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Sorry, I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to Sam's lecture. I must have heard measuring three hundred points and assumed you would need three hundred lasers.

I only brought up the Strad 3D...

300 may not be an accurate number, but it is what I remember from Joe and Sam's lecture a couple of years ago. The point is to measure very precisely how each area of the top (and back) move when...

If violin strings only vibrated in a horizontal plane, there would be no need for relief in the fingerboard.

I just bowed the C string of one of my cellos and it oscillates both vertically and...

Hi Ian,

Re-joining a back seam can be very tricky, depending on the level of intervention needed. It is very common for part of a back seam to open, sometimes in the middle of the back or at the...

We used to dye streaked violin fingerboards with a ten percent solution of either ferric chloride or ferric sulfate in water. You could try both on a test piece to see if one us more effective than...

John-
When you say the $500 tuners don't get everything right what do you mean?
Thanks
Michael

Hi,

I graduated from the Violin Making School of America in Salt Lake City. What I received upon graduation was a Certificate of Lutherie. For many years I used the title "luthier" after my name...

Hi Phil,

From the picture it looks to me like your glue is too thick. I usually mix 1/3 glue to 2/3 water. It is better to have thinner glue to glue on a top anyway, because someone will have to...

Thanks for all the wonderful comments!

It is not telling the whole story to say that this is my first mandolin. I am a violinmaker by trade, so this is instrument number thirty. 20 violins, 3...

Maple is unforgiving. I just joined the back for my next cello. I tried to do it in an afternoon and it just wasn't happening, so I had to take a break and come back the next day.

I have never...

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Hi all,

Here is the mandolin I have been working on. Thank you so much for your help and support!

Matched red maple back, sides and neck, German spruce top, ebony peghead veneers, ebony...

Gail- That is interesting about the accelerator. I used super glue for the binding on the fingerboard, but I can't remember if I used accelerator. In your experience does the yellowing from...

Dale- Bill James was great to deal with. He even put up with me changing my order several times and returning a few things. I hadn't considered that it could be a flaw in the celluloid, I just...

Hi all,

I am having an issue with my celluloid binding on the instrument I am making. The mandolin is basically done, with the sunburst on and one coat of varnish. What I noticed is some parts of...

Turkeypen-
You should be able to find an owners manual for your scroll saw on owwm.com, they have downloadable info on all kinds of old tools.

Louis Iturra is a very nice guy, but in the end I...

Personally, I would not use a 3/4 blade on my delta. The saw is not really built to tension them properly. I use a 1/2" fort resawing and it is large enough. One of the reasons I like the woodslicer...

Congratulations on the saw! What year is it from? Does it have cast iron or aluminum wheels?

I have the Kreg fence on my resaw and I think it works just fine. I use the hi/low feature quite a bit....

You do need to be a member of the OWWM forum to see the classifieds. It's free.

Michael

I found both my saws on craigslist. Just keep an eye out, doing a search on "bandsaw" and "band saw" will sometimes pull up different listings. I would stay away from any delta made after 1970. And I...

I own a 16" Grizzly, and it works okay. It is not a precision machine though. I feel like there is an underlying lack of quality in all those Chiwanese tools being made now. As my daily users I now...

To really properly fit an endpin you need a tapered peghole reamer to cut the hole to the proper size and taper, and you need a shaper (sort of a fancy pencil sharpener) to cut the endpin to the...

My favorite is my 1920's Stanley 9 1/2 block plane, with an A2 Cryo Hock blade. It is indispensable. And despite being more like a rattle trap than a finely machined tool, it continues to plane...

Hi all,

I am getting ready to install the truss rod in the neck of the F-5 I am building.

I bought one of Bill James (I don't think he makes them himself, but I am not sure where he gets them.)...

dwhite-
All of the copal I have worked with has impurities as well. When the resin is in chunks I clean off the outer crud with water and a wire brush. Sometimes I wipe the surface with alcohol...