MIMF

Battle Axe? It's pretty cool looking, what ever you call it. Can you post a sound file?

The secrets to tapping threads are lubrication (3-in-1 oil works for me), and backing the tap out a half turn every 1/4-1/2 turns to break and clear the chips.

I hope you'll come back and post pictures when you're done building it. Good luck.

Andrew, are you talking about fanned frets on your 26-23.5" scale length, or is that just the range of possible scale lengths you're looking at?

Hey, I might bite at a $100 hurdy gurdy challenge. Seriously. It would take a lot of work so make it a long duration - 6 months or so. And please wait until I'm done with the two banjos I'm building now (which probably means 2015).

You're right, it does look pretty good. I have one or two guitars that are in similar shape, I hope I can do them up as nicely.

Let me be the first to congratulate you and call for a sound sample.

We used to call toys like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoO2LIYLPEc bullshit grinders (pardon the crude expression). The handle and various other points on the mechanism describe an ellipse. You could try to make one from wood (a dovetail router bit is useful) and attach a swivel blade at the...

If the standard is cigar box uke, that one in the video is a cigarette box uke.

I was quite surprised when a couple of my chic/hip daughters started to play the ukulele. They seem to be "in" with the younger crowd these days. I have some koa to rebuild the first uke my #5 daughter had, which we got at a garage sale for a couple of bucks. The lady had played it in coll...

With just plywood the grain will become a bit of a problem when it comes to applying the rosin. The reality is that all plywoods are made from relatively soft and porous woods, and their endgrain is far from perfect. It's not impossible, but not really a great choice. (unless you can source some pl...

Nice looking Mountain Dulcimer. I've always liked the teardrop shape.

And here's one way I used my Shopsmith to true up the tops of each ring before gluing on the next level. This was the final truing after rough cutting with my Safe-T-Planer. I should have got a good enough finish with just the planer, but there were some deep swirl marks left in portions of the wood.

Well, here is what I finally have done for the half-ring end jointing:

Hi Dan, I saw that on your video. If I wanted/could afford to spend $60 or $80 on a good crosscut blade I probably would try that. As it is I cut the segments and then try to true up the ends with my Shopsmith disc sander and a jig. It works pretty good but not quite perfect. And I don't even know w...

That's a great instrument. Nice little carving there on the headstock.

There are some great Irish players out there if you care to get into Celtic music. My favorites are the groups Planxty and De Danaan although there are a lot of younger groups now that I haven't followed much.

Mario, your first option is simpler than the flossing option, since I've already got sandpaper glued to glass to do it with. I was afraid of the angles not being perfectly 90, but it really doesn't matter. They will match, as you say, and will be close enough not to be detectable by the human eye. E...

Mario, I see what you mean. It didn't occur to me because I need to joint both ends of each half-ring at once (or better yet, all four ends of both half rings stacked in a bookmatch together) so it's more like jointing a long straight edge than the end of a segment. The rings are already glued up ex...

Mario, that's the type of thing I'd envisioned until Clay mentioned his router approach. Now I'll have to decide which one to do. As you say, your tool can be very useful for many projects including joining tops and backs for wood instruments. I don't quite get why you want to use a miter gauge to p...

Jon, before I got a Performax drum sander I thickness sanded my guitar plates with my Shopsmith using the 12" disk sander with the set up in the drill press mode. Bring the disk sander down to the table, lock it, and move the wood between the two. Advance the disk sander a hair at a time. You ...

I haven't seen a level that is thick enough to give me the width I'll need. I've been flattening the faces of the half rings on 80-grit sandpaper glued on glass. It's been a lot of exercise but I need the workout. I think it would be best to put the half rings back to back and joint the ends togethe...