Luthier Tools
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profchris
Established Member
Goodness, that's a huge question! It really depends entirely on what you plan to make, how you like to work, and what your long-term plans are (will this become a business, for example).
I make ukuleles and a few guitars as a hobby - I've made around 60 instruments. I like to work by hand, and though I have a bandsaw I rarely use it. I don't sell my instruments, I give them away (friends, raffle prizes, etc).
Planes: I do most of my work with a Record no 4, a Record 5 1/2, and a Veritas apron block plane. I have a wooden ECE smoother which has a wide mouth and hugely aggressive camber to the blade for coarse dimensioning.
Saws: Most of my sawing is with a three-saw Gyokucho set from Workshop Heaven. I have a car boot sale 26 inch handsaw sharpened rip for big ripping jobs, and of course a cheap hardpoint handsaw for general coarse cross-cutting.
Chisels: picked up over the years from boot sales etc. I mainly use 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 inch chisels.
Miscellaneous: marking gauges, a knife, a set of engineer's squares, some steel rulers up to 18 inch. Clamps, and more clamps.
If I was was doing this as a business I'd use power tools a lot though, and would want a bandsaw, a planer, probably a drum sander, a router table.
There are lots of speciality tools, but I tend to make my own as a hobbyist. For example, to cut a sound hole I use a scrap of ply with a drill bit to locate the centre and an exacto blade pushed through to cut the rim of the hole.
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.
I make ukuleles and a few guitars as a hobby - I've made around 60 instruments. I like to work by hand, and though I have a bandsaw I rarely use it. I don't sell my instruments, I give them away (friends, raffle prizes, etc).
Planes: I do most of my work with a Record no 4, a Record 5 1/2, and a Veritas apron block plane. I have a wooden ECE smoother which has a wide mouth and hugely aggressive camber to the blade for coarse dimensioning.
Saws: Most of my sawing is with a three-saw Gyokucho set from Workshop Heaven. I have a car boot sale 26 inch handsaw sharpened rip for big ripping jobs, and of course a cheap hardpoint handsaw for general coarse cross-cutting.
Chisels: picked up over the years from boot sales etc. I mainly use 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 inch chisels.
Miscellaneous: marking gauges, a knife, a set of engineer's squares, some steel rulers up to 18 inch. Clamps, and more clamps.
If I was was doing this as a business I'd use power tools a lot though, and would want a bandsaw, a planer, probably a drum sander, a router table.
There are lots of speciality tools, but I tend to make my own as a hobbyist. For example, to cut a sound hole I use a scrap of ply with a drill bit to locate the centre and an exacto blade pushed through to cut the rim of the hole.
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.
thetyreman
Established Member
everything starts with the design, get some lining paper and draw it out, I can also highly recommend guitarmaking.co.uk
thetyreman
Established Member
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.
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Good job to get the basics sorted first, sound bench and traditional tools
rather than spending a machines worth on "guitar tools"
Could've got a proper extractor for that, as that basic kit has sat idle
whilst I've delved into a world of getting distracted with proper methods of working
rather than being further into the rabbit hole doing things with most of the tools or jigs stumac sell, as there is much emphasis on sanding machines for these toxic timbers
down that road.
First thing I'd be looking for is a used long reach angle poise lamp, ikea make a "territal"one for a tenner but it's maybe a bit too small, arms too short and shade not 7.5" wide?
you need to see everything from the get go, and nothing comes close to these.
Some old planes for sure, start lookin, seek ones in good nick where you can see
plenty of life in the iron, no hairline cracks, nor chips around mouth,
and plenty of meat on the sole, viewed head on and behind, some are lapped quite thin like a wafer,
The older ones have finer smaller mouths and wooden handles which is preferable, bit of hazy patina is nothing to worry about,
I'd be drawn to those a bit more than something presented behind cloth,
as it's usually a better deal if bidding.
rather than spending a machines worth on "guitar tools"
Could've got a proper extractor for that, as that basic kit has sat idle
whilst I've delved into a world of getting distracted with proper methods of working
rather than being further into the rabbit hole doing things with most of the tools or jigs stumac sell, as there is much emphasis on sanding machines for these toxic timbers
down that road.
First thing I'd be looking for is a used long reach angle poise lamp, ikea make a "territal"one for a tenner but it's maybe a bit too small, arms too short and shade not 7.5" wide?
you need to see everything from the get go, and nothing comes close to these.
Some old planes for sure, start lookin, seek ones in good nick where you can see
plenty of life in the iron, no hairline cracks, nor chips around mouth,
and plenty of meat on the sole, viewed head on and behind, some are lapped quite thin like a wafer,
The older ones have finer smaller mouths and wooden handles which is preferable, bit of hazy patina is nothing to worry about,
I'd be drawn to those a bit more than something presented behind cloth,
as it's usually a better deal if bidding.
profchris
Established Member
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.
Inspector
Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck!
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.
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
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
Last edited:
profchris
Established Member
Nice example, Pete!
I don't have a picture, but my bridge saddle slot router is a block of wood with a wood screw driven through. File the sides of the screw parallel, and then file a chisel point to it. Adjustment is 1/2 turn of the screw, maybe 0.5 mm which is close enough for the purpose. Two saw cuts to approximate the sides, then rout away. I'm probably on the Mark V as I keep losing them, but at 10p a time I can stand the pain.
I see the StewMac saddle routing jig is currently on sale, so only US$203.91, enabling you to use your powered router for the saddle slot. without destroying the instrument. But if I wasn't scared of my own powered router I'd build a jig like the one Ted Woodford uses on his YouTube channel for maybe £20 in wood and bolts.
BTW, Ted's videos are the best on YT by a long way - highly recommended. https://www.youtube.com/user/twoodfrd
Jake Wildwood's website is also a good place to lose several hours of your life - Jake Wildwood
Be very wary of any techniques suggested on the Rosa Stringworks channel - lots of the 'repairs' there are one shot jobs, preventing any future work on the instrument, and some of the comments suggest they don't even realise this.
I don't have a picture, but my bridge saddle slot router is a block of wood with a wood screw driven through. File the sides of the screw parallel, and then file a chisel point to it. Adjustment is 1/2 turn of the screw, maybe 0.5 mm which is close enough for the purpose. Two saw cuts to approximate the sides, then rout away. I'm probably on the Mark V as I keep losing them, but at 10p a time I can stand the pain.
I see the StewMac saddle routing jig is currently on sale, so only US$203.91, enabling you to use your powered router for the saddle slot. without destroying the instrument. But if I wasn't scared of my own powered router I'd build a jig like the one Ted Woodford uses on his YouTube channel for maybe £20 in wood and bolts.
BTW, Ted's videos are the best on YT by a long way - highly recommended. https://www.youtube.com/user/twoodfrd
Jake Wildwood's website is also a good place to lose several hours of your life - Jake Wildwood
Be very wary of any techniques suggested on the Rosa Stringworks channel - lots of the 'repairs' there are one shot jobs, preventing any future work on the instrument, and some of the comments suggest they don't even realise this.
I can't really advise - I've made a few guitars, but not enough to be an authority. There is little that I had to buy or make that was out of the ordinary, and some of the specialty things I wasted money on I'd have been better off making.
I think if you want to make things by hand, you need good drill bits, a good cordless drill (though you don't need a cordless drill, it's just handy), any decent planes, the ability to sharpen planes and chisels well and set a strong burr on a scraper reliably in case you have to do more than just a little surface correction with one.
And you need decent rasps. I can't remember anything expensive that helped much.
I posted a build on here earlier this year and found the visualizing of what I wanted much harder than the execution - at least on the first carved top guitar that I made (which itself relied heavily on scraping for contouring, but the top was rosewood and finger planes and gouges were slower than a harsh set on a scraper).
I really like a 12" nicholson super shear for guitar work, too. If profiled rasps of good quality are too much, you can try to find double cut files with relatively coarse teeth for wood or metal - they will do contour work well without much risk, and without sanding the life out of crisp edges.
I didn't use power tools in the neck in the picture except for the holes for the tuning machines.
The planes are just stanley planes and the saw for the fretwork on the other side (I've made two) are just chosen lower cost saws that have the right plate width or close so that they could be set to make the right fret slot size.
Missed the mark on the first one and the slots were a bit tight, but the guitar turned out OK courtesy of a 2 way truss rod.
Also, electric or acoustic or both? What are you looking to do?
I think if you want to make things by hand, you need good drill bits, a good cordless drill (though you don't need a cordless drill, it's just handy), any decent planes, the ability to sharpen planes and chisels well and set a strong burr on a scraper reliably in case you have to do more than just a little surface correction with one.
And you need decent rasps. I can't remember anything expensive that helped much.
I posted a build on here earlier this year and found the visualizing of what I wanted much harder than the execution - at least on the first carved top guitar that I made (which itself relied heavily on scraping for contouring, but the top was rosewood and finger planes and gouges were slower than a harsh set on a scraper).
I really like a 12" nicholson super shear for guitar work, too. If profiled rasps of good quality are too much, you can try to find double cut files with relatively coarse teeth for wood or metal - they will do contour work well without much risk, and without sanding the life out of crisp edges.
I didn't use power tools in the neck in the picture except for the holes for the tuning machines.
The planes are just stanley planes and the saw for the fretwork on the other side (I've made two) are just chosen lower cost saws that have the right plate width or close so that they could be set to make the right fret slot size.
Missed the mark on the first one and the slots were a bit tight, but the guitar turned out OK courtesy of a 2 way truss rod.
Also, electric or acoustic or both? What are you looking to do?
Cozzer
Established Member
I got a pal to make a fret press similar to this....
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.
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.
Cozzer
Established Member
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.
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.
Cozzer
Established Member
I just had a wander down to the cellar where most of my guitar stuff lives. Not done very much in the last couple of years as her ladyship/covid shortages meant that the "work area" (Ha!) became an overflow Sainsburys.
I spotted the fret presses. I saw the straight edges. I clocked the 2 or 3 saws, and the hand-held router....
Then I spotted the tool that (I think) probably got more use than all the other stuff combined....
My card scrapers.
Cheap and cheerful, easy to sharpen once you're used to the process, and a joy to use.
Very satisfying - as much as the 12 tins of Heinz tomato soup that have taken over....
I spotted the fret presses. I saw the straight edges. I clocked the 2 or 3 saws, and the hand-held router....
Then I spotted the tool that (I think) probably got more use than all the other stuff combined....
My card scrapers.
Cheap and cheerful, easy to sharpen once you're used to the process, and a joy to use.
Very satisfying - as much as the 12 tins of Heinz tomato soup that have taken over....
AJB Temple
Finely figured
Luthiery covers all stringed instruments and it is not clear what the OP has in mind. I did a couple of courses in Cremona learning a bit about making violins. This required some quite specialised hand tools, but for making acoustic or electric guitars (I made my first guitar 4 decades ago) ordinary wordworking tools are fine.
thetyreman
Established Member
yes but he also has some very controversial opinions about guitars and how to set them up, a lot which I disagree with, this is why you have to be careful with youtube.
Cozzer
Established Member
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".
richarddownunder
Established Member
Hi
I'm very much a beginner having only made 3 guitars. But, for what it's worth...For acoustic instruments, there are a number of jigs that take a bit of time to make but improve the result. These include radiused dishes which, if you make yourself, require a router. There are various jigs for routing the edges for purflings and there are dedicated router bits for that job too. The other tool which is needed is some sort of bending iron for sides. These can be home made but I invested in one of these Rib Bending Iron & Straps for Violin, Guitar, Cello, Double Bass which are excellent and the bronze one is a work of art in itself. Cam clamps are very useful (I'd say essential) - I made mine. In my limited experience, it is worth taking the time to set up all this before starting. Of course, this only applies to acoustic instruments. There are some very good books on the subject. This is one I found helpful...
https://www.bookdepository.com/Guit...MIp_3fltD8-gIVjXwrCh19gwOoEAQYASABEgIQovD_BwE
Cheers
Richard
I'm very much a beginner having only made 3 guitars. But, for what it's worth...For acoustic instruments, there are a number of jigs that take a bit of time to make but improve the result. These include radiused dishes which, if you make yourself, require a router. There are various jigs for routing the edges for purflings and there are dedicated router bits for that job too. The other tool which is needed is some sort of bending iron for sides. These can be home made but I invested in one of these Rib Bending Iron & Straps for Violin, Guitar, Cello, Double Bass which are excellent and the bronze one is a work of art in itself. Cam clamps are very useful (I'd say essential) - I made mine. In my limited experience, it is worth taking the time to set up all this before starting. Of course, this only applies to acoustic instruments. There are some very good books on the subject. This is one I found helpful...
https://www.bookdepository.com/Guit...MIp_3fltD8-gIVjXwrCh19gwOoEAQYASABEgIQovD_BwE
Cheers
Richard
Orraloon
Established Member
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.
Regards
John
Another thing not mentioned yet is clamps and making instruments requires lots. Some are quite easy to make yourself.
Regards
John
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.
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