Official Luthiers Forum!

Just a short post to introduce myself. I have been building stringed instruments over the past few years, including ukuleles, guitars and mandolins. I started with a Stew Mac ukulele kit during the first Covid lockdown. I find the online luthier communities to be a great resource, for both information and inspiration. I have attached a couple of pictures of builds I have completed this year. I am currently working on another Mandolin and an Octave Mandolin.

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Bob Holbert
Lyndoch, South Australia

Hi Bob,
Welcome to the forum. Nice looking instruments !

Welcome Bob. We love pics and your instruments look great.

Welcome, Bob!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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Welcome to the forum, Bob. Great looking instruments and nice to see another builder of octave mandolins.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Nice work!

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Howdy!

Welcome Bob, some great looking instruments there. I’m near Byron Bay in northern NSW myself.

Make liberal use of the search function to browse the archives of this forum on any topics or procedures of interest, in addition to the current crop of knowledgeable members you’ll find interesting past contributions from some of the most experienced names in the biz including greats like Rick Turner, Frank Ford and so on.

If you have not already joined, the Australian and New Zealand Luthiers Forum (ANZLF) is another great resource.

Thanks all.

I agree, Josh, ANZLF is another very helpful group - I much prefer these dedicated forums to Facebook groups.

Also, still an aspiring octave mandolin builder - yet to get one on the bench!

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Bob Holbert
Lyndoch, South Australia

G'day Bob , I'm new here as well . On my second build . Very enjoyable building a guitar . First one was a proof of whether I could do it or not . Second one is learning about the finer points . I like to cut my dovetail neck joints by hand . It's not as hard as everyone says . Fret slot cutting at the moment , is there a rule of thumb depth formula ? Just something to account for a 15" radius . Oh yeah , I'm in NSW but I was born in Adelaide SA . just saw this and thought us croweaters should really stick together ....lol . You do very nice work Bob , hopefully mine may be that nice after a few more builds . Cheers Peace , Dave .

The slots just need to be very slightly deeper than the height of the tang on the fretwire you plan to use. There’s a few ways to approach it depending on whether you are fretting with the board glued to the neck, or if you are fretting the board prior to gluing it up. I slot with a miter box and handsaw but I don’t slot to final depth, because I like to level the board and finalise the radius once the guitar is totally assembled for the best fret plane. So I saw slots when the fretboard is still square, just deep enough so that they aren’t obliterated at the edge when I taper and radius the board. A couple mm maybe. Then after the guitar is complete and only fretwork remains I come back with a simple depth stop on my handsaw and cut the slots to final depth.

Very cool! Nice looking work

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Guitar Maker and Purveyor of the World's Finest Tonewoods
http://www.aaronhixguitars.com/
http://stores.ebay.com/A-Hix-Tonewood-a ... r-Supplies

Hello Mr. Holbert and welcome.

And Welcome to Mr. Harris also,
Nice to see new members joining the forum.

Thanks David - looking forward to seeing some of your work. I am only recently back in SA, having spend most of my working life in Canberra and overseas - the opportunity to return after pulling the plug on work was just too tempting!

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Bob Holbert
Lyndoch, South Australia