Official Luthiers Forum!

lu·thi·er  One that makes or repairs stringed instruments, such as violins.

 

 Why so many guitars here & so few other instruments? Anyone have some pics of other instruments they have made?

Hi doug and welcome to the OLF. Yes I have interest in various stringed instruments and wish their was a little more talk on the likes of mandos, banjos, violins and hurdy gurdys. just joking about the hurdy gurdys. It seems that there are more guitar interested people here and thats cool because i love guitars too. Thats why i go to different forums that deal with these instruments. There are forum geared on mandolins, violins and others out there. You can learn something from all of them. But i still recomend you check thing out here too because theres a lot of good info here. Mike

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Doug I don't think the overwhelming interest in acoustic guitars here is by design, it just evolved this way.  Nothing prevents discussions of other, lesser......, instruments (JUST KIDDING!!!).

But seriously I think that most of us would welcome learning about all stringed instruments.  And I for one appreciate craftsmanship regardless of the instrument.

You should start threads about any thing that you wish and see how it goes.

Hey, if you know any violin makers invite them to the OLF!

I've shown mandolins, a bouzouki, acoustic bass guitar and a Les Paul......

nad here's a mandola thats nearly done.......



ibut yes, there are FAR more 6 string acoustic guitars than everything else put together

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My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

OK, OK, here is a Hurdy Gurdy, a nice one at that.



It's a little blurry, he was playing a pretty lively piece at the time, and manipulating the little percussion device that gives it that little extra zip.  This guy, John Trexler, is a master Celtic Musicologist. In addition to Hurdy Gurdy, plays most types of whistles, double and single reeded instruments, including the Bombard, as well as the Celtic Bagpipes from France and Spain, slightly smaller than the large Scottish Pipes.  Most of his instruments, with the exception of his Susato Whistles, were built in the Celtic parts of countries they represent.  His collection is extensive.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

we have many uke builders mandolin builders and so on, and many post on each.

Keep in mind that the current topics page is just the tip of this ice burg. The archives are full of other instrument topics other than guitars. But the vast major will be about guitars as there are way more guitars built each day than the other string instruments combined.

There is a common interest in guitars, but that doesn't mean we don't want to see or hear about other instruments.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Yeah! Way too little mandolin content here!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I'm glad you asked that question Doug. I had assumed that this forum was
for acoustic guitars only, with a few outside topics thrown in. I will now be
taking advantage of this and asking questions here about my upcoming
Gretsch Hollowbody style build.

Dave

I have it in my head that I wantto build a doghouse bass. Glad to see that questions and helpful tips and tricks will be welcomed.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Waddy wrote:
"It's a little blurry, he was playing a pretty lively piece at the time, and manipulating the little percussion device that gives it that little extra zip. "

Ah yes, the trumpet bridge. One of the more diabolical devices known to lutherie. Getting one set up to play reliably will try your patience for sure.

I used to work on an old French hurdy-gurdy. The owner would bring it in every time the season changed to true the wheel. It was one of the old fashioned solid wood ones, and went out of round all the time. The modern way, with a wood 'tire' on a ply wheel stays round, and is a real improvement. Sadly, we could not change the wheel on that instrument: it was the old 'blacksmith' type, with a square shaft driven into the wheel and permanently mounted. Too bad. The head on it was purported to be a portrait bust of George Sand.   

Lance...Brock:

Has there been any consideration for including sepecific sections for Mandolins, Electrics, Banjos, etc. with the new OLF?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

[QUOTE=JJ Donohue] Lance...Brock:

Has there been any consideration for including sepecific sections for Mandolins, Electrics, Banjos, etc. with the new OLF?

[/QUOTE]

We have always let demand dictate this. Philosophically there is no problem with it. If demand is there we are happy to create new sections.

For now though I don't see a problem with "alternative instrument" topics flying in the main discussion.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I would love seperate sections for different instruments. Don't forget a washtub bass section.

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Many of us build other instruments. I build flat top mandolins, Grumpy is purported to make an F5 mandolin that is scary good. Al Carruth has probably made everything that has strings except mandolin. (Al, have you ever made and autoharp?). I don't know of an other violin builders here except Al. I guess they like to keep to themselves. We recently had some posts by the guy who built the banjo on DYI's Handmade music show so banjo builders are also around.

I suspect that the number of guitar posts verses other instruments is about in the same proportion as you would find guitars to other instruments in a good acoustic music store.

The sweetest instrument that I have ever made,to this date ,is an Irish Bouzouki...The sound was outstanding.....I love building instruments and I have found that they are basicially all the same. Different shapes , differently scales....I, for one ,would welcome seeing different musical stringed instruments....lab

Irish bouzouki what an amazing sounding instrument. I just bought Graham Mcdonalds book on building them.

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Hey, what about the king of stringed instruments! I believe I've posted some lute stuff here, now that's real luthiery!

Colin

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

yes, Colin builds all mahogany Lutes

[QUOTE=FishtownMike]Irish bouzouki what an amazing sounding instrument. I just bought Graham Mcdonalds book on building them. [/QUOTE]
I used the book to do this one...
.Hope it works

Many violin people take the attitude that if the workbench has been touched by a guitar, it's polluted. Guitars are just lower life forms. Sigh....

I've never built an autoharp, Mike: I've only ever heard of a couple of folks who have. I just found out that the Scandinavian 'kantele' can be played like a sort of semi-auto harp: you mute some of the strings with your fingers and strum the rest. Pretty cool.

The last time I added it up, if I made one of every model of every kind of instrument I've built, it would come to 35 instruments. That's not counting all the different wood and trim options, and I think I've made a couple of others since, like the Hutchins Tenor. I've only made a couple of examples of some of them: banjos and rebecs, for example. It's been a while since I made any lutes, or harps, but I keep hoping... It would be fun, just once, to have one of everything all together.

I made this octave mandolin using Graham Mcdonalds book.  The book is awesome, I recommend it.  He does not say that you should install the tuners upside down .  Just a fix I had to come up with after not being able to install mando tuners the correct way due to the volute.

I make violins and guitars...working on a double bass now. It would be nice to get some violin discussins going here. The trouble I see is that the topics revolve so quickly here at OLF that an unusual topic such as "how to make violin pegs" would probably get barried before it gets proper attention.

So I would suggest setting up a separate section, that would be great. But expect them to move slower. I KNOW it would attract some top notch violinmakers who just can't help themselves. And I also KNOW that guitarmakers would benefit from the violin related discussions also. So what do you think? I will post the first topic with a picture of my copy of a Stradivari tool for marking plate thickness... Once the section is made.

Tommy C, I have been meaning to get that book, great instrument BTW....how did you cut the soundhole?