MIMF

Fun with bolt numbers. If a 1/4" bolt is Grade 2 it has ultimate tensile strength between 60,000 and 80,000 psi, which translates to around 3500 lbs. A 8-32 bolt, at .164" diameter, has a UTS of around 1500 lbs. Two of them can pick up a car (a little car, anyway). They both can create over 500 lbs ...

I have a 24" flexible ruler that I use a lot. I use it to see what the scale length of a guitar is - that's about the measuring I do with it. I recently used it to center a neck I was installing - flexible is good when you need to bend the thing. When I carve archtops I use it all the time to judge ...

I've used eastern, or Canadian, hemlock for construction. Makes very rot resistant siding, decking, piers, blocking for rigging in factories. Otherwise it's kind of a junky, fast-ish growing softwood that splits and splinters about as fast as you can look at it. Can't reasonably be shaped, sanded sm...

I'm doing a kind of Les Paul ish tenon neck joint, glued. Straight tenon so fit is critical. I've never done one before, so I can't make up my mind if I set and glue the neck first, then finish, or vice versa. I normally do bolt on necks, so I finish everything first right through final polish then ...

I'm at the "finalize the neck fit and start finishing" stage of a build, and I may very well modify the joint based on your ideas. I love the idea of an adjustable neck, and using string tension to keep it together. My favorite neck joint is the Howe-Ormes arrangement, and while yours is completely ...

Thank you all very much. I was under a mistaken impression that it was a brand new product - the ad for it I saw kind of implied that. But 46 years ago is a long time!

http://www.titebond.com/product/glues/9 ... 7daa20f8ed

Have we tried it? What do we think?

I build archtops, and I find that when I build a traditional F-hole top I end up with a strong air resonance around Bb or C. If it's too strong I end up with a dead sounding note. I built an archtop with F-holes and a sound port on the upper shoulder, it had a stronger resonance around D (open 4th s...

I'm getting ready to "dress" the J-bass I've been making for what seems like decades, but is only years. The guy I'm building it for gave me a bunch of random hardware that he had collected, including some individual bridge/saddle units. You mount them beside each other but they don't touch. I'm hav...

I'm doing a kind of Les Paul style neck tenon for my current build, I normally do dovetail or bolt on joints. The tenon is straight, around 3" long, flat bottom, and straight flat sides. It will rest firmly on the bottom, and get clamped while gluing, but I can't clamp the sides. How tight a fit do ...

Thanks for your reply. Not what I was told by the other guys, but if you're doing it, that's it! I can follow up on my 2019 comment on Beautitone Acrylic Lacquer, from Home Hardware. Finally got around to refinishing one of the instruments I used it on, first of three to do. Good news - it's about i...

How do you get around the supposed ban on shipping? I was told directly by lacquer manufacturers that they would not ship it to me. I'm in Nova Scotia.

Thanks for the feedback, I believe I will fret first and carve after. As it happens I decided to bind the fretboard first, but I still think New York Epi's had the binding installed after the frets, I've seen a picture of that from their factory, and other Epi experts agree. It's quite unusual now t...

Do you carve the neck before or after you install the frets? It's an archtop with a neck extension under the fretboard, so it's fully supported and the fretboard is glued to the neck and fully prepped for fretting. I can't remember how I did it before, and I can't think of why it would matter one wa...

A friend of mine wants to get a good but cheap mandolin (we are looking at used). I can't find her one within Covid driving distance to even try, and the ones on line near here seem to think that a 10 year old laminated far east instrument has somehow doubled in price from when it was new. So I'm bo...

I have a 1930's Regal made Dobro with a similar (identical) neck problem so I hope you post your solution. I'm currently ignoring it by playing it lap style with a riser nut, but in the back of my mind is this nagging feeling that I'm going to repair it sooner or later... I won't be removing frets o...

Late to the party but - I use the Zinsser spray shellac in a can all the time when I am building, I use it to protect the raw wood from dirty fingers, I use it to seal the binding rout, I use it to protect against glue staining so I spray it on the routed ledge and use CA glue to apply the binding (...

I was sure I saw this somewhere, and found it on Frets.net. A good starting point. I talked to a luthier who was doing a similar cut and bolt neck reset on a Yamaha, I think. http://fretsnet.ning.com/forum/topics/n ... et-gallery

So many ways, and no one does it my way... although it comes virtually step for step from the Benedetto book. I slot the flat and square fretboard. I taper it to size accounting for binding width. I add the "purlfing" binding to the tapered, slotted fretboard, and slot the binding. I glue the flat, ...

It's been done, over the decades (centuries), mostly an arch in one direction, with the grain. The nuance of a traditional arched top guitar, with the flowing curves and the recurve around the edge, is impossible as far as I can see. If I wanted to make a guitar like that and didn't want to carve th...