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Stupid question, maybe, but have you tried lubricating the tuners?

About a month ago, Rick Rubin (the record producer) released his new book, The Creative Act. It's an interesting and thought-provoking work, and has much application for luthiers, in my opinion. ...

No mandolin content here, but an excellent article on John Becker, a luthier's luthier. He's considered the leading authority on repairing and maintaining Stradivari violins. ...

Yep -- pretty much everywhere. Amazon, YouTube, iTunes, Vudu. Purchased from Amazon it cost $13.90 including taxes. They also have it available for rent.

Just a quick heads-up that the new John Monteleone documentary -- The Chisels Are Calling -- went into distribution on the 15th. I got it from Amazon, but it's available through numerous other...

Good to have on the shelf. Just ordered a bottle. Thanks for the tip!

One additional note on making vacuum workholding fixtures. A good source for gasketing tapes and related materials is All Star Adhesives (allstaradhesives.com). They used to sell what they called...

I built a central vacuum system for my shop, basically the opposite of an air compressor. A Gast laboratory pump pulls vacuum on a repurposed air tank, and a vacuum switch shuts it off when the...

Yep, it looks just fine from the front. Put a ToneGard on it and nobody will ever know.

Fish glue will separate nicely with a heated palette knife. (I think it's great stuff and use it a lot.) Depending on how much finish you have on the instrument, you might be able to soften the...

"After 2 trees fell on my house I developed a different relationship with urban trees."


Trees on the house is not good. An architect friend tells the story of advising a client couple to remove...

Presumably everybody who builds instruments knows about "The Tree." This is a rather good article on the subject: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-legend-of-the-music-tree-180979792/

There's a really good Homespun video entitled The Mandolin and Bouzouki of Tim O'Brien, which I picked up maybe 15 years ago. It really helped me transition to playing octave-tuned instruments.

"No Key Deer were harmed during the making of this video."

I used a Powermatic 66 with a Biesemeyer fence for many years. A very solid, accurate beast of a saw. You can do just about anything with it. Time spent tweaking the adjustments will be...

I've owned the General meter for about 10 years and have no complaints. It gets a fair amount of use because in addition to monitoring the wood storage room, the heat here comes from wood cut on the...

Sorry that happened. It's hard to imagine a more direct hit.

You could join a few sections of that ash. Fire up the bandsaw, and the next thing you know, you've got a Telecaster.

This river don't go to Aintry.

Siminoff sells a set of "Mrs. Griffith A5" plans, and they're comprehensive.

Two of Graham McDonald's books, The Mandolin Project and The Bouzouki Book, are highly recommended. You'll know a whole bunch by the time you're finished reading.

Corrado Giacomel seems to have...

Another great instrument! No on can accuse you of not being productive.

Jo, I have to ask -- do you cut your amazing ornate soundhole patterns on a CNC, or by hand?

Beautiful work!

John, you could probably get a lot of what you needed from scrapping a couple of treadmills. I've had good luck doing that. A treadmill has machined rollers on axles with bearings, a drive system,...

Here's pretty much everything you need to know about living with the Jet 16/32 (formerly Performax):

http://joewoodworker.com/performax.htm
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