Official Luthiers Forum!

Being a new-comer to this forum, I'll introduce myself with this short video showing what I do :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pzK2Ei19t4

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com

I love my hand stitched French rasps. Thanks for the video!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Well that's pretty amazing process Noel. What would you recommend for instrument neck carving? Thanks for sharing that.

Cheers,
Danny

That's bad@ss!
How much are they?

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Welcome to the forum Noel!
I always wondered how they do that!
Thanks for the vid!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

If this would be your first hand-stitched rasp, I would recommend :
- either, for shaping the neck, a Cabinet Makers rasp, 10", stitching grain #9
- or, for finishing, a Modellers rasp, 7", stitching grain #13.

Cheers,
Noel

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com

That's always a difficult thing to judge. Some folk use a very coarse rasp right from the square profile of the Neck. I prefer to start with a drawknife (careful!!) and switch to a mini spokeshave. I find that a coarse rasp throws my judgement of the Neck shape. I only switch to a rasp for the transitions from Neck to head or to the heel. For me that means one of Noel's finer rasps is appropriate. Others will differ in their approach.

Group buy? Discount on qty?

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

You can use the following discount codes (to be introduced in the "checkout cart" page of the webstore) :

Star5 : 5% discount for an order of 3 pieces
Star10 : 10% for 6 pcs
Star15 : 15% for 10 pcs

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com

Impressive, to say the least.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Very Impressive and I am amazed at how accurate you can cut the teeth by hand in such a close pattern as well as you do . Excellent video , Welcome to the forum , I will keep your work in mind . I dont use rasp at this point , but who knows .

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Todd, they are through and through hardened.
As you are comparing prices with Auriou, you should also compare quality.
An australian craftman has recently done a comparative review :
http://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/rasp ... st-141118/

PS : are you sure Nicholson still produces rasps in the US ?

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com

The new rasps are made in Brazil and are junk. I'm sure Todd's are older and very nice, like my old Nicholsons were. My new ones are practically useless, and the deep and unpredictable scratches it leaves are dangerous for anything but the coarsest work. It's a shame, really.

I really like the 12" long Auriou #12 and #13 rasps for neck work... including roughing out work. The shorter modellers lengths are fine for small work and getting up into the curves a bit better - but when roughing out a neck - I find I really like a long, fine rasp... The fine cut though it the key to it's use on a neck...

I suppose I could easily be swayed to try out another fine French made rasp... just that until recently - none but the Auriou were available in the USA...

I do have a Brazilian Nicholson #50 that I also use - It seems to do just fine for what it is (About 2-steps away from a Ferrier's Horse shoeing rasp)... It seems to cut pretty fast on woods that have a comparable hardness or softer than mahogany - but that Nicholson just wouldn't do the deed on the Oak neck I did on that Red Oak small body... It was too coarse - and wanted to grab and tear out and rattle and cut very unevenly... Switching to that long #12 and the work went faster and easier....

The last thing I can comment on is that there is technique to rasping.... Either choosing the wrong handed rasp, or using the wrong technique can cause a very rough finish... For example - I really need a "Left handed" long #12 to compliment my Right handed model for neck work - when carving the neck, the Left side of the neck ends up cutting very well with the right handed rasp.... but then - move to the other side and you are driving the rasp against it's grain and it leaves a very rough finish...

Thanks

Welcome Noel...and thanks for the education on our fine rasps. Your presentation and explanation was spot on. Thanks also to the usual suspects for asking the questions as only you can do. I now realize the benefits especially based on my current work and struggles with what I use.

Is there any interest in a group purchase to take advantage of the volume discount? I would be interested in at least a #8 to #10 right-handed cabinetmakers rasp. Is this a common model or might another alternative be better for a group buy?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

This may be a stupid question from a newb, but what is the advantage of a hand-made rasp vs. a factory made rasp? I'm a machinist by trade and while a guitar (I believe) is at its best when handmade by a master, a tool I think is at its best when made in a controlled, production machining environment with high quality standards.

I suppose another way to consider the question is whether there are any high quality factory production rasps out there?

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Adam

I'll let the rasp pros answer this one, but I just want to say that your question is far from being stupid. It might open a can of worm, but it is not stupid at all.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

A hand made rasp has random cut teeth. Imagine laminating the blades of 30 saws together making sure that all the teeth of each blade line up perfectly. Now do the same but laminate the blades so that the teeth are staggered in a random manner. I think you should find that the latter method is much easier to start the 'cut' in the wood. It's similar with hand stitched Rasps. They also seem to give a finer finish than their grain equivalent machine made rasps.
Like many tools though (actually, many things in life!) you pay a lot for a relatively small increase in performance. I don't have expensive Planes (apart from the Veritas Apron) but I have a fairly expensive Rasp - it's a Herdim (obviously rebranded), I've no idea who actually make them. I won't go back to the machine rasps that I used to own and my Herdim is 10 years strong. A bit dull but still quite useable.
You don't need a hand stitched rasp. You certainly can get by with cheaper alternatives but sometimes nice things are just. . . nice.
You take your choice.

Bravo, Noel. And thank you for your work.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I really enjoyed the video, and the rasps look luscious, if that word could be applied to a tool.

I am today profiling a neck on my latest, and I am using the "Dragon" coarse large. They are not "handed" which is something that I like.
These hand-made tools make me feel like a sculptor when I am shaping, especially the hollow parts of the heel, something that is important to me.

I would love to have a French-made rasp like these, I don't really "deserve" one, but it would be nice to have the very best.

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I totally encourage this ! My rasps are delivered with an handle as I think it is important to have a ready to use tool. But in facts good rasps deserves a handle adapted to the way each one is using it.

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com

I was not aware of this kind of problems. Maybe a solution (altought I never did something like that before) that could save you some money, would be to produce a rasp that is right-handed on one side and left-handed on the other side. Right and left handed rasps have the same price since it is the same amount of work for us, and left and right handed rasp would be the same price. Still there is a problem. This would make sense only on a flat rasp (since the two sides have the same shape), I am not sure you could use a right/left handed Cabinet Makers rasps ?

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com

Thanks for asking that question.

The most important differences are :

- the shape : my rasps are tapered until the end, not truncated like all machine made rasps are. Machines cannot do the teeth on the narrow half-round shape of the tips. An this part of the files is very often use for more precise works.

- the "random" pattern of teeth on my hand stitched rasps (machines only make linear pattern of teeth) give a smoothness of the obtained surface that is not comparable.

- the teeth are much much much sharper, because the shape of the punch we use. This makes the tip of the punch more likely to break but we don't care because we see it immediatly so this does not damage the rest of the rasp and also because we don't care about productivity but only about quality.

- machines cannot make fine stitching grains : machine made rasps hardly have stitching grain finer than #8

- the teeth are orientated for right handed persons or left handed persons which improves both the cutting power and the chip removal (this last point improves the comfort in use, and by not clogging the rasps, the smoothness of the obtained surface).

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com

Can someone explain the handedness of rasps to me? I find my self doing almost a drawfiling motion with my rasps, and that works well on either side of the neck. Does a "handed" rasp mean that this won't work anymore? I'm wondering what I'm leaving on the table by having non-handed rasps, and what I would be loosing be having a handed rasp.

Maybe it's the same as I experience with my Iwasaki carving files (that are really more like floats than files.....it's almost like Vixen files designed for wood). Anyhow, I find that I have to use them in a certain direction, almost in a draw filing motion, to get them to cut well. Is that the idea?

Not sure if I understood all what you mean. I'll try to answer the part of the questions I understood.

Rasps usually have their teeth orientated towards the tip of the rasps. I cut the teeth of my rasps either for right handed persons or for left handed persons = with teeths slightly orientated on one side or on the other side.
Because when you rasp, the main movement is back and forth, but also accompanied with a slight lateral movement that happens naturaly, almost withoud wanting.
So the teeth being better orientated, the cutting power is increased, and the chips are removed more easily (that's also an important issue for rasps).
Hope it helps.

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Noel Liogier, www.liogier-france.com