The Hub

I've been building up my "2 car garage shop" for about 10 years preparing for retirement from health care. This spring I finally quit punching the time clock. Over the same time I've build 13 mandolins and 4 guitars. Now I pretty much have all my tools in place and enough wood stored to build for quite some time. My work benches are built with a heavy door for a top and base cabinets I scavenged from work. Lately I have toyed with the i…

Dear looth community/colleagues around the world, During 2023/24 I have developed a digital gauge to measure so-called longitudinal twist of (bass) guitar necks: the LTwist® gauge. Just to be clear, this is about the "cork screw" type of deviation along the length of a neck, not the bow of a neck. I think there is no need to explain how a too severe neck twist can make it difficult or even impossible to set up a stringed instrument (guita…

Hi Thought I'd say "hi". I've just joined the group. I'm Rob, I'm based in Yorkshire in North England. I'm mainly interested in elictric guitar and electric bass building and playing. I've built around 5-6 guitars/basses through 3d printing. I've two Prusa MK4's and been printing for around five years. The design and build of them is logged here https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/485214-a-3d-printed-six-string/ And https://www.basschat.co.uk/t…

I usually build flat top guitars and usually joint the tops and backs with a Stanley no 5 style of hand plane ( only different brand). I want to build an archtop instrument, and the wood blanks I have are longer than usual and, of course, a lot thicker. What size plane do you use for kind of job? Would it be easier with a longer plane (6 or 7)? Thanks! Jorge

Hey there fellow Looths! I'm still learning and just starting my luthier journey, but I'm serious about it and want to design and build my own workshop. I have space for a 4mx4m (13x13ft) workshop. I know it's kinda tiny but I think it can do the trick since I want to work analog/by hand for most of the tasks. I plan to buy a drill press and a band saw. That's all for 'the big machinery'. I'm just curious if people have tips or 'things to…

For folks familiar with the Gore / Gilet books and the top thickness calculations in section 4.5. I made a web based calculator to do the nasty spreadsheet math... So this is for once you've weighed and measured your top plates and then found the long, cross and transverse resonances it gives you the target thickness to hit a particular frequency for the long resonance of the plate. Just sharing so folks don't have to do the math for bu…