Official Luthiers Forum!

Well I think Paul's new house takes the cake! I have a question though: When Santa delivers a new house, how does he do it? Does he set up the house, come down the chimney and give you the deed for the property? Does he blow up your old house, and replace it. Does he stick the new home under an enormous tree with a bow on it?
Sorry grew up jewish and never figured out some of the Santa abilities. We have a Menorah, looks pretty but generally the new home is in flames before we can move in
All the best in your new place send photos soon!

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http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

Tim,
I have had the pleasure ( or dis-pleasure if you consider that since trying it nothing else compares)of trying this machine at Ervin Somogyi's a few years ago. I also got a chance to check out Sylvan's brand new one last June...That is one awesome Christmas present. You, as you probably already know, are going to love it! You can't go back to those crummy barrel/drum thickness sanders once you've gone to this level. You are blessed!

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Would you believe a genuine stingray-skin wallet? Just what I always wanted. Good thing I bought a Ryobi BT3100 table saw for myself as an early Christmas present. An incredible deal at the blow-out price Home Depot was selling it for earlier this month.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Yesterday afternoon at the inlaws, I got cash. It's always good to get cash. I plan on buying a heating blanket and spring steel slats from John Hall with the cash, so I guess I also got a heating blanket and spring steel slats.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

I Got the BILL! But hey that's o.k. God gave me two beautiful children ( 8 and 5 yrs ago) that make it worth every penny.   

My Two Rockers:



Too much to fit under the tree!:



Busy opening presents:

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

A Little Giant ladder. If you only get one ladder in your life get this one. Almost every contractor who has been at my house in the last 10 years has had a Little Giant ladder.

A standard guitar used to be a size 5. Now everybody is making Jumbos. Pretty soon we're all going to need a good ladder for luthiery.

Dave, great looking family you have.

Ah Christmas in Florida, shorts and tee shirts.

"Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow"

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Sounds like ya'll had a very merry Christmas. We had rain, rain, rain. Congrats on the new house Paul, now get that painting done and set up shop!!
Tim, I'm gonna have Bob route all my woods thru your new sander. That's very cool.
Happy new year to you all.
I didn't get any new tools for the shop cept maybe a new pocket knife, but last Friday I took a new guitar commision    .

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

A new commision is kind of like a Christmas present isn't it John?

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Shiny new 30GB black ipod. Holds music pictures and video. I love it. Have 1,200 songs on it now.

Apparently my wife put out the word to a local woodworking guild, and also made a lot of phone calls, and I got 3 nice new 16" wide Brazilian RW planks. These are all 4" thick, mostly quartered, and no cracks or checks. Oh, and they're all 6' long.
YEEEEE HA! Best Christmas ever!!!!

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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."

kidding....just kidding.

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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."

Sheesh. Propogator of panic

[QUOTE=TonyKarol]   Fine tune ??? maybe they didnt finish yours up as well as the ones I got a few months back, but hey at 16 cdn, whos gonna complain. I thought the bullnose would be the more useful of the two, but after I rounded the nose, tail and put more angle on the sides, the small plane has become a favorite of my students and I for shaving braces - they cant believe its so cheap, yet works so well, and hasnt even been sharpened yet !!!! GOOD STUFF.[/QUOTE] Tony I fine tune all my planes when I first get them. Creature of habit I guess. Some are very good out of the box others leave a lot to be desired.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

[QUOTE=Don Williams] kidding....just kidding.[/QUOTE]

I hope you know that I had already staked out your home when you posted this. I hope that in the future, you will be so kind as to save me the time and aggravation when you're going to get my hopes up for a profitable B & E.

Merry Christmas, Steve Brown

I am with you Bob .. couldnt get the LV low angle block to work worth beans before I had Mario Rodrigues of FWW fame check it out a local wood show - showed me a couple things to tune up, plus I changed the attack angle to 54 degrees and now it planes ANYTHING when sharp. Sole wasnt true, blade not honed enough ... pretty much all the important stuff to make a plane work !!!

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

My thoughts is that Don is just kidding about the "just kidding" part. I say we all go over there and take a look!! Nothing like angry villagers with torches to make someone give up the good wood(just be careful with the torches)

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http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

What I got is my wife playing guitar with me.

I get Luthier related stuff all the time and play my instruments daily. I am a collector of musical instruments and have about 130+ instruments of all kinds in every room of the house....literally...I even have a soprano uke in the powder room!

My wife is primarily an artist who is a copyist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC but is musical as well. She plays mainly piano (we have 3) but at one time played guitar. She has not expressed any interest in guitar even though we have plenty around but for Christmas I wanted to get her a guitar she could not refuse.

For Christmas I bought my wife an 1830 German guitar (Stauffer school but without a stauffer head) that is small and has a short scale of 610mm. It is a very small body and is ladder braced. It is what most today would call a parlor guitar. It was a basket case that was restored but has a beautiful sound.

It is as loud as a Panormo of the same period but has a very sweet tone. I have it strung with synthetic gut strings and it sings.

Because it was small and sounded very pretty I knew I would be able to coax my wife to play it and she loves it. After over 30 years of not playing once she held this instrument she could not put it down.

Note that I have alot of other guitars and instruments from the same period but they are seen as mine or rare and valuable. If the instrument I gave her were more pristine or bigger or newer she would probably have not fallen in love with it but this restored basket case with a sweet voice won her over.

We spent Christmas eve playing duets of Away in a Manger, Silent Night and other traditional Christmas songs many of which are as old or older than her guitar and it was a magical Christmas present for me to be able to play with her and for her to have an instrument that would compell her to play guitar again.

Shawn, that is just beautiful - a truly priceless gift.

I think you & Paul are tied for the lead!

I got my 17yo home from her first semester at Boston U.
Home, all smiles, with photos of friends, new self-confidence, and a 3.36.
We've hardly stopped talking, laughing and eating long enough to sleep
since she arrived a week ago. I fixed a turkey dinner with trimmings that
we're STILL digesting!

That's all I need...

[QUOTE=Shawn]
For Christmas I bought my wife an 1830 German guitar (Stauffer school but without a stauffer head) that is small and has a short scale of 610mm. It is a very small body and is ladder braced. It is what most today would call a parlor guitar. It was a basket case that was restored but has a beautiful sound.

It is as loud as a Panormo of the same period but has a very sweet tone. I have it strung with synthetic gut strings and it sings.

Because it was small and sounded very pretty I knew I would be able to coax my wife to play it and she loves it. After over 30 years of not playing once she held this instrument she could not put it down.

[/QUOTE]

Shawn, now I am jealous!

I had the chance last year to repair a 1780 6-string English guitar of unknown maker and, when it was finished (in no small part due to my superb repair skills ) it sounded the most sweet guitar I have every played.

I have access to the collection of historic instruments at the Royal Academy of Music here in London, but could never dream of owning them, (I love the Panormos). Though I often play them in a consort. When you hear a consort of 2-300 year old instruments playing you realise that we are not going to hear the full potential of our modern ones in our lifetime.

David Rattray has promised my wife (RAM trained) the chance of a brief play of the recently acquired 1709 Viotti Stradivari violin, one of the best preserved Stradivari in the world. It's one piece tiger stripe maple back is stunning. The British Government recently received the violin in lieu of taxes and has entrusted it's safekeeping to the Academy.

By the way my next project, after the 8-course Heiber, is a copy of the 1700 5-course Strad.

Lets have some details and pictures of some of your collection, I just adore historic instrument, we have so much to learn from them.

ColinColin S38713.3928472222

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I got a box from Stew Mac and a new coffee maker. The box had a Jaws II, the table saw fret slotting blade, the machined bar for neck leveling and 3 Dan Erlewine fretting DVDs. The coffee maker has its own grinder and you just dump some beans in and it grinds them up and makes you a really good pot of coffee.

Oh yeah, my daughter got me the Garth Brooks boxed set, it's pretty cool too!

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

A Lump of coal. Serves me right.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Well, I got spoiled. I got a new Uke and a Djembe and, best of all a vioin kit. So, my next project will be a little more geared to traditional lutherie. Its good to see everyone had such a great Christmas.

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

I got a new 24" Sterit precision ground straight edge, 4",6" and 9" precision engineers squares and A lightscribe CDRW-DVD writer...too cool. MichaelP38713.4986689815

I got the Clapton's Guitar book and Tim Brooks' book. I hope they don't cut in on my build time.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com