Official Luthiers Forum!

Ok, folks, I think it's time to get this show on the road. Lance is working on getting the sub-forum going, but in the meantime we can get the rules set up, and enroll the participants.

So, here are the tentative rules:

( 1 ) Any stringed instrument you wish to build.

( 2 ) The price cap is $150.

( 3 ) Materials can be whatever you want, as long as you keep it under the price cap. Only include the price of materials and hardware (wood, tuners, etc). Do not count tools , molds , glue , tape , sandpaper, booze, bandaids, etc.

( 4 ) Must be Participating OLF member and throw your hat in the ring prior to end of July 2012.

( 5 ) Your instrument must be finished for judging by end of November 2012 . I'm guessing that things will be too busy during the holidays for people to want to deal with this project. But, if you all think you need more time, and wouldn't mind working through December, then I can change this.

I also want to shorten the voting period to 2 weeks. So, the first two weeks of December will be for voting, and the winner will have the prize before Christmas.

( 7 ) Please provide good pictures for judging. If all you have is a cell phone camera, please have a friend with a real camera take pictures for you. If you don't have any friends, go ahead and use the cell phone.

It would be nice to take a high quality video of yourself or someone else playing the instrument. If you're camera shy, a sound clip will work, but we do need one or the other.

( 8 ) Judging will be done by OLF public vote and the one with most votes on December 14th wins.

( 9 ) This is all about having fun and being creative and resourceful with the tools and materials at your disposal. Although there is a prize for the "winner", it's not about beating everyone else. The prize exists to motivate everyone to do their best within the allotted time period (four months).

(10) The prize is going to be a brace carving chisel, made by yours truly out of damascus steel. I'll need some input on the best design for that kind of chisel.

Since I'm the sponsor, and providing the prize, I'll not be competing. But I will have a build thread for the aforementioned chisel, for your viewing pleasure.

(11) It is a requirement that you post a thread so we can all follow your progress. It doesn't have to be extremely detailed, though I think we would all agree that those are the best. Take as many or as few pictures as you like. Item #7 applies here as well. Try to take good, in-focus pictures, in decent lighting.

(12) If you intend to participate, please post so in this thread, then start your build thread when Lance gets the sub-forum up and running. But don't start working on your instrument until August 1st.

If any of you have any suggestions, now is the time. I'd especially like some input on items 2, 5, and 10.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

$100? That's about £65 in my money. Tight but possible. Actually the low limit is part of the challenge, considering strings and tuners can take a large chunk of the budget.

Well Phillip , count me IN . Will see what I can do . It all comes down to ( 1 ) thing , I have a reqular customer of mine that has come to me about building his Nephew a guitar for the end of the year . It will be my first commission build soooooooooooo if that happens , I may have to drop out .

As far as budget is concerned , what ever you decide is Ok with me .

_________________
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/

I'm in!

All in, both feet.... I guess build #2 goes on hold for a bit. I'll be handicapped as I just left town for two weeks of family vacation, but that's just more motivation!! Woo hoo!!

--Jaybird

I'm in! That's quite a prize Hopefully I can finish in that time, despite the rainy season being right in the middle of it and my lack of dehumidifying capability. It's been so dry all summer, hopefully I can get to bracing before the rain rather than after.

As for the rules, they sound good to me. All instruments judged together, but tighter price goal for small ones. I'll be doing a full size guitar, and I don't think I'd want to scrimp to try to get it below $150 like the last competition. But $200 isn't much of a limit for uke/mandolin type instruments, so this way should work. Could bump the small instrument limit up to $150 if the people entering them would prefer it.

Time limit... end of November is good. Having December available would give me a much better chance of finishing in the case that the humidity jumps up before I get the box closed, but hopefully that won't happen, and I have a feeling everyone would drop out during December if they weren't forced to be done by the start of it.

Chisel design... I'll vote 5/8" or 3/4" blade width, 7" total length (half of that being the handle). My current brace chisel is 1/2" blade and 7" overall length, and is great aside from taking two strokes to shave the sides of tall braces. I bought a 3/4" paring chisel, but I don't use it at all. Too heavy, and I can't hold onto the plate like I can with the shorter chisel, and it's a pain clamping it down for carving.

I may actually participate in this one if I have the time. I've always wanted to try one of those 2X4 builds. Repair shop is picking up steam though. I may have to wait till next one.
I'll probably give it a go, worst case scenario I run out of time and drop out......

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

I have some ideas on a brace carving chisel shape as well.......

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

I'll have a go. But it will need to be $200 limit as the supplies have already been purchased.

I will be building a small (think like Martin size 5) terz-tuned guitar for my daughter. Since I have another baby daughter due in late October the November finish will be no problem! If it isn't finished by then, it isn't going to be finished anytime soon!!

Shane

I have an upcoming commission that has about $2500 in parts. Can I enter that one?

Seriously though, that is one very tempting prize. If for some reason I find time between builds on my schedule, I may play along. Though I said that last go around and never found time then either....

_________________
ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

Just a question, does the price of the material include any shipping charges?
Or just the purchased price of the material itself?

_________________
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Sen CL Goh
http://senguitar.blogspot.com

How's about 100 bucks before (sales) tax? Because that 19 to 21% on everything us Europeans buy kind of limits your options a little...

Let's keep it simple. Shipping charges don't exist.

150 bucks and everyone is in the same game, my opinion.

How about scraps from previous build?
Do we assign them a cost?

I think I might be able to participate if it's under 150 and no shipping charges.

_________________
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Sen CL Goh
http://senguitar.blogspot.com

I like that.... $150 ceiling, one category. Sen, my plan was to assign a "scrap" value to my wood as it was discarded by a local lumber mill as unusable. I pulled it from their trash bin. I'm thinking 1/2 the bdft value would be fair to the competition...

--Jaybird

What he said.

As for the price ceiling, the reason I wanted to go lower was that in the first round, only 2 out of 7 finishers spent more than $100. Mine was $37.50. So I just don't think $150 is much of a challenge. But then, most of the 7 built ukes. Maybe a higher limit would encourage more complex projects.

So, I guess we'll go with a single category of $150. I'll edit the rules to show this.

As for pricing your materials, just try to be fair and honest.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Works for me Phillip . The $150.00 limit allows for a little better hardware should the builder choose . Sounds like it will be another good challenge

_________________
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/

I would like it if we did a $200 limit. I went to build a guitar and I think I'll need the $200 limit. And that's with having a free back and side set. I haven't been building long enough to know where to get all the sweet deals. But that's just me.

I'm pretty new here, but I'm in on this one...
As for the rules, I've given this a lot of thought, but that didn't help any!
The dollar limit isn't much of a challange, if you're willing to go substandard on hardware. I'd like to see the hardware excluded from the cost, and maybe reduce the total accordingly. Tuners, trussrods, pickups, pots, or almost anything made of metal can range from next to nothing to thousands of dollars. There's no difference installing them, and I'd like to use better hardware. Not much difference on an acoustic, but pretty substantial on an electric.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I would like to chime in here , Guys we can talk about the diffrent rules all year . SHouldnt it be that the one doing the sponsering and providing the prize can set the rules as he sees fit ?

There will always be time for Another challenge , and then if you want to do the work and sponser , and provide the prize , then you can set the rules .

Not pointing finger at anyone here , just a general statement .

Come on guys lets roll with it and have fun

_________________
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/

Thank you, Wud.

We're going to stick with the $150 limit. This is supposed to be challenging, and besides, you can always put better quality hardware on ofter the contest is over.

BTW, Lance has the new sub-forum up: viewforum.php?f=10133

You can start your threads anytime, but remember, don't start working on your project until August the 1st!

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

I'm quite new here too, but I'd like to enter. I almost certainly won't have it done by November though (it's my first build!). Also I've already glued the top and back panels together - does that count as starting?

_________________
"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

https://www.facebook.com/FenskeGuitars

As it's your first. . . we'll allow you that one discrepancy. No more work on it until August 1st though!
Do your best to finish it in time.

I really want to enter this time but there is only about a 25% chance I finish on time (I get very little shop time these days). Is it going to be annoying if I clutter the place up with a thread that most likely won't finish on time?

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Nope, don't worry about it. Last time, about 40 people entered, and only 7 finished.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com