put together by him and Jim Lowe, a wood turner who works in the same building and also has ...

Fantastic work Nick, bet it sounds awesome now it's all in tune haha! Hope the end result is worth all that production work.

I've used Jarrah for both fretboard and bridge, with no ill effect to tone. On my Weissenborn it provides some wicked sustain. On the fingerboard however it can trap and show a decent amount of dirt, depending on the pores. The main reason I used it is that is was an easily accessible hardwood at a ...

Good to hear you're all good Nick, I'm back in Wellington but really understand what you're going through again. Sounds pretty similar to the ones we had in June from what I can tell, it's the aftershocks that cause heaps of the stress. Keep strong man, and Merry Christmas!

Cheers guys, I've levelled and dressed the frets and got the action to where I want it, guitar plays fantastically now. It's very much a blues instrument, and very suited to my playing style, I can't put it down for long. Al; The reason that 'figure' is present in the Sapele is because it's pretty m...

It's finished! Well mostly. Still got to bring the action down and tidy the nut up, as well as level the frets, but ran out of time in the workshop on Saturday. So here's some photos! The new spruce top all braced up; DSCF1046.JPG DSCF1327.JPG The side of the fingerboard here uses an idea I borrowed...

I come from a sailing family, so we just made use of what we know. The spring back is a real problem, I was using this to bend a teardrop shape for a Weissenborn and cooked the sides for at least half an hour. I can't see this process working so well for tighter bends around the waist, especially fo...

First time I bent sides, I steamed the wood in this, which would have cost us maybe $10 to put together; DSCF0503.JPG It's sitting over a boiling pot on a gas cooker with a lid that channels the steam up into the aluminium ducting. The wood was then wrapped around some pegs on a form to create the b...

Hey man, Just going from experience in my school's Technology department, the "if only the teacher had found the sheet before the lesson was nearly over" situation is really common. I built my first guitar in my last year at school (in NZ), but I did this without any interaction with the school as I...

I'd agree with that. Always nice to see Quade Cooper in tears. Bring on the final!

Saw this on the news the other day, if you want to see the actual guitars they're here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/61509721/Hear ... esentation. Gotta be quick if you want to be original aye!

Trevor,

From Tony's interpretation and a decent amount of reading, the main person to pay attention to it that thread is Willi Henks (BHguitars).

Cheers, Sean

Thanks for the advide Trevor, further reinforcing what Tony Francis was telling me today, which was along similar if not exactly the same lines. As I'm currently in Nick's workshop humidity should not be a problem thankfully. My sapele had been stored in my basement at home in Wellington, which is a...

Haha hadn't noticed that at all! Wouldn't have been the first thing I noticed to be honest. And no Martin, but my poor mother is outnumbered with two sons and no daughters.
Cheers for the kind words guys.

Cheers Craig, I think I would have been a bit less civil if Nick wasn't there as well haha! My comment to Nick was this is probably why students are known to drink so much: We make so many mistakes that we need to forget! My only concern with the spruce top is that it will take away from the mellow ...

Hey there guys, I've hit a bit of a setback in the build, in fact a very large setback! Nick and I were matching the body to the neck to route the dovetail on the neck, and discovered that my previously nicely arched top has sunk in to about 1.5mm below the sides at the bridge. I won't be repeating ...

Kia Ora guys, My name is Sean Syman and I'm a Kiwi originally from Wellington but currently doing a mechanical engineering degree down in Christchurch (living through the earthquakes, lectures in tents aren't that great really!). I'm 18 and built my first guitar last year in my basement, an all Sape...