An on-line string tension calculator which was be used to calculate string tensions for most guitar and mandolin family instruments.
A pdf of the Music of Harry Schaefer, an old-time dance musician of Forbes NSW who played music in Central-West NSW for the first half of the 20th century. The print version is long out of print.
An essay by the late Peter Ellis on Australian social dancing, originally written in 1995. It will download as a pdf.
While researching mandolin history for The Mandolin Project, I came across mention of a book entitled Violins and Other Stringed Instruments - How to Make Them, published by Cassell & Co, London in 1904 and edited by Paul N. Hasluck. He was the editor of numerous manuals on how to make things, including various aspects of woodwork, bootmaking, electric dynamos, and my favorite, motor bicycle building, which involves casting your own one-cylinder engine from cast iron. (it is available as a pdf download on the web)
Violins and Other Musical Instruments covers building the violin family, a Japanese one-string violin. the mandoline, guitar, banjo, zither and dulcimer. As this book is now out of copyright, here is the chapter on 'Mandoline Making'. A fascinating English look at instrument making from a century ago. The link is on the left.
I started playing around with moulded soundboards in the 1980s and worked out some interesting ways to to form, by heat, moisture and pressure, an arched soundboard. These could, with a minimum of carving and graduating, be a very functional soundboard for bouzoukis and citterns or for that matter guitars. This link takes you to a pdf of an article written for American Lutherie in 1998, slightly modified as a chapter in the original publication of The Bouzouki Book.
Elsewhere on the web
Bush Traditions - promoting Australian Folk Music with the largest collection of old-time Australian dance music
