Where do you get your sanding disc for 10 bucks each?

LMI sells it for close to 40 bucks.

I think I'll piece a bunch of regular 80 grit sanding cloth together.

Yea, last time I visited Angela Walthner, if I had a dollar for each Stewmac or LMI items in her shop, I'd be really rich.

I am beginning to accept that as a luthier one can't avoid buying stuff from those suppliers, although I wonder how did luthiers survive before Stewmac or LMI was established?

As for tonewoods, I can think of other suppliers but the ones in Taiwan are super slow, as in it would take me weeks to order a plank of mahogany from them because they just wouldn't answer my email. I guess they've got bigger orders and aren't too concerned about luthier's order..

Shipping out of the US is just super expensive, I find if I do order from them, it would have to be large orders, because otherwise the shipping would add up. I actually ordered a batch of tonewood from espen.de because their shipping isn't that expensive, and their offering of German Spruce tops are quite cheap compared to LMI.

In the past I've simply glued several sheets of regular sandpaper to the radius dish and trimmed it... it works, but having one big disc of sandpaper would be more convenient.

I use 36 grit (much faster) then resand the with 80 grit before I glue the back on-works for me.

I have learned that with enough time and enough poverty, most of the things you can buy at StewMac or LMI can either be made or had cheaper by re-purposing other tools.

Then again, the other day I was making side dots out of plastic chopsticks, and it occurred to me I should have resawed them first, as I was wasting way too much material. I suppose I'm a pretty extreme case.

Well, at least in Taiwan plastic chopsticks are very very easy to find...

just that those disposable ones are made of bamboo.

But some things, like the radius dish, nut files, nut spacing rule (from stewmac) is critical for those who are doing it for a living. I mean you can figure out nut spacing with calculators and calipers (I've done it before), you can make radius dish with router fixtures, but I decided to buy them because of the amount of toxic dust machining MDF would involve, and it's nice to be able to figure out nut spacing right off the bat, especially when you're doing repair work. As for nut files, sure one can use feeler gauges but there isn't much else I can think of that can replace a nut file.

As for the radius dish sandpaper, I bought 6 sheets of 60 grit sanding cloth for about 2 dollars total, and will just glue them on piece by piece.