Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi guys,

As i am sure most of you will have noticed i am now an official sponser of
the OLF.

As you know i have been a member of this forum for about a year now
and i was lurker for a few years before that.

Anyway i have decided to start this thread to introduce my company and
respond to any questions you may have.

To start off the business is still in its early days and as such pretty small
with me doing all the menial and sales and my fiance on accounts.
but what started as a means to provide myself with some free wood has
started to expand at a phenomal rate.

As i have mentioned in the official intro i am mainly targeting the uk
market but i can offer quite good shipping rates to the states.
most items will priced in accordance with the U.S. market but some items
will be more expensive due to the U.K. tax and import system and the
week doller.
an example of this is my honduran rosewood which is very good quality
but a little dearer than it is in the states.
on the other side i will be offering malaysian blackwood and mad rose at
very competative prices.
I currently have two types of mad rose, Dalbergia Baroni which is the rio
type with brick red colour and black ink lines and the planer Dalbergia
Graviana which tends to be straighter grained and more traditional
looking.
The baroni is in limited supply and subject to heavy export restrictions so
it is pricey but its a wonderfull wood and in my opinion one of the only
two viable modern alternatives to Rio.
the Graviana is planer but is much more widly available and as such i can
offer very good prices on acoustic sets,neck blanks etc.
I also have many other items available and i will be listing induvidual sets
on my website on a regular basis.

I will be offering all the usual species and some others with some very
nice old stock items coming up very soon(including my fabled 150 year
old cuban that i personly love).

The website is still under construction and i have alot of work to do but
over the next week or so i will be taking photo,s and getting more items
up on the site.
i have also just finished an order info and contact details page that
should be up in the next week or so.

I am very proud to be an OLF sponser and i will do my best to give the
best service i can.
I will be offering discounts and specials to forum members as soon as i
get settled and i am in a position to do so.
I also intend to do som tutorials on things like resawing guitar sets and
other interesting topics (just as soon as i have the time).

If there is anything you need just let me know and i will see what i can do
to help you.

Any questions please feel free to use this thread,pm me or contact me
through my website and i will do my best to get back to as soon as i can.

I Realy look forward to offering the forum members a quality service over
coming years.

Joel.

The UK market?

That's me!!

COngratulations, and I look forward to the time when the Website's up- looking forward to some good deals.....

Thanks sam,

The website is up check out the link on the sponsers page.
It just needs a little more work with photo,s and pricing etc.

I am hoping to be able offer soem good deals to forum members in the not
to distant future.

Joel.

Great Joel,So how do we convert To American Dinero.
                    James

_________________
James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Congratulations Joel! It sounds like you are going to offer some great tonewoods there (Cuban!) Good luck with the new business.

_________________
Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Welcome to the O.L.F.!
I hope you do well here & elsewhere!
Do you ,or will you offer purflings from the great
German makers?

Best of luck to you!

Mike Collins

www.collinsguitars.com

_________________
Mike Collins

Welcome. If you have Coco sets like the sample pic on your site, I think a
few people here will be drooling over them.

Thanks Guys,

To convert pounds to dollers just double the pretty much.
the conversion rate is about 2.02 to the pound at the moment.

dave i hope to offer some nice stuff and i am realy exited about my cuban
mahogany not only is it true cuban imported way before 1920 it has some
realy nice curly figure.
i will post pics here once the sets are cut.

Mike the purflings from the german makers is something i have been
looking into and i hope to be getting some stock in soon keep an eye on
the site.

Zach,
That sample photo was actualy one of my fingerboards but i do have
some coco but nothing as highly figured at the moment.
That said we have just recived some new stock that will converted into
sets soon there should be some highly figured stuff there.
I just allow a couple of months stabalisation period after cutting before i
will allow any to leave the building.

Joel.

Joel,

Let me be amongst the first other 'Sponsors' to welcome you to the OLF. It is great to have other quality vendors aboard and there are some great OLF members in the UK that I am sure will become regulars of yours.

Happy New Year!!

Shane

_________________
Canada

Welcome Sponsor Joel.  Always great to have another source of wood and information.  Hope this works out very well for you.  I get the impression that if you do these OLF folks right, they'll take advantage of your offerings.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

[QUOTE=James W B] Great Joel,So how do we convert To American Dinero.
                       James [/QUOTE]

I always use this currency calculator.

XE com currency converter

For 'fun', check out the currency rates you get when Paypal coverts and compare them to the actual currency rate as shown on this site (and other updated charts).   

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Hi Joel,

Welcome - it's nice to see another UK tonewood supplier. Where are you based and is it possible to visit to look at the wood you have?

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Thanks for the kind words folks,

Its my intention to offer the best service i can especialy to olf members.
I will be making some special offers available to olf members soon but in
the meantime if you let me know you are an olf member when ordering i
will do my best give a good deal.
Whether hat be a discount on wood or shipping or some kind of freebee
will depend on what you are ordering.

Dave i am based in central london at the moment in my small residential
workshop.
I will be moving into a new comercial premesis in surry soon and i should
be in there in there by the end of march latest.
Until i am in the new premesis i am discouraging visitors but once i am in
the new building visitors will be more than welcome.
Until that time the internet will be my main sales outlet.

That said if you want to come and look at something in particular i am
sure we can arrange a visit.

Joel.

Yay!! competition in the UK market can ONLY be a GOOD thing!!

_________________
My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

one thing though mate, get someone to proof read your site, the spelling is nearly as bad as mine!!

_________________
My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

Thanks martin,

Yes i know my spelling is awfull i am dyslexic and i get i and e,s and b,
and d,s back to front all the time.

I did my first draft of the site on pages before i had word so there are
weird errors in the site to.
I think i managed to get it right by the time i wrote the grading page
though i think.

all the listings from now on will be spell checked and proof read before it
goes up.
also my photo,s need work but that should be nothing a new camara and
some good lighting cant fix.
hopefully these problems will get sorted as get more experience with the
site.
Its still early days

Until then suppling great wood is my main concern.

As far the uk market is concerned the uk has a couple of great dealers
one of which i am working quite closely with.
hopefully between all of us we can offer uk buyers a much larger choice
than they have previously had.

I think that every one aggrees that the uk market is in need of a good
internet based company hopefully i can fill this role.

Thanks for the comments,

Joel.

Hey guys,

I would first like to thanks for overwhelming responce i have had to my
items.
all orders will be processed post hast.

I would like to take this opertunity to offer a forum exclusive on
madagascan rosewood.
I have 25 sets availble of Dalbergia graviana that i can offer to forum
members at a discounted price ?65 or $130 a set.
These sets will be listed on my site on monday or tuesday and will be
offerd there at ?75 each.
I will offer a further offer that if you buy 4 sets at the full price of ?75 i
will give you one free set saving you a further $50.
To order just contact me through my site with the numbers of the sets
you want and let me know your forum name.
i will then get back to with a shipping quote and send a paypal invoice off
to you or whatever.

I must point out that is not the nicer dalbergia baroni that has the dark
red colour with the black ink lines but it is slightly darker in colour with
fine underlying lines.
This is realy nice stuff and it will make very nice instruments but it is not
a fine as the Dalbergia baroni on my site.
This stuff is much more expensive and goes for as much $340 when its at
its best.

As far as shipping goes i can send one to two sets to the states for about
$60 five sets would be about $80.

As far as payment goes i prefer paypal at the moment for international
orders for conveinience reasons.
Uk buyers can pay with cash ,cheque or paypal etc.

I will also note that cuban mahogany was cut today and its looking good.

Joel.

O.K. here are some pics of the mad rose i have to offer.

To clarify this is Dalbergia Graveana and all sets are AA grade.
The reason these dont hit the AAA grade is becouse they dont have enough figure I.E these sets are not loaded with spider webbing etc.
But i think you will aggree that these sets offer great value for money.

To clarify this offer is open to forum members only.
The price of the sets are ?65 each.
However if you buy four sets at the usual price of ?75 i will give you one set free.

Ok this is a typical example of an average set in this grade.


This is one of the nicer figured sets.



This classical set is the lowest grade in the lot.

I will post pick on my site so you can pick from them they will be prices at ?75-85 depnding on figure.

Joel.

Sorry this is the classical set.

see above.