Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi Folks, please take a minute to welcome Waldron Instruments, Inc!

http://www.waldroninstruments.com/

Because they offer so much I asked Kevin to send me a blurb to post as an introduction.
We are thrilled to have them onboard and we are sure you will agree.

From Kevin,

Hello to all on the OLF Web-Site, we would like to introduce ourselves. We are Waldron Instruments, Inc. a new luthier company with father, two sons, and a son-in-law involved actively in the business.
We are a family owned company who has been building re-production furniture for more than 38 years. Because of many of our furniture piece we have accumulated many items for our wood working ventures. We have at our disposal a sawmill, 3 kilns including one vacuum, large commercial re-saw, large cnc with laser scanner/digitizer and a smaller one, large engraving/cutting laser and a smaller one, 8 head duplicaver, and all the usual wood working machines associated with large furniture work.
It is our intent to offer through our template web-site http://www.guitartemplates.net the following items: acrylic templates (tops, backs, sides, necks, specialty and more); wood sides, backs, necks and more; 3d molds (positive or negative) for compound complex instruments, various jigs and fixtures; large wood working machinery; small specialty tools and the like. We are actively building guitars, violin, mandolin and soon double basses in our guitar workshop and you can check us out at http://www.waldroninstruments.com .

We have a good idea of what molds, jigs, and fixtures it takes to build instruments, so any jig fixture, etc that we have has usually been tested for our own in-house instruments. We make extensive use of cad/cam drawings through Autocad/Turbocad, Rhinoceros, Corel, Artcam, Enroute, and Aspire in the items that we produce. We have most of the standard instruments drawn in cad and can offer templates for all that we have drawn, we do offer custom services as well.
If you want to see our files check out the cad files on our instrument site for more information. Our template web-site is still under development so be patient, many items have not yet been posted. If you are looking for something that is not posted, then don't hesitate to write or call just ask. As we become more involved and time passes we will offer more and more products and services. Thanks for taking the time to read.
Kevin Waldron

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Welcome , I look forward to going through your website .

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Kevin-
Welcome to the OLF.
Very interesting template website, even though it is still 'under construction'.
How did you develop your database/collection of templates?
Are you paying royalties to the authors of any plans you used?

Thanks
John

Cool!

Will you be offering any popular electric guitar templates? Also when I was building my first electric I could not find a neck template ANYWHERE, even though now I know how to make them myself I certainly would of rather gotten a template back then, and I am sure there are tons of new builders out there who would buy neck templates.

Thanks,
Ed

Great to have you on board here!

Would you make a one off temp. of a makers own shape(s) if they sent you some wooden ones?

Mike

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Mike Collins

Welcome to the OLF!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Welcome to the OLF guys.

I was trying to find out where you are located and the 615 area code leads me to believe that you are in Tennessee correct?

Welcome aboard!

Welcome to the OLF guys. I see you're in Bell Buckle. My cousin is a football coach in the area. I think he's at Community now. Maybe I can stop by and say hey next time I'm over that way.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Welcome!

Please give us a "head's up" thread to let us know when your website is fleshed out.

I'm curious to know what you charge for a female body mold, and male bending form, from CAD files I would supply. (Nothing immediate, but when the next great idea comes along...)

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

I'm not quite sure what to make of this Dennis!

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Jim Hansen

Nice looking guitars and great prices. The 12 string jumbo is calling out at me .

Loneliness?

good one Jim!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Let me say thanks, for the welcome.

I apologiy for the site, all my time as of late has been spent on our guitar site.

The important thing for you guys is that all the behind the scene's stuff is done as far as plans, designs, materials, etc. The marketing part of the business hasn't been able to keep up. We have been almost a year and a half in planning, drawing, designing and perfecting our skills. Lance suggested that we take the step to post our site even though all the marketing wasn't in place. Go to our guitar site and look at the following http://waldroninstruments.com/page78.html .............and http://waldroninstruments.com/page77.html .....................and http://waldroninstruments.com/page76.ht ... .......and you will see some of the behind the scene's stuff.............. All this is in place.

We will do our best to have the template site 99% functional within 30 days. Tell us what you want to see, things you can't find or materials or services that you really need to make your instrument building a success.

Much of what we do may be custom work, being new not sure which direction we will follow. I will attempt to answer everyone's question offsite unless it has mass appeal for all.

Thanks again, and if you have an idea, custom template, fixture, material or jig call or e-mail we might be able to help. We have posted some photo's of our resaw and duplicarver on our news page. http://waldroninstruments.com/page76.html

Kevin Waldron

Edward, Mike,

We do have about a dozen of the more popular electric guitars drawn and several electric basses all in 3d Rhino Files. It is hard to compete with the Ebay sellers on these kinds of templates and we probably want produce an electric template unless someone just request that. Our intent will probably be to offer the body pre-cut in material of choice, and if someone wants a neck or body of different size or proportion we will be able to offer this fairly quickly. Having our own sawmill and kilns we are able to offer a tremendous number of local (Tennessee) hardwoods that are often not used or neglected because of availablity. We keep many exotics and about 200,000 bd/ft of local highgrade hardwoods that we can offer. We will be able to offer 16/4 material in some species like cherry or walnut for neck or body materials that the normal suppliers haven't had or been able to offer.

As for templates, we can make just about any kind, if we have it drawn. We will do custom templates either we draw or you draw, e-mail us for what we need if we are going to cut something that you have designed. We are not trying to sell drawings but aids for builders to make instruments, pieces, and parts. We would be glad to make any kind of neck jig that may make life easier for a luthier. We do have a four template set for necks at the current time.

In our own builds we have designed and made many new things that we haven't seen offered in the market place. One example is a layout scale that shows center line from the head stock down to the heel with the appropriate fret layout and the bridge correctly marked and positioned ( you can drill the bridge location directly off of the template. Our shop has one of these for every fret scale and body style that we use for the guitars that we make.

We love a challenge and if time permits we will tackle about anything ...... so ...... if you have something in mind call or e-mail.

Kevin

Hess,

We are in middle Tennessee in a small town called Bell Buckle. We are about 50 miles southeast of Nashville, TN.

Thanks,

Kevin

Dennis,

Let John Hall make your molds and bending forms. I would be glad to make a template for John to build your forms, and molds from and he could then send you everything. We have choosen to try and not compete with other sellers but offer services or materials they don't or can't offer. Sometimes there will be cross overs but we would like to offer services and things that others aren't currently doing.

Thanks, for looking and don't hesitate to ask, we could always do if you twisted our arm.

Kevin

OK.

When you said "...3d molds (positive or negative) for compound complex instruments...", I figured you meant custom male & female molds. Am I misreading that?

I don't think John makes custom molds from customer CAD files, I think instead he has the most popular body shapes ever produced (like the major Martin shapes.) I start from scratch and draw my own designs - not based on anything existing. Currently, I plot out full scale drawings, glue those onto Lexan, cut them out with a bandsaw (make my own template), trace the template onto a stack of MDF or plywood, try to get my saw set up to cut dead-on 90° over the entire height of the stack, cut out the mold... accuracy is pretty good, but not great.

So, I go from a digital file to copies, and copies of copies, and the errors from the physical copies and the errors of a bandsaw and my bandsaw skills add up. That's why I am interested. Maybe I could just get you to cut out a single layer of MDF or HDF with my male & female shape cut by CNC, and use that myself with a router table and bearing/follow bit to duplicate multiples of the the accurately cut CNC piece, and then stack 'em and glue 'em myself.

If the molds are dead accurate, then I would not care as much about the template. I mean, I care, but the accuracy I get on a bandsaw is good enough for what I would use the template for - if I were not starting from the template to produce molds.

One thing that really not possible the way I have been making molds on a bandsaw, is a mold that conforms to a compound cutaway.

Again, no huge rush, though I may be interested in about 4 to 6 weeks, if I can afford your service. We can talk pricing off-line if you'd like.

Thanks!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Welcome to the OLF.
Just hand't seen answer to the above yet and was curious about it as many of the plans will be out of "copyright" OLF excepted of course.

Colin

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Kevin Waldron has replied to my question via two long and well-thought-out Private Messages aka 'pms'. I'll let him speak for himself publicly if he chooses to do so. My reading of his basic position (which may be part of the legal precedents in the copyright area?) is that drawing plans of an instrument designed/built by another person does not constitute 'creative work' as defined by copyright. Thus the drafter of the plan has no right to payment.

Cheers
John

John,

That is not what I said. What I was trying to say is that if you create a new instrument (or other items that has protection under the copyright/patent law ) you the maker, have done the "creative work" not the draftsperson. By the nature of the copyright/patent law you alone are the creator of the "creative work" not the draftperson, transcriber, or persons who mimics what you have done.

It is not my intent to violate anyones copyright or interest. If someone thinks so, I'm sorry.


In the interest of this forum and our business I will now display what I wrote John in full with his response.



Kevin Waldron wrote:
John,

We have a number of ways of obtaining plans. We can actually measure an actual instrument, take plans that are commercially available, laser scan and instrument, and simply look at an instrument and draw.

We have been using cad for over 30 years and have a good feel for design. We are actually general contractors by trade and because of the slow down sought other means of revenue. I have personally been building reproduction furniture for 38+ years so my knowledge has come frrom a lot of hard knot learning in re-producing many of the great furniture masterpieces. We have tried to bring this ability in to our luthier businss. It is unheard of for a company our size to have the plans that we have in both 2d and 3d files. We did our home work and our time before we choose this love. I truely thought and think that this is one of the few ways to be better than my competition. We can change rapidly from one instrument to another.

Royalties etc.............. we have tried not to violate anyones copyrights and have sought to obtain our information the hard way. After doing a number of instruments you can begin to determine what is going on, often using the "Rule of Thirds". Fret scales etc. are all mathematical so after awhile things just fall into place. I think that having a good drawing knowledge of the instrument makes us better luthier.

We are not trying to sell plans but jigs fixtures to build better instruments. If we are off in our model by 1/32"- or even 1/2" most builders or players will never notice. Measure one of the so called master instruments and then find another, know two istruments will be alike.

Hope this answers your questions or concerns. If we can help then don't hesitate call or e-mail.

Kevin Waldron

Sent at: Thu Mar 04, 2010 6:28 pm

JohnAbercrombie
Message subject: Re: NEW OLF Sponsor! Please Welcome Waldron Instruments, Inc!Folder: Inbox
Kevin-
Thanks for the very detailed reply.
With the large number of 'unauthorized' copies of plans and templates made from plans on eBay and other places, the question jumped into my mind as soon as I saw your business description and product list. I hope I didn't cause offense- none was intended.
It is worth noting that even commercially available plans are usually protected by copyright, so any template made (to be sold) from those plans needs to have the plan author's permission.
I'm probably not the only person who had this question, so it might be worth considering posting this info on your website at some point.

Good luck with your new business!

John


Message subject: Re: NEW OLF Sponsor! Please Welcome Waldron Instruments, Inc!Folder: Sent messages
John,

I want to be clear we don't copy others plans but we do sometimes refer to them (many available plans are grossly wrong in parts fitting with measurements being inaccurate and inconsistant). The copyright law is clear what can and can't be done, the statement that often times is overlooked is "creative work".

If I built a boat no plans etc but I built it as I went and then finished it; you decided that you wanted to draw/draft the boat as built. Who is the creator of this work the builder or the draftsperson?

Many of the plans on the market are copies/drawings of original "creative works". There is not any difference in either one of us taking an actual instrument and measuring it and then putting this on paper than the many others who are doing this now.

Many of the instruments that are on the market are either now public domain or copyrights have expired or because of the very nature of design it can't be called creative work. Yes, there are many copyright violations in the market place. We have attempted to determine as best we can that all the works we have done are not in violation of anyones copyright.

As a builder of guitars, furniture, houses, developments, etc. often we do fly by the seat of our pants and our designs are "creative" but a draft person copying such is not doing a creative art in an of itself. I don't think that this would keep someone from being creative with my original idea but if it mimics what I created it is not a "creative work".

If you ever find something that we have done that might be in violation of the copyright would you please let us know, we have no intention of willfully harming any ones rights.

Kevin Waldron

Sent at: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:15 am

Dennis,

I'm sorry if you thought that I was being short, that was not my intent. I do think that John Hall will make custom molds if he has a template to do such, but I want answer for him. You might ask him.

We do have the ability to cut your molds/templates with the cnc but it is probably cheaper for you to get a local cabinet shop who has a cnc to do so (if you go to the Woodweb forum under cnc you can probaly post for that kind of service in your local town and find someone who will be glad to perform this service if you already have the vector/cad files). We think that for us to make a profit with our cnc that we probably can't do this kind of custom work. We use our laser to cut 2d type templates for ourselves and have had John Hall build most of our molds. One of several reasons is the cost of operate the size cnc that we have and second it is not as fast or accurate as our laser. (.0001 is hard to beat if we have drawn it correctly)

What we would like to do with our cnc is offer 3d molds/forms pre-rough-cut tops and backs for compound complex instruments.

We can and will be doing compound complex male and female molds for some instruments. It takes great amounts of time to do 3d drawings and we probably will never do "one up" type instruments. Our thinking was that there are a number of makers who are now using steam and a mold to bend complex instrumets like violins and arch top guitars. We are very interested in this kind of buiding technology for a number of reasons. One reason is that most of the compound instruments use less than a 1/4"-3/8" thick material to actually make a top or back if it is steam bent and not carved. Carving starts with much thicker material (5/8" to 3" for instance on a double bass) and reduces the material down to the required thickness wasting time and material. Another reason is that it could possibly be stronger because the radii in the wood are not carved away in un-equal layers. There is some dis-agreement on this subject but my experience in furmiture tends to bear out that steam bending is better than carving. The molds required for bending must be somewhat bigger/smaller depending on which way the bends needs to be to allow for spring back but the 3d software and the cnc are capable of dealing with this farily easily. Maybe a more important use will be lamination. With lumber rising in cost, it also make more sense to begin to use veneers with some kind of lamination like wood, plastic, carbon fiber etc. I see in the not so distant future that many builders will be doing tops, backs, sides, necks and who know what else for lamination. Look at several of the major manufactures already in there neck making process tops and backs. The quality and quantity of lumber is getting harder and harder to find and afford and if you make and sell instruments you have to have a market that can afford your product.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin

Olf Forum:

I’ve sleep on the issue and the discussion about the copyright stuff and I think it important to address the issue of how we obtain our plans. I think that it is important to show that we are not trying to copy others work and that we were not presented in a good light by some members.

Let me begin by giving some basic design ideas that I have acquired through years of experience drawing. If I were to walk into your home and walk into every room, I could leave and draw your home. You ask how? Standard bedroom doors are 2’8”x6’8” standard windows are 3’0”x 5’0”. Windows and doors are located in some position relative to each wall in the room. A standard bathtub is 5' long and 2’9” deep. Standard ceiling height is 8’ if it isn’t we can determine height from the door height even if you have 8’ high doors. When I walk through one of the doors I now can base the height of the door on my own height of 5’9” so it is in relationship to my height. Given these simple measurements I can calculate most everything else to fit. The Lord blessed me with the ability to remember design. Let’s go outside and look at the front of the house. You have a gable and a window/door is in the center of the gable, the standard window is 5’ tall (if not adjust in relationship to that) how much distance in proportion from the window to the ridge is there, using the standard window relationship and the known height as the standard. The rest is math, we can now figure the height of the gable based on relationship and we can then apply math and trig and the find the base of the triangle that comes from the gable which now gives me the width of the gable area. You get the point that I am trying to make. Go in a big box (Wal-mart) can you determine the length, width, height of the building with out a tape. Sure! How tall is a commercial door 8’ does the floor have tile ….12” how many tiles between the isles……. No tiles how about expansion joints, estimate the length between them and then the number of isles….. How many counters etc, you can do the math and understand my point about estimating by observation.

Guitars (that we build) are similar, in that we want them to look a particular way, therefore we have known values based on observation. So what do we know?

All modern day steel string construction probably started with a dreadnaught…….. this is our standard. I will round numbers to ¼” for ease of use in my example. What do we know; sound hole diameter is typical 4”, and is usually 6” centered down from the neck join, the standard scale length center of saddle both directions to the 14 fret at the neck join is 11.5”, the standard width of a MS bridge 6” and we also know the string spacing. Standard length of the body for a dreadnaught is 20.5” the lower bout width is 16” and the small bout is 12” with the waist being 11.5” the only other measurement that we need is the placement of the center of the waist which usually works close to the one third rule, in our example about 6.75”. We know much more about the instrument than this information for we also know neck width, at body-nut etc. but for my example we don't need this information. Can I now draw this instrument? Sure given the information that is available.

We begin by drawing a center line approximately 24” in length then we place a line at the top of the center line and we ask the computer to offset the top line for the length in our case 20.5”. We now have the overall length of our body. Next we divide the lower bout number by half and this time we offset the vertical center line left or right the distance of the lower bout and in our case 8”. We then would do the upper bout (6”), the waist line ( 5.75”) offset once again from the vertical center line. We now have our extremes for the outside of our instrument. We need the location of the sound hole center (6”) which we ask the computer to offset from our very top line by this measurement. We also need the waist horizontal center in relationship to the top of the guitar(6.75”) which we now ask the computer to offset from the top line. The only other measurement that we probably will need is the break at the upper turn in the upper bout towards the neck joint (approximately 1” down from the top) From this point we can simply draw the ellipse curves and given known end points and the center points our instrument begins to take shape as we had perceive it in relationship to the dreadnaught. Should we need to look at an instrument, photos, etc. it is a simple mater of now adjust the curves so that they now appear correct to the eye. I failed to mention that we are only drawing one side of the guitar on our initial pass, when our shape is as we want it we will mirror this half and produce our other side. We have now drawn a dreadnaught shape from but a few known measurements. You ask what about bracing etc. once again it still all based off of the standard dreadnaught pattern so all my measurements need to be adjusted in relationship to the standard. The X-brace need to fall in a certain position in relationship to the bridge with the sound board plate also being in relationship to the bridge. Math has told us where the bridge has to be and we now need to adjust the angle of the x pattern to make things go where they look correct. All the other bracing then begins to line up in accordance with our standard pattern. And now we proceed to develop the rest of the instrument.

All of this is over simplified but we don’t need to copy anyone work to produce the plans that we have made. Once you begin to draw instruments it begins to all fall in place, if your standards are known instruments. It is not surprising that the 3 major manufactures all have instruments that are similar. If you where to take a number of their instruments that look similar in appearance and overlay them you would be shocked how often the instruments are almost identical in body shapes in all respects with usually only minor adjustments occuring in the inside bracing pattern.

I’ve gone through all this to say that we have drawn all of our own plans without the need to copy others given the information that is available in the public domain and from the books available on building an instrument. As with any builder, do we always build to the plan? NO ! The plan is only a template, the skill comes in knowing how much to shift a brace from the norm or how thin is thin enough, or do I want more base more treble. If you build by the plan you will get a good sounding instrument but not necessarily an exceptional one, there are many controlling factors beyond basic plans that determine an instruments final sound.

Hope this clears up the issue in regards to how we obtain our plans. We draw them from scratch given a certain set of knowns. It is our intent to also begin to draw asymetrical instruments soon.

Thanks,

Kevin

P.S. The Good LORD didn't bless me with grammar skills so please excuse these.