Official Luthiers Forum!

Nice little guitar, Todd and nice work on the cabinet!

My son and I worked on the walnut Ashbory bass we're building together. The shape is pretty much done, though he wanted to put a cone shape to the ends of the cutaway, so we spent some with him learning how to file to desired shape. Interesting effect.

Spotted a Gerstner #52 on CL for $49 last week while I was at work, so I called my brother and asked him to go get it. He brought it over that evening as a gift, but wouldn't take payment for it. He's an antique tool dealer, so he knows its worth. Looks like 40s vintage, great shape. Only needs a little finish restorer, new felt, two drawer pulls, and a glued seam on the raised-panel front door, which I just clamped up. Some loose veneer on the back needs regluing. Replaced the missing drawer pulls with new ones from Gerstner, but will probably remove them again to age them - the new nickel is just too bright. Worked on the finish with their own restorer and 0000 steel wool, and it came to life.

On the Madagascar RW 000 I'm building for a local guy, got the sides trimmed up and glued in the linings.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

very nice hinge there. I've been sick a couple of days and my car overheated when on the way to a job interview. Bad timing. Warped cylinder head, blown gasket, bad radiator, water pump and probably needs a new catalytic converter. The old Subaru's not worth putting $4500+ into so I made a call to cars 4 kids. Now I'm unemployed without a vehicle... happy Friday the 13th!

This weekend I set the neck on my 12 fret project, did some french polishing, and got ready to glue the bridge in tonight. I hope this guitar comes out sounding good despite its slightly odd shape and a couple of horrendous glue joints...

Love that Staufer style headstock with the brass plate. Beautiful old guitar.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

I prepped these four to finish but I can't decide whether to use the process I know...zpoxy and nitro...or wait until I can figure out this uv cure polyester. I've done lots of test panels following their instructions but it's not going well enough at the moment to commit to using it for these guitars.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

My last two builds are off to finish in the last week, so I'm making rough brace stock for the next two.

Chris.

I bought a used MM20 and sold my Rikon 18 this weekend. Loading, moving and unloading the MM20 was a challenge. Definitely more saw than the Rikon...a whole lot more I rented a heavy duty appliance handtruck with dropdown wheels to negotiate an obstacle course with short doorways and tall thresholds at the seller's shop. It made the job much easier and safer. No backache today!
Now to upgrade to 30amp service from 20 amp.

not much on my home front but I got my bluescreek side bender with cut away and go bar deck. going to do my first bends tomorrow night I can't wait . I hope I don't screw anything up. oh and got a new chisel and saw. it was like my birthday this weekend with all the tools and wood I got.

Sleet and snow!

California, May 15th!

Even shut down the Amgen Bike Race (Stage 1) around Tahoe due to snow, below freezing temps, etc.

"Tis not fit for man nor beast!"

Hank (shivering my timbers)

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Hank Mauel

I had a good weekend in the shop, braced a top, laminated a neck for the fan fret guitar and rough shaped the headstock. The headstock was a bit of a pain as the second angle to match the slanted nut took a little time.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

I finished getting the binding done on my elle-zero zero. Next I get the fun of scraping it all flush and clean. In the photos you can see that the neck is being offered up to the body just to see how it will all look together. I'm liking it so far.

Saturday evening I took three guitars to the Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society concert. They are welcoming of local luthiers to present their work in the hall lobby before showtime, during intermission, and at the conclusion of the show. Its not a lot of time, nor a lot of people, but its very focused. And the intention at this point is simply for people to become aware of me and my work.

But this boat is really slowing me down as I have till the end of the month to have it all done, and I have a sail rig still to do! Yikes! But it I am making progress! You can see the interior varnish is done, and at one full day to sand, clean and varnish per coat I am very glad to be done that! I have one last coat of exterior paint to do and I'll be done that today. The flip it back over and get the last bit of varnish on the gunnels and trim.

THEN I get to make the spars, leeboards, oars, and rudder!

From the photos you can start to get a sense of how its going to look.

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

I just finished this guitar.This is my Grand Concert model and has a red spruce top,
Ind. rosewood back and sides,bubinga binding,5 piece neck and gold frets.
BRW - fb, bridge, rosette, hs. overlay, and top purfling.Finished with nitro.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Doug,

That boat is gorgeous! And the L-00 is my favorite body shape. I've only built a few, but if I ever get to build a personal guitar for myself, it will be an L-00.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Finally, the bracing.

I can't help it: I have to make little jigs for every second step in guitar building.
Yesterday I faced the task of cutting the right angle into a new headplate (where it touches the nut). After measuring the exact angle on the neck ...

... I came up with this very simple jig.

It slides in a groove of the disc sander and makes perfect angles in a matter of seconds.

I actually got some guitar time in! I haven't touched my J45 in the last 2-months.... Did some level sanding on the top - took it to 1,000 grit... Need to go buy some 1200, 1500, and 2000 grit...

Thanks

A new style of fretboard markers for me on this one, I normally just do dot markers but this was at the clients request and I really like it!

I mitred the ends of the abalone so as they become side markers too.

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http://www.bobmatthewsguitars.co.uk

Trying to finish up some Center Line Finders and my MacKenzie Duplicator.

Great stuff going on. I love those fret markers. Very nice. I got some z-poxy on a claro walnut dread and closed the box on an all koa dread. I went with two side ports on the walnut dread. This will be a guitar for me, so I thought I would do some fun stuff with it.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

As always, lots of great work by everyone!
Don't have a proper space of my own yet, but working away at my teacher's shop. Past the halfway point with guitar #1. Red cedar top with yellow cedar back and sides.
Funny thing when the pile of wood starts to actually look like a guitar...


Box closed up and channels routed for padauk binding with simple black purfs.



Having a blast and can't believe I put off making a guitar for this long!

-Jake.

Here's some pictures I took the other day. Carving the neck...





....and cleaning up the edges with a scraper








...until things looks reasonable, and the neck can be bolted to the guitar to see how things fit. This is an Adi/madrose dread and a Adi/EIR cutaway jumbo

Front:








Back:

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Finally getting around to putting the finish on a couple I have had in the works for qute awhile...
The 000 is bubinga and englemann, the OM is Amazon rosewood and Sitka, laquer is EM 6000

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MK5acoustics.com

My wife and I just had our first kid, so I don't get to spend as much time out in the shop. But hopefully I'll be wrapping up #5 and #6 (both SJs). Started on #7 (parlor).

Laurel


Redheart


Khaya & WRC


w/shellac

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

I'm working on my first dread. Lutz spruce from Shane and EIR b&s. I'm trying a different tactic on this build. Normally I start building before I select all the appointments which means I sometimes throw things together, but this time I planned out all the purflings, inlay, etc before I even joined the plates. Drawing everything in CAD first helped.

Bob

I' working on my 000, almost finished the french polish on my classical, and started to work on the design project that Ervin Somogyi gave me.

Finally got the shop moved to the point where i can start building again. Took over the large side of my basement from my wife! Went from 7'x10' to 13'x20". Took me a while to figure out where to put everything. Then I started running out of room...How'd I ever work in my old shop! Can you ever have enough space?





Getting started on a build for a friend. She's fairly short and has really small hands so I'm going with short scale. She wanted a takamine shape so I found a straight on shot online, rescaled it for short scale with Big Print and made templates. It'll be my first acoustic without an actual plan. Highly confident I can pull it off successfully. It'll be a pretty simple guitar. EIR/Sitka 14 fret SJ/Grand Concert shape with venetian cutaway. Bindings will be curly maple with ebony FB and bridge. Hopefully have some in progress pics soon.

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Rob

You guys are so inspiring. Thanks for the great ideas, especially on the rosettes!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com