Luthier Tools

[willsie01]

Just occurred to me I can share how far I got on the Easter course.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nE8mWqVW8G9v6mA29
And to let you know my current woodworking experience: the Easter course was the first woodwork I've done since GCE O level in 1965 or 1966.

 

[GuitardoctorW7]

Shame on me!
I forgot to mention Sam Deeks! Possibly the most patient guitar repair man on the planet!
You can lose many hours watching his youtube videos....and I often do!
He's finally left his garden shed and found some "proper" property to work in, so good to see that all his hard work over the last 6/7 years is paying off.

Also Ted Woodford. twoodford. on youTube

 

[GuitardoctorW7]

In my (humble) experience "buy cheap, buy twice". I get a lot of stuff from StewMac who are expensive for tools and some consumables but they give a lifetime warranty and their customer service is excellent (you don't need every gadget they make though). If you buy the yearly membership plan (£35) you get free P&P. It hurts when you get stung for import duty and VAT but it's random as to when/if you get charged. Don't pay for expedited delivery as goods usually arrive fairly quickly. Some of their kit can be sourced in Europe for a lot cheaper, their guitar building vise is a pattern makers vice, I got one from DICTUM in Germany (pre Brexit though), It's just a different colour and was £100 cheaper. Hosco are good for Luthier tools, as are Summit. Don't buy cheap nut files, levelling beams or fret rockers. Some tools will hurt to buy initially but pay their way eventually.
Twoodford on YouTube is a great teacher. For fret work he uses a modified 3 corner file which is very old school but works well for him, as it did for my mentor in the UK (I just know I'm gonna get flack for that comment).
Rothco & Frost and Tonetech are good suppliers of sundries. The GluBoost system is great for finish repairs but hideously expensive. CA glue can be a great friend and also an enemy, especially the water thin viscosity. A lot of the specialist tapes, polishing compounds, and papers are just 3M products that can be sourced from car repair sites a lot cheaper. Good luck and have fun.

 

[niall Y]

I've been a bit slow responding to the replies I've had because I'm on a week long course...guitar making! SO far I did an 8 day course at Easter which I'm now following up. I've started with a Martin 000-28 design as these are the type of guitar I like to play. Having said that the many incredible instruments I'm seeing being made here has got me thinking that one day I might like to have a go at a hurdy gurdy. There are some knowledge people here on the course with me. We're a cohort of 5 with a tutor. They're all more experienced then me and they all have different views on tools! I thought I'd widen the pool I'm getting advice from by posting on here. Thanks for everyone's input so far.

If you are at all interested in hurdy gurdys you might want to visit Graeme McCormacks website - antiquatedstrings - mccormackgraeme - Google sites. He has plans for free download.

 

[BillK]

Buy what you need when needed is top advice. It's easy to go poor quickly buying lots of tools offered but many are 'nice to have' more than essential and make the odds to techs & repair people where speed & efficiency matters.
Nosing round boot sales can be good, most of my planes have come from there for very small money; just some time sorting them out. All sorts of good stuff turns up, like the mini vice I use to make top nuts cost £1.
One thing I use loads are proper straight edges, one came from an engineering place I can't remember the name of, the other is a machined one from Guitars & Woods in Portugal (would skip the laser cut one). They do some tools as well and I've bought wood there.

Chris Alsop makes good tools and is UK-based. Mainly fretwork-related, but what he sells is good.

I like a 3-corner file too, also used to use just a small flat diamond file safe-edged with a little handle glued on.. super primitive but does crowning and ends fine. Though I have SM Z-files as well the 3-corner file is still very good & fast and boss for stainless.

 

[Steve Blackdog]

Totally agree that you should buy what you need when you need it.

I really enjoy making tools, so I made my own spool clamps. I also made my own bending iron, and other bits and bobs. I was going to make some cam clamps, but feel you can’t beat Klemsia (?) clamps. I really don’t think you can have enough.

Some sort of binding jig is a must, as far as I am concerned.

I don’t use any rasps, preferring to use spoke shaves for my necks. Skew chisels are useful for getting into the awkward areas, particularly around the heel.

Finally, I can’t have enough books - there are many different approaches and it never hurts to see how other people tackle the various jobs involved.

Good luck, take your time and enjoy yourself. And take care of your fingers - no point in building a master guitar unless you keep all your digits intact!

 

[Exluthier]

I’ve been late in providing what I hope will be a helpful reply to this thread, by the thought of the possible volume of flak I might receive, but here goes. I am a luthier, and have never made a guitar of any kind, yet there has been almost no reference to any other instrument than the guitar (of whatever kind) and many references to the machinery used in the making of the modern guitar. The French term that we use in English derives from the word for the lute, which is—of course—a generic term, but it includes the violin and viol families, as well as a (smaller) range of other plucked and bowed instruments. I have seen little reference to any of these instruments.

As for the tools required, I trained in a workshop in which the only machinery was a large hand-screwed veneer press for making purfling; hand tools were the order of the day. One’s first violin was made using (to begin with) an axe, wedges, and a froe (belonging to the workshop, and for general use) then a scrub plane and gouges, and finally carving tools and card scrapers; not a router (which I still would not know how to use) in sight! I began with a half-metre frame saw, a scrub plane, a couple of block planes ( with one at York pitch for the hardwoods) a spokeshave, a couple of in-cannel chisels, a small set of gouges, some self-made card scrapers, a thicknessing calliper (hand-made, but inherited), a couple of reamers, and finally, my own cast-iron double-boiler glue pot, which I still have. Nothing else other than muscle power, which—with the above set of tools—was more than enough to turn out a good violin or viola ‘in the white’. I’m not a Luddite, but I learned a trade while listening and talking about what I was learning and doing, and in the process (with a journeyman year in another country) learnt fluency in two other languages. It was a life lived at a different pace, but a fulfilling and worthwhile one.

 

[thetyreman]

Ah, the Banana/Katana discussion!
I did try the method - using a monster of an aluminium truss rod ripped out of an dead Eko Ranger 12 - a few years ago on some nondescript electric.
I'm sure it gets easier, but I found the trickiest part was judging when the three points of contact were "correct".

it's his ideas about nuts I am not keen on, I'm sure it works but he insists on having adjustable nuts and ruins the look of them by drilling two holes into it, a luthier who makes guitars does not do this, you simply get it at the right height to begin with, that's a big part of the skill, and you cut the nut slots accordingly, from a repair point of view it's good but from a looks point of view not so good, I'm also concerned about vibrations because if the nut has a gap under it the vibrations will not transfer in the same way, it's not something I'd want a guitar tech to do to any of my guitars as a musician.

 

[willsie01]

The advice from everyone I know involved in lutherie is not to buy a load of tools up front. Instead, start building and buy tools as you need them.

This is good advice.

 

[willsie01]

as for tools though, you are going to need some specialist ones, nut slot cutting files are expensive! a fret slotting jig will save a lot of headaches, the bandsaw is going to be really handy, so is the power router if making electrics and also for making patterns.

I have a bandsaw and router but not the nut slot cutting files. I'll need those sooner or later.

 

[willsie01]

long reach angle poise lamp

This is a really good point.

 

[willsie01]

I'd still say don't rush. For example ...

I mainly build with a zero fret, so I don't need nut slotting files (OK, I have them, but most of the time saw slots in the spacer 'nut' are all I need). A zero fret might be a good choice for a first build, because getting nut slots right has a strong element of 'feel' to it, and there is enough else to learn in a first build. Design choices tell you what tools you need right now.

Same with a fret jig - I mark my frets with a knife along an engineers square and then cut them by hand, and this means I can choose any scale length I like. Lots of fret spacing calculators online.

If you're planning an acoustic guitar, maybe even consider making a ukulele first - much smaller, so less planing and sanding involved, and a tenor or concert size is quite forgiving of minor construction blunders and will still be playable, which is encouraging. Don't try a soprano uke - uke builders agree that those are hardest to get even playable! You could make one from 1/16 ply for back and sides (paint those) and a solid wood top, and the neck from an old wardrobe, so the materials would be cheap enough to burn if it's a disaster. My first build was ugly and chunky but it made a nice noise, and I learnt a huge amount from that first one (including that it began to break up after a couple of years because I'd made bad wood selections). No-one ever makes just one, unless they give up after the first doesn't go quite right.

You make some interesting points although I'm past the point of being able to make the choices you suggest as materials are purchases and guitar design chosen.

 

[willsie01]

Sometimes you can be creative and accomplish the tasks without spending much if anything at all. I’ll attach pictures with the phone and then edit the post. View attachment 145921View attachment 145922View attachment 145923

In the 80's when my father retired he wanted to make a Mountain Dulcimer and needed a tapered reamer for the tuning pegs. Before the internet I had no idea of where to get one and local music stores were of no help. He decided to make his own. He took a three corner/triangular file and ground it to the approximate taper, sharpened it and stuck a quick handle on it. He made two so I can only imagine he needed to make a correction to it somehow. He used the reamer to make the tapered hole on a block of scrap (ignore the oval hole as it is a natural defect/bug hole of some kind) then added an old molder blade. That became his peg tapering tool. With them he made the tapered holes and pegs for the two dulcimers he made. I kept the tools as good examples of making tools fit for purpose without wasting time on fancy nonfunctioning embellishments. Note the high tech hole depth gauge on one of the reamers.

Pete

It is my feeling I'll be making quite a few of my own tools.

 

[willsie01]

electric or acoustic or both? What are you looking to do?

I've started on an acoustic, a Martin 000-28 copy, but expect to make electric as well.

 

[willsie01]

I got a pal to make a fret press similar to this....

View attachment 145933


I also splashed out on a second-hand arbor press, which I adapted to take fret wire with different radii.
You (can) end up buying a range of tools that need "adapting", which generally makes them useless for their original purpose. A good example is a sheet-metal gadget which, after a bit of vandalism, cuts the tangs off frets.

Looks the job!

 

[D_W]

I think the answers have been given in good faith here. I have gotten few planes that are in use, but one came from a luthier half a decade ago or more - it was a 15 inch panel plane. Probably the only plane he was using.

I understand almost everyone making acoustics now uses a drum sander, and depending on how serious you get, you may wish to aim for stiffness instead of thickness on a top and have a need to make adjustments.

I haven't made an acoustic yet, but have trimmed 1/8th, 1/10th solid wood to thickness and it's definitely not quite as easy thicknessing something from solid. The risk of making the stock too thin in the center is much greater - you'd probably not mind making yourself some kind of scraper if you want to hand thickness those tops so that you can work slowly and safely on something that can definitely be planed by hand, but can get hairy with the cap iron set on a plane due to the tension needed to hold the workpiece in place.

I don't think I mentioned it earlier - maybe I did. A *really* good 24" reference steel straight edge is nice to have. these used to be about $55 here shipped (starrett 24" 380). With a good straight edge, you can make a million other custom use tools, like long "sanding bars" or blocks, etc, and avoid having to buy less accurate extruded aluminum stuff that adds up.

And on the stew mac-ish stuff, I'd go light on most of those kinds of things until you have a need. I *would* spend money on something that will cleanly cut the binding channel, but just basic. You'll get the skill to be able to wing it some of things more complicated. For example, stew mac sells some kind of solution to cut a binding channel on a carved top - it is insane ($453 with bits and *no* trim router). I've been using a router bit in a cordless die grinder with a stop clamped to the side.

I've cut that binding channel by hand, too, which is doable. Perhaps stew mac's solution takes about 1 minute to cut a binding channel.

Cutting one by hand cleanly can be really long on a guitar with a combination of hard and soft woods - like an hour or three depending, and it's brutally careful work.

And the cordless die grinder solution takes about 2 minutes, and isn't as risky to use as it sounds.

There will be a million small decisions like that.

I'll never regret the starrett edge, though they have doubled at this point.

 

[willsie01]

it is not clear what the OP has in mind

Guitars for a while because that's what I play.
However, I'm drawn to the idea of other instruments at some point in the future. There are some very interesting projects to be done.

 

[willsie01]

Like the rest are saying if you are already a woodworker then you have most of what you need toolwise. I did treat myself to a Pax fret cutting saw with depth stop but they can be cut with a dovetail saw of the right kerf.
Another thing not mentioned yet is clamps and making instruments requires lots. Some are quite easy to make yourself.
View attachment 145973View attachment 145974
Regards
John

I expect to make a lot of clamps.

 

[Ttrees]

A recent thread about this video is ongoing on the OLF
It's worth a watch.

 

[profchris]

I'd forgotten that 4 years ago I documented a guitar build. It might be useful because it's a pretty low fi build, and shows ways to deal with some issues without specialist tooling or jigs.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/a-slightly-oddball-guitar-completed.111602/
I happened to get a chance to see the guitar tonight, and it still plays well and sounds good. Looks ... well, the plan was to produce something like a 1930s catalogue blues box, and I think I got quite close.