Official Luthiers Forum!

[QUOTE=CarltonM]
Arnt, that is one sweet guitar; and what a cool choice for your first effort! Is it ladder-braced? [/QUOTE]

Thanks, Carlton. No, it is X-braced. I built it while reading Cumpiano (which was perfect as I had just a few hand tools), so the bracing, neck joint and so on are based on that and not the original instrument. The braces are very light, there is only one tone bar and the top is around 2 millimetres thick. The neck is a base ball bat though, what was I thinking?!!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=KiwiCraig]
AH ! I see what I have done Rod. Sorry . Now ,how do I edit ?

KiwiCraig[/QUOTE]

G'mornin' kiwi Mate, just go back to your post to edit, you'll have the edit grey button at the bottom of that same post, click then erase the pics to edit and go back to the pics on your computer to resize them and post back

My turn! My turn!

Here is first woodworking project in all in glory, just strung up. I'll start my own post, but I had to include it in this one! Action is still high right now as I continue to work it down. Sounds killer, though! Honduran mahogany, sitka, white oak binding, forward shifted pre-war bracing w/ no popsicle stick.

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

Ok here's mine.

I made it from scratch using Cumpiano's book in 2003.

I had to redo the bindings about 4 or 5 times. I made 3 bridges before I got it right. It took me 3 attempts to cut the fret slots right and then after I glued the fret board on I realized that I hadn't leveled the neck and sound board properly on one side and had to remove the fret board(Thanks to Al Currath for telling me how to do this). So after that the fret board was ruined and I had to make yet another one.

When finished I french polished it with orange shellac and it turned out pretty blotchy so I ended up removing that and then I frech polished the sound board with blonde shellac and did Nitro on the rest. During the nitro spraying I accidentally cut the string that it was hanging from and to my utter horror, in one of those slow motion moments, I watched it fall to the concrete floor. Amazingly the only damage was minor to the bindings.

It has a Cedar sound board and Mahogany back & sides. The bridge and fret board are Cocobolo.

Thanks for sharing this story with us Graham, it turned out very impressive even with all the set backs that you mentionned and experienced, gorgeous classical! How's the sound with that kind of combo ?

heres my first...
a bit of info:
built this one after i finsihed my army service, while in argentina.
the back/sides are "algarrobo flameado" which basically means flamed algarrobo(south american mesquite).
that algarobbo was a door that i sliced up unto two guitar sets using a hand held saw.
i planed it down to thickness using a #7 stanley, and bent the sides over a bronze pipe heated by an alcohol lamp.
to this day i have no idea what the top is...all i know it tapped nicely and seemed stiff enough to be used.
neck is multi-layered and consists of nogal(peruvian walnut),algarrobo,roble(oak) and tipa(have no idea what it is really...
the mermaid inlay is made of paua, green abalone and MOP, and as i later discovered, it is identical to the one on the Breedlove "koa king" guitar.

Udi.

Way to go Udi, awesome firt one, you're talented and quite resourceful!

Wow, great job fellows, man o man, serious guitarmaking going on around this old orb.

I'm sending my front door and commissioning a guitar by Udi. Udi, unfortunately it's a steel door. Just kidding, but I love what you did with that last door.

Okay, I must admit, I have three sets of redwood tops that came from high dollar redwood garage doors. You saw them on the nicest of homes in this area in the 60's and 70's. Straight and pretty, perfectly quartered, but not necessarily the strongest across grain.

Congrats to all of you guys on these fine instruments.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com