Official Luthiers Forum!

was just checking out the long handled paring chisel from lie. 50 bucks seems ok to me, but the BlueSpruce looks sooo darn great its hard to resist, haha. I read from the Cumpiano book that one should not get a cheap chisel.
Lars

Hei Lars!
Blue spruce chisels are very nice, but come on; you live in Sweden, home of the worlds finest tool steel! You should be able to find some very nice chisels locally, my favorites are the classic Eskilstuna brands: E. A. Berg, Jernbolaget etc. unfortunately all out of business,

I second the suggestion to make or buy locally where possible. While Tracy, John, and our other sponsors are fantastic guys offering great products, you will get far more out of building some of your own fixtures and jigs than just cost savings - I view the making of jigs and fixtures as a warm-up for the sort of logical, step-by-step problem solving approach necessary for luthiery. The first thing I made when learning how to work wood was a bench hook...far more useful than anything else I made for years afterward.

While I would definitely pick up the center finder, bending blanket, and other difficult or impossible to make items from our sponsors, you might take a look at the cost and time trade-offs between ordering bender, binding jig, dishes, etc., and buying a decent band saw, drill press, table saw, and router to make your jigs and fixtures. For someone definitely interested in building more than a few instruments, investing in some shop tools and making a bench, outside mold, etc. might be a good tradeoff.

In terms of hand tools:

- For rasps, I would go with a Herdim 704722 (Cabinetmaker's Rasp) or or the Chinese-made version (704672) from Dick - a medium cut hand-cut rasp should be close to what you'll see with a #49, and you can finish up the neck with a cabinet file, card scrapers, and sandpaper/block.

- Card scrapers are essential - the Bahcos are fine after a bit of polishing and squareing the edge - excellent Swedish steel, but not as neatly finished as when Sandvik was a separate entity. If you end up ordering from LN or Woodcraft, get the set of LN card scrapers - made from the best Swedish saw stock, they come ready to go (LN makes them from offcuts of the rolls of steel they use for their back, tenon, and dovetail saws).

- For chisels, I would second Arnt's suggestion to find 6mm, 12mm, and an 18mm Bergs - the round, ring-handled, blue labeled ones are superb, and take an edge that is very durable. The best had that beautiful blued finish that the Japanese still use on their hand-forged tools. To get you started, you might order nice 1/2" and a 3/4" paring chisels from Blue Spruce and round out your collection with bevel edged Bergs, etc. as you find them locally. It is very handy to have a few narrow chisels as well for trimming truss rod channels or saddle slots - single bevel carving chisels in 2mm and 6mm (Pfiel from Dick) work, or you can find some well-used 6mm chisels and grind them to the width you need...I buy old beat-up, chipped Bucks and Witherbys to anneal, regrind, and reharden/temper for jobs like this.

- I would not bother ordering a 10" convex dish - just take a scrap of MDF, mark a grid of lines with a pencil, and rub it around in the 28' radius dish until the lines are gone...almost instant convex dish, and an exact match to the dish you are using for the top and save shipping.

- A small trimming plane is one of the most useful tools in my shop. I prefer the LN low angle block plane over anything else, but the Lee Valley tool is nice if you can tolerate the wider body. An older US made Stanley #60 or English-made Record #60 off of Ebay might also be a good option - either would benefit from a blade swap.

On wood, I think you might see what can be found locally or at least on the continent. A couple sets of back & side wood from Colin's source for mahogany and a half dozen nice tops, fretboards, etc. from Madinter or one of the UK suppliers might be a good way to get your first few guitars built with quality materials at reasonable cost.

Go-bars: find a kit store, get 5mm fiberglass rod and rubber tips for it, and make your own. Works great, pretty cheap. Only reason I ordered those from the US was that I was visiting at the time anyway; half my go-bars come from my local kite supply store, and were only marginally more expensive than the online shop.

While I would definitely pick up the center finder, bending blanket, and other difficult or impossible to make items from our sponsors, you might take a look at the cost and time trade-offs between ordering bender, binding jig, dishes, etc., and buying a decent band saw, drill press, table saw, and router to make your jigs and fixtures. For someone definitely interested in building more than a few instruments, investing in some shop tools and making a bench, outside mold, etc. might be a good tradeoff.

Notes on rasps: I have microplane tooling, have not used it a single time since getting the hand cut Herdim rasps. Also have the cheap chinese swordfish rasps Dick sells, and while they're quite nice, they can't touch the Heridm rasps for smoothness of cut. They are nice and agressive though.