Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello from England.

I have been studying the basics of Luthiery at a local college and under the supervision of an established Luthier, and have almost completed my second guitar. I love it and I know that this is something that I am going to do for the rest of my days, even though I am still a little "green" as we English might say.

Well I was wondering how many of you solely use hand tools; and if not, what "power tools" could you not live without/ would be the ones you'd recommend a start up to get first? I am at the beginnings and am getting myself set up slowly and have only bought hand tools so far (the only electrics are Lights, Radio and a Kettle).

Also, when making (from plans) how strict are you to following the plans, do you ever get the urge to build with a bit more of a Jazz ethos? (Quote "If you cook by recipes, you will always eat the same meal. Cook by principle, ....etc you get the idea")

Would be interesting to get your “2 pence”.

Cheers Ed.

Hello Ed, welcome to the OLF

If your in for the long haul, get a drum sander to thickness back sides and tops...you will find 'endless' other uses for this wonderful machine. I have a Jet 16/32 and love it but there are plenty of good thickness sanders on the market and it really is something you will most likely gravitate to, especially once you have taken on the job of trying to thickness a lovely bit of high figured wood with a hand plane...yes it can be done with care and finishing up with a well tuned scraper but chances are you will be wondering if you will bother again by the time your done. If you do get yourself a thickness sander, you 'will' need adequate dust extraction to prevent burning the wood and your lungs.

The only other 'must' have in electrification is a small 'good quality' bandsaw. Even a good bench top 3 wheeler will get the job done and you will find many uses for that tool also.

Good luck

Kim

Bandsaw is my only Power tool and even that gets little use. It's a cheap 6" under the guides model. Unless I was pushing out 20 Guitars + per year I personally wouldn't feel the need for a power sander. I can thickness Backs/Sides and Tops pretty efficiently using hand Planes. Finish with a scraper and it can be reasonably quick.
A decent No.5.5 Plane can be had for very little. In fact the one I have was given gratis, a 1970's Stanley. Supposedly the worst of the bunch but mine works wonderfully. I use it to both join and thickness, doesn't need any dust extraction. Probably better to learn using hand tools and buy the more expensive Power tools if you feel the need. Believe me,over the years you can spend a frightening amount of money on tools.

Get a lathe and learn to turn pens. It's way faster and less frustrating.

Kim's right. A thickness sander is a wonderful thing to own. I love mine and wouldn't be without it. But he's also right that they require good dust collection which is eats up a good amount of space. Before I had my sander, I was very pleased with my Safe-t-planer which you use with a drill press. And it makes much bigger chunks of wood, so I'm not worried about breathing it in.

If you're trying to minimize power tools, I'd probably get a good drill press first. Mine gets used far more than the sander does. Of course, most of the things it is used for would not be difficult to do by hand either.

And on bandsaws, I had a cheapo one that worked great, but I've also used some that could not be set up to make a controlled cut in a 1/8" spruce top plate. Try a friend's before buying one.

Mike

_________________
Mike Lindstrom

welcome to the circus Ed .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Hi Ed, welcome to the forum.
You can live without any power tools, but, drill press, small bandsaw, dust extractor, and laminate trimmer would be my personal short list.

_________________
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.

Welcome, Ed. I'm just starting out and to date I've only used a couple of different hand saws, a block plane, scraper and a band saw (which was only for cutting the rough shape of the top.)

My next purchase, though, will definitely be a good drill press with some weight to it--not a bench top.

Otherwise, besides a router for the truss rod channel and for trim, I don't suppose one needs much else electric.

Enjoy the forum; I'm new but these guys are great.

_________________
Adam

Hello Ed,

You can do a whole lot with just hand tools, but joint top of the list of power tools are a large drill press (16mm chuck, at least 150mm throat) and at least a 14" bandsaw. Anything smaller on these two items are really just toys. If you're making jigs/fixtures, these two tools are worth their weight just for the extra speed and accuracy. After that, a collection of routers; at least one large enough to table mount and at least one small enough for cutting binding ledge rebates etc..

Re: making from plans, after you have the plantilla down, throw them out! Making to someone else's dimensions using wood of undoubtedly different properties to whoever produced the plan will just ensure a mediocre guitar. As soon as you have the basic skills down, move as soon as possible to building to acoustical specifications rather than a set of linear dimensions. There's more about that sort of thing on my web site.

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Hello Ed.

I would suggest you look at what aspects of lutherie you enjoy. If it's something you want to do as a hobby and for relaxation and you enjoy working with hand tools then just stick to that. If you are more interested in the finished product but not necessarily the the way in which you get there then power tools are helpful. I'm surprised to see so many say how valuable a drill press is as I've never actually owned one. But the drum sander is a tool I got after 15 years of building guitars and wished I had gotten it much sooner. Band saws are very useful if you get a hold of some wood that needs to be resawn. At the very least a laminate trimmer/router and hand drill.

As for plans, take them all with a grain of salt. They are just to point you in the right direction.