Being an Aussie one become accustom to a certain amount of isolation from the rest of the world. Being from Perth in Western Australian (the most isolated capitol city on earth) is doubly insulating. When you’re on an island this big, you just can't help but miss out on a few things.
This situation can have both positives and a negatives, depending on exactly what it is you’re missing out on. For example, the jackass craze never did really take off here and Yoko Ono has never toured either
But a big negative is the limited network and lack of resources available to luthiers.
I really do mean it when I say that the OLF and forums of the kind have made the dream of building your own instrument a reality for a lot of us from down under. The information so freely given to us here, allows us to eat the meat and spit out the bones so to speak when faced with the logistical challenges thrown at us by our location.
For example, when we buy wood, we must pay shipping cost that force us to basically pay for 3 sets to get 2, that coupled with only getting 70c in the US$ makes the equation more along the lines of buying 3 sets, to get 1 1/2 sets.
At those prices, we just cannot afford to be screwed over, the OLF and a few other lutherie based forums give us the opportunity to develop relationships with quality vendors ensuring that we at least get what we pay for.
Same deal with tools and other products. A lot of lutherie specific tools are simply not available in Australia. Not only does the information available to us here at the OLF make us aware of tools and products out there making the job easier, we can also use the information posted by experienced luthiers who have actually used it to assess for ourselves wether or not that item is right for us before spending what quite often amounts to more than the purchase price of the item just to ship it here.
The recent group buys organised buys John Watkins and Shane Neifer are a perfect example of how much this group can help us fellows from “down there tomorrow”
And of course there is the most valued and treasured resource of all here at the OLF, the friendship, advice, and exchange of ideas that are so freely given by this group as a whole. It far out weighs all of the other benefits and is irreplaceable. This gift not only makes the whole venture viable for us with so many cost saving jigs for this, and work arounds for that, the tips and advice also helps us to avoid ruining our expensive and hard won tonewoods, or worse still, just giving up the game altogether in frustration.
Yep, it’s just gotta be said, thanks Lance, Bruce and the rest of the guys doing the moderator shuffle. And on behalf everyone now and in the future who visits this forum from Australia in search of kindred lutherical
spirits, thanks to all the rest of you OLFers, you guys make the process fun and interesting, more importantly, you make us feel welcome. 
Cheers all
Kim
