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Does anyone have a line on quality steel bars to adjust a spoke wheel ?

Hello, Just heard of this group and decided to join. My name is John Read and I live in Indianapolis, IN, USA. I have been building Martin style acoustic guitars for 5 years and am on scratch build #28. I am also the website administrator for both kitguitarsforum.com and asiartisans.org/guitarmaker.org. Loothgroup looks to be a fantastic, next-generation communication tool and I look forward to joining into the conversations. Here's my c…

Doing some workshop organization and found some tools I don't use. All are in excellent shape with very minimal use. Each item linked to the relevant product page: Japanese nut files. Mine have a bit of surface rust but they were used for maybe 2 guitars. $80 new, selling for $40 StewMac Gauged Nut Slotting File Set for Electric Guitar (for medium strings) and one of each nut file backer. Used on one guitar. $113 new for the files and $19…

I'm still working on this 1958 Country Gent and I am getting closer to getting past the structural stuff and on to the finish work. The entire body appears to have been resprayed with what I'm guessing is some sort of poly a long time ago. It's very yellowed, has multiple big drips across the entire body and flakes right off in big pieces. My plan is to remove it all, clean it up a bit and then respray with nitro. Anyone have great advi…

Hello everyone, this will be a long post. I usually describe my passion for luthiery as a "fire." I can easily remember the day I realized that I wanted this to be what I would do for the rest of my life. It started as pure joy; learning day by day was like unwrapping a new surprise. I did everything right: studied, practiced, studied, practiced. I built my own jigs and tools, and I even did a small apprenticeship with a local luthier. Wh…

Customer brought in on this '70s Gibson Heritage acoustic with severe bridge damage. I need to replace the bridge, but I don't have the tools to cut or design one in shop. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm always looking for tools that I might need and probably use once (if at all), but will definitely buy them...I need a support group for this habit... Found this the other day and thought I'd share... tons of Graphite, Nomex, fiberglass, specialty hand tools that could be at home in a Geetar shop... I bought the print catalog...but download pdf link here... https://www.aircraftspruce.com/pdf/2025Individual/Cat25.pdf

This Lys (made in Canada) is one of my personal guitars. I noticed the string ends are dissappearing into the bridge plate. I thought about buying the SM Bridge Saver when they were having a discount sale, but it's been out of stock. The tool set costs more than I paid for the guitar, but I figure I could use it in the future for other repairs. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with this tool and if it's a better repair than p…

Hey all. I have a Martin D18 with a severe belly up. The bridge has nearly popped off all the way at the time it was brought to me. Looking inside, the bridge plate has a crack going across all the pin holes. There's a few additional cracks above them toward the sound hole. Replace, or not replace, that is the question? Is this plate salvageable, with a tool like StewMax's BridgeSaver? I'm planning to heat treat the footprint of the bri…

I'm just not using this printer so making some space for other tooling. This is an Anycubic Photon M3 Premium 8K resin printer. The resolution on this thing is amazing. The Wash & Cure Plus is super simple and helps to wash/cure your resin prints when done. Will also include the 1.5 bottles of resin I have left over. Both for $500. Local pickup only. I'm about 45 minutes east of Cleveland, OH. Posting here for the guitar geeks before put…

I've got a 1970s Harmony Stella parlor guitar and the top seems to be buckling. There is (at least one) loose brace. I assume that there's something going on with the neck block, and that just re-gluing the brace isn't going to fix this. I have no experience removing necks or doing neck resets. This is my own guitar, and I bought it as a learning tool, so I am comfortable using it as such. So... Is my assessment about the neck block likel…

Hi everyone! I'm looking for advice about heat treatments for a warped neck, I know they are a thing but I've never actually done one. I have an Epiphone Les Paul in the shop that originally I was only going to do a level/crown/polish and a setup on, but when I tried to adjust the truss rod and checked the fingerboard with a straight edge I noticed there was about .030" of relief in most of the middle section, which was pretty consisten…

Hi everyone. I just wanted to share a new (free!) tool I made, a website for designing fretboards. https://fretboard.buzz. It's similar to FretFind2D, but modernized, with many more features, including fretboard markers, a 'flip' for converting any design to lefty, support for mixed units of measure (use both metric and imperial at the same time), etc. I spent months building it, I would love to get your feedback. Thanks!

If you're like me, you've acquired lots of small luthier tools over the years from StewMac and other vendors. Having a place to store them has always been a problem for me. I stopped drinking soft drinks years ago because they're bad and I recently found out I'm diabetic so they're definitely off the menu. I swapped out soft drinks for water and Crystal Light a long time ago. In our throw away culture, single use plastics are a huge pro…

Hey everyone, I could use some advice as far as the fretting process is concerned. I’ve been doing guitar repair since around 2008, I opened my business doing guitar repair in September of 2021, and I’ve always felt that fretwork has been the most challenging part of this job. I’m getting to the point now where I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of it, but I’m not where I want to be yet. I should mention that I use the Erlewine…

I'm wondering if people have advise on ways to be productive when having to work in multiple locations. Particularly curious about tool organization and portability strategies. I share one shop about 45 minutes from home, but also do some work from home. Mostly repair and setup stuff at home and building/more involved repairs at the shop. Some tools and supplies are simple enough to have multiples of, but for others it gets really expens…

I was trying to adjust the truss rod of a Martin DCX1E. I tried wiggling and jiggling that hex wrench for a long, long time to find the nut. Finally I got a small flashlight and mirror and was able to see that something is stuck in there, probably a bit from the end of a multi-screwdriver. I've attached a blurry picture. Anybody have any ideas as to how I can get that out (without taking the neck off)?

This is a rehash of the amazing Loothprint that Mike (@member@member@member) shared to the group (Surface Inspection Light – The Looth Group). I don't have a 3D printer so had to take a low(er) tech approach. The pics should be self explanatory. I have linked to a DXF and CRV (Vectric VCarve) file in case it helps. I do most simple tooling in Aspire as I can move more quickly there than in Fusion. Components needed: .75" Baltic birch ply Flash…