Nine-year member Dennis Russell is a retired Navy aviation mechanic. He built his first instrument in 1994 and has now built several mandolins and three guitars. He plays flat-pick guitar, mandolin, and old-time fiddle, as well as growing tomatoes and roses.
▪ bio current as of 2004
Six-year Guild member Mike Sacek build and plays many kins of basses.
▪ bio current as of 1989
Leslie Sahl is an fourteen-year GAL member. He attended Guild conventions in 1990 and 1992.
▪ bio current as of 1997
Like Ichiro Suzuki, five-year GAL member Taku Sakashta has moved to the United States and brought a Japanese sensibility for fine craft. Born in Kobe, Japan, he has taught guitar building in a Japanese technical school, and has built custom guitars for artists around the Pacific Rim. Taku passed away in 2010
▪ bio current as of 2001
Who put the bop in the bop shu-bop shu-bop? Carl Samuels, that’s who! He taught guitar making to John Roberts, founder of the Roberto-Venn school, thereby becoming a granddaddy of the American lutherie boom.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Twenty-six year GAL member Michael Sandén and his wife Kari have recently settled on the west coast of Sweden in Gothenburg. They make Sandén acoustic guitars and teach guitar building.
▪ bio current as of 2010
David Santo, former builder and partner in Gurian Guitars, was a consultant for Earthwood, Dan Armstrong, and many others. He is the inventor of innovative designs such as the 44-fret Ionic Guitar. He now lives in New York state with his family and continues to be an inventor, contractor, and luthier.
▪ bio current as of 1999
Twenty-one year GAL member John Saucier splits his time between Chicago and Savannah. He wishes he had more time to play and pursue guitar construction but, for now, he wrote an article for American Lutherie instead.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Nine-year member Peter Schaefer plays banjo and resophonic guitar in a bluegrass trio. After four years of training as a goldsmith, he went work in the data center of the Hilti Co. in Liechtenstein, and has been there for twenty-five years.
▪ bio current as of 1997
A twenty-seven-year Guild member and former pro trombone and tuba player, Gerhart Schmeltenkopf repairs harpsichords and clavichords.
▪ bio current as of 1992
Paul Schmidt is probably best known to luthiers as the author of Acquired of the Angels: The Lives and Works of Master Guitar Makers John D’Angelico and James L. D’Aquisto and Art That Sings: The Life and Times of Luthier Steve Klein. He is a past AL author, convention speaker, and convention concertizer; and also holds advanced degrees in music and theology.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Dave Schneider makes steel string guitars, electric guitars, and lutes, as well as doing a full range of repair work.
▪ bio current as of 1987
Long-time GAL member David W. Schneider has been building instruments of his own design as a hobby on and off for fifty-plus years.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Read Richard L Schneider’s memoriam
Classic guitar innovator Richard Schneider has been a Guild member for thirteen out of the last fourteen years. Richard passed away in 1997, read his memoriam.
▪ bio current as of 1992
Arnold Schnitzer was a young and successful working musician in the New York City area. When he found himself with the grown-up responsibilities of a wife and child, he decided to settle down and get a real job. Amusingly, that real job was hand-making string basses. He has been a GAL member for fifteen years, on and off.
▪ bio current as of 2015
John Schofield has made 160 mandolins and two major audiokinetic sculptures (a la George Rhoads). He has made a lot of tools like a pantograph and fret saw and f-hole machine along with wood stoves and farm tools. He has 164 acres of land with a cabin and a lake and a pond, on a famous trout stream, and two caves… and someday he’d like to make a few more instruments. He has a backhoe and a sawmill and can stay busy every day. Plays the fiddle and the banjo in a decent bluegrass band and has even tried performing with his wife. He hunts deer but does not always find them, and fishes badly too. He works in sewage but that made his kids mad when he’d say that… they prefer the term environmental engineer. (Penn State 1968-75)
▪ bio current as of 2008
When not building violins and cellos, Paul Schuback has amused himself by serving in Portland civic politics, riding his BMW motorcycle, and restoring old cars. His latest love is a 1956 British Land Rover with a factory-original fire engine conversion that he and his son picked up in Ireland.
▪ bio current as of 2001
Welcome new member and new author Ryan Schultz!
▪ bio current as of 2009
Welcome new member and first-time author Sheldon Schwartz!
▪ bio current as of 1993
First time author and fifteen year GAL member Flip Scipio splits his lutherie time between shops in New York and Massachusetts. When he’s not working on guitars he works in the garden and rides his bicycle.
▪ bio current as of 2022
Lamar Scomp is a multi-wannabe in search of gurus. He’s also capable of perfectly proper English speech but is too fond of his hillbilly heritage to use it except when confronted with bankers or government officials.
▪ bio current as of 2009
Nine-year GAL member Stephen Sedgwick started guitar making in 1994. He works alone to build harp guitars and other such things in the renovated office on what use to be a pig farm, which has now been taken over by artists. Ferraris, Porsches, and other speedy exotics race on a track next door. Simply smashing!
▪ bio current as of 2013
Andres Sender is a lute maker and a painter of portraits and still lifes.
▪ bio current as of 1994
Building an Acoustic Steel-String Guitar
Forty-year Guild member Jon Sevy builds acoustic and electric guitars. He is a former college math professor who currently supports his lutherie habit with a day job as an embedded software engineer.
▪ bio current as of 2024
Bruce Sexauer has been building guitars since before the First Book (Hats off to Irving Sloane!). Forty-five years later Bruce is working in the shop he designed and built in his backyard, where he specializes in cutting-edge traditional steel string guitars and the occasional violin. He just can’t stop himself.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Ron Sharp was raised in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, where he still runs the woods harvesting downed red spruce for his guitar tops. He learned the lutherie craft from Wayne Henderson.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Longtime GAL member Tim Shaw designed and marketed the Sunrise pickup in the 1970s, built artist instruments and prototypes for Gibson in the ’80s, and is now Director of Project Management/Guitar Design for Fender. He lectured at GAL Conventions in 1977, 1979, 1986, and 2006.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Federico Sheppard began building guitars in 1979. He now splits his time between workshops in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Carrión de los Condes, Spain, where he is artist in residence. He has been a GAL member for thirty-two years and is a frequent AL author and a repeat GAL Convention presenter.
▪ bio current as of 2024
Gerald Sheppard has been a GAL member since 1998. When he was fifteen, in 1965, he told his parents he wanted either a guitar or a motorcycle for Christmas. Lucky for him, they bought him an inexpensive Strat copy. Gerald has been repairing, refinishing, and building guitars for twenty years, building exclusively since 1993. He prides himself in knowing how to get something nearly perfect, then goofing it up.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Robert Sherman began playing guitar at age ten. While enrolled at Berklee College he held a job at Fishman and studied lutherie under Eric Miller, which in turn led to jobs in cabinetmaking and at Zeta Music Systems building guitars. Since 1992 he has been building and repairing acoustic and electric stringed instruments in the San Francisco Bay area.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Nineteen-year Guild member Chuck Shifflett studied lutherie for two years with Michael Dunn in Vancouver B.C. Now in High River, Alberta, he lives with his very patient wife and two great teen aged kids. He makes a living these days mostly repairing and doing some building.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Besides being a professional musician and amateur luthier (accent on the love), Tom Shinness is also a proponent of whole foods, exercise, and positive mentality as a means of achieving greater musical creativity and as a way to build greater endurance to tackle the challenges of life on the road.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Long-time GAL member Nasser Shirazi was born in 1939 in Tehran, Iran, and came to the United States in 1960. He soon earned a degree in civil engineering, and retired in 2004 as Assistant City Manager for Pittsburg, California. Mr. Shirazi has published two books on classical Persian instruments: Setar Construction (2001) and Building the Kamanche (2007).
▪ bio current as of 2014
Canoe guide, folkie, guitar repairman, museum maven, GAL lecturer. Those are just a few of the many facets of Marc Silber.
▪ bio current as of 2013
John Silzel holds four patents and leads two lives. By day he is a professor at Biola University, having earned a PhD by analyzing the air on remote Pacific islands. By night (once his kids are in bed) he builds electric violins and develops MIDI software. Once an honest classical violinist with his own tuxedo, Dr. Silzel now plays rock and jazz with electric guitarists and other unsavory types. His mother is dismayed.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Eighteen-year member Gene Simpson repairs, restores, and builds acoustic guitars. When he’s not in the guitar shop he restores MG sports cars.
▪ bio current as of 1999
Jon Simpson began playing guitar at age twelve and took up woodworking in his early twenties. Those two paths crossed in 2006 when he sketched his first body pattern, made the first mold, and was officially bitten by the lutherie bug. He keeps his chops up on the weekends while working a day job as an animator (in Iowa, even; who knew?), and aspires to build guitars full-time within the next few years.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Edgar B. Singleton is a retired physics professor who has been making instruments, mostly of the violin family, as an avocation since 1982. He has been a member of the Catgut Acoustical Society and is an admirer of Carleen Hutchins and the CAS “school” of violin making and analysis.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Daniel Sinier and Françoise de Ridder opened their Paris workshop in 1971 and have restored about two thousand antique plucked string instruments for public and private collections. They have lectured, written articles, and published two books about guitars made in France between 1650 and 1950.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Roger Alan Skipper is a native of the mountains of western Maryland, where he builds custom acoustic instruments, writes novels, picks the banjo, and hunts wild ginseng.
▪ bio current as of 2009
Lawrence Smart is a twenty-nine-year Guild member, a maker of guitars and mandolin-family instruments, and a past convention lecturer.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Aaron Smiley graduated from the Bryan Galloup School of Lutherie in 2013. From there he took a repair technician position at the Guitar Center in his old hometown of Beaumont, Texas. After three years, Aaron accepted a position at Stewart-MacDonald as a technical advisor/product specialist and now spends his spare time in Dan Erlewine’s shop helping him with repairs and absorbing as much information as possible.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Twenty-three-year Guild member David Smith’s first lutherie experience was in 1976 after graduating with a degree in music. A kind local lute maker guided him in the making of an 8-course lute, which he then performed on. A forty-year interruption came in the form of a degree in electrical engineering, advanced work in computer science, having a family, and starting a company. Numerous false starts on guitar making have led to an intensive year of benefitting from the kindness of luthiers and the GAL.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Seven-year GAL member Ed Smith, 77, is a retired Canadian immigration officer who makes one guitar a year as a winter project. His goal is to build a guitar that equals the sound and playability of his two fine old Martins. That may never happen, but each guitar that he has built has been better than the last. He thanks all American Lutherie authors for their generosity, as well as those who have contributed to his knowledge through YouTube.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Eighteen-year GAL member George A. Smith lives and works in his 1886 home in Portland, Oregon, where he concentrates on classical guitars with support from his cat Heathcliff who contributes an occasional hair to the French polish finish, greatly enhancing the treble response.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Neil Smith’s Vegas Guitars Custom Shop
Gold-certified Fender tech Neil Smith grew up playing and tinkering with guitars. After seventeen years on the road backing such greats as Bo Diddley, Little Anthony, and the Chiffons, he went to college and earned degrees in social work. But he returned to his first loves: guitar repair and building. He has built guitars for first-call guitarists in shows like Cirque Du Soliel, Blue Man Group, and Jersey Boys.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Steve Smith is president and chief scientist of Smith and Co. The company manufactures specialty epoxies and polyurethanes for applications in the marine and construction industries. He is also doing research and development of specialty materials under contract to several companies in other industries.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Seven-year member William Snavely has been making solid-bodied instruments for more than thirty years, for no discernible reason. He’s been a university professor, a bass player, a pastry chef, and a clothing designer — in a word, a misfit. Currently, he is building a house with his son and hoping to contribute to the musical careers of four of his children.
▪ bio current as of 2004
Welcome twenty-year Guild member Trevel Sofge as a first time author!
▪ bio current as of 1990
Ervin Somogyi is a respected guitar maker and lutherie teacher. He’s been everywhere and done everything. He has lost everything and come back for more. He has numerous credits as a GAL author and convention presenter, and is the author of The Responsive Guitar.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Eight-year GAL member Gary Southwell makes modern and historical guitars, with a particular interest in guitars of the early 19th century. When not in the workshop, he can be found flying his birds of prey and walking the local countryside with his dogs.
▪ bio current as of 2024
Byron Spain built his first mandolin in 1962, a left-handed F-5, when he could not find one in Seattle. Having a master’s degree in mechanical engineering with post-graduate studies in vibration and sound, he spent thirty-four years at Boeing. Along the way he built stringed instruments of all types as both a hobby and therapy. Upon retiring, he converted his busy hobby into a small business.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Michael Spalt tried painting, photography, and screen writing in an attempt to escape his passion for building guitars. Ultimately he gave in and decided to luth full time, and in 1997 he started Spalt Instruments in Los Angeles. Now settled in Vienna, Austria, he looks forward to trying some new avenues and maybe some more traditional instruments as well.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Robert J. (Bob) Spear has been in violin work since 1971. He retired from commercial work in the ’90s to focus on research and building. Bob is a strong supporter of the New Violin Family and has nearly completed his second octet. He lives near scenic Ithaca, New York, with his wife, Deena, and two embarrassingly friendly dogs, Poka and Tupplett.
▪ bio current as of 2012
An avid woodworker since his childhood, Steve Spodaryk began building instruments professionally in 2002. He has been fortunate enough to work with, learn from, and collaborate with many talented builders and players. His interests range from traditional Romantic-era parlor guitars to modern fingerstyle guitars and engineered materials. He has racked up ten years of GAL membership and is also a cofounder of the New England Luthiers group.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Twenty-two-year member Ken Sribnick made his first synthesizer in 1968 and began repairing guitars in a Greenwich Village apartment. After meeting his luthier wife, Gayle, at the 1986 GAL convention, he worked at Tom Anderson’s Guitar Works in California. Now in Dallas, Ken designs acoustics avocationally and pursues a forty-five-year quest to play Bach, Blind Blake, and Blarney Stone on guitar.
▪ bio current as of 1998
Phillip Stafford is a life-long furniture builder. He’s a new GAL member, a thirty year member of the Craftsman’s Guild of Mississippi, and a member of the Tennessee Artist Craftsman’s Association. He purchased his first ukulele three years ago and became addicted to the “jumping flea.” About to purchase an expensive koa uke, he decided he could build one instead, and started Moonshine Ukuleles. Phillip owns Advantek Machinery, a distributor of high tech CNC machinery. His favorite pastimes are sailing, building and playing ukuleles, and drinking homemade wine, not necessarily in that order.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Past author Al Stancel has had his own lutherie shop since retiring from a career as an acoustics and recording expert for Ampex and RCA in 1975. He adds that he is the “first person in history to walk with one above-knee prosthesis and no right leg with two Canadian canes (not yet walked on water.)”. All passed away in 1999, read his memoriam.
▪ bio current as of 1991
Having learned classical guitar as a kid and having developed an interest in woodwork in his early twenties, two-year Guild member J.A.T. Stanfield found his vocation uniting the two through lutherie. After living in Madrid, Spain, for a while, he currently builds at his home workshop in Oxford, England. He also spends his time trying to apply the delicacy of instrument making skills to the considerably larger project of period property restoration.
▪ bio current as of 2019
Sixteen-year GAL member Rodney Stedall emigrated from South Africa, where he coordinated the Guild of South African Luthiers, to New Zealand, a place where the majority of greenhouse gases come from cows and sheep belching! He’s a full-time optometrist and builds guitars in his spare time.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Ned Steinberger is a creator of innovative musical instruments and is most notable for his design of guitars and basses without a traditional headstock. He also has a line of electric classical instruments through his company called NS Design.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Robert Steinegger has been a GAL member for at least thirty-six years. He developed an interest in guitars while in high school, and while attending school in Utah, he met Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers. In 1981, Phil commissioned him to build the “Ike Everly Model” guitar, which he produced until 2001.
▪ bio current as of 2013
John Christian Steinert has been making guitars and related parts since 2001. Prior to that, he had worked as a materials supply consultant in Oregon and in Saudi Arabia, as an engineer in Louisiana and Taiwan, and as an R&D supervisor in New Jersey with AT&T and Bell Labs. He has degrees in biology, chemistry, and mechanical engineering from the University of Miami and Oregon State University.
▪ bio current as of 2009
Marine microbial ecologist Erik Stenn cultures microaglae for a shrimp farm in his day job. At night he becomes husband, father, luthier, and player of banjos and guitars. He is building guitars and hopes to make violins in the future. Erik’s dream is to build perfect instruments for his children as they explore music.
▪ bio current as of 2001
Sebastian Stenzel made his first guitar at age fourteen. After excursions into Chinese Medicine and carpentry, he served his apprenticeship with a local guitar maker. In 1996 he established his own workshop, and in 1998 he was awarded the Masterprize of the Bavarian Government for his outstanding performance on the Master of Crafts Examination. His instruments are distributed in the United States exclusively by Guitar Salon International.
▪ bio current as of 2001
Four-year member Nathan Stinnette works full time at Huss and Dalton Guitars in Virginia, remodels his house on the weekends, plays mandolin and banjo in two old-time string bands, and is trying to learn the fiddle. In his spare time he sits around and tries to remember what it was like to have spare time.
▪ bio current as of 2003
When Henry Stocek decided to refurbish his vintage D-28 he didn’t realize that a suitable replacement pickguard would cost $10,000 and four years of his life. Of course, he also got a new company as part of the deal. He’s becoming famous as the celluloid guy. His wife wishes he were becoming famous for almost anything else.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Jim Stratton got his undergraduate degree from Eastern Illinois University where he specialized in industrial automation. He went on to Purdue, where he got his MS in Mechanical Engineering Technology. Not having suffered enough, he is now pursuing a PhD.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Henry Strobel is a retired engineer who operates a violin shop in Aumsville, OR. A six-year Guild member, Henry has been building, repairing, researching, and writing about violins since he finished his first instrument in 1969.
▪ bio current as of 1994
Peggy Stuart has been a GAL member since 1978 (forty-five consecutive years) and has been a regular GAL Convention attendee since then. She built her first guitar in 1973. An AL author and photographer, she is now retired from her day job in higher education, and travels widely in her RV, painting landscapes and photographing nature.
▪ bio current as of 2022
Contributing Editor Linda Stuckey is a word nerd with basic skills in woodworking and music. She has a background in publishing and is the former Associate Editor of Recording Engineer/Producer magazine. (And she was in a band with Melissa Etheridge when they were twelve-year-olds!) She lives and works in Puyallup, Washington.
After attending Massachusetts College of Art, Craig Sullivan spent most of his working career in advertising. He was bitten by the instrument-building bug back in the late ’60s, when the only book on the subject was Irving Sloane’s Classic Guitar Construction. After building several classical and steel string guitars, he put it all aside to help raise his children, tend to his career, and build two additions to his home. He returned to his love of building acoustic instruments and has been doing so for the past twenty years. He is a long-time member of New England Luthiers. Craig passed away in 2018
▪ bio current as of 2018
John H. Sullivan is a former high-climbing logger, a custom wood turner, and a guitarmaker who has recently moved into violinmaking. John passed away in 2007, read his memoriam.
▪ bio current as of 1993
Musical Instrument Makers Forum
Deb Suran is a past GAL author and the webmaster of MIMF.com.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Boston area luthier John Svizzero has been building and repairing guitars for over twenty years. He specializes in archtop acoustic guitars and luthier guitar parts. He is an active member of New England Luthiers.
▪ bio current as of 2009
Seven-year GAL member Mark Swanson has lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan for all of his fifty-two years, and has been a professional musician since 1976. Tinkering with his instruments, along with extended periods of staring at the moon, led to becoming a luthier and repairman. Mark also serves on the staff of the Musical Instrument Makers Forum.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Twenty-year GAL member Paul Szmanda’s lifelong passion is playing and being inspired by fine stringed instruments. He greatly appreciates the people who create them and the materials they work with. To support his guitar habit, he finds time to do dentistry.
▪ bio current as of 2014
Thirteen-year GAL member Andrea Tacchi was born into a Florentine family with a rich artisan heritage as jewelry makers and wood carvers. He has met and learned from master luthiers including Romanillos, Mattingly, Bouchet, Friederich, Fleta, and Kohno. He has been a professional guitar maker since 1977.
▪ bio current as of 2012
After four decades of repairing stringed instruments, and driving bus for King County Metro for three of those decades, nineteen-plus-year Guild member Mike Tagawa still hasn’t decided which is more fun, interesting, or dangerous.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Todd Taggart, has been a Guild member forever, and sees to it that good woods, tools, and lutherie information are always available to the likes of you and me. He knows how to throw a good party, too, as evidenced by the ’96 and ’97 Healdsburg shows.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Although he has never made any varnish or violins, Bruce Tai has published about the chemical analysis of Cremonese varnishes, summarizing others’ findings. He’s a chemistry PhD who will soon become a chemistry professor at National Taiwan University and hopes to start varnish experiments there. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School studying Alzheimer’s disease. A native of Taiwan, his given name is Hwan-Ching; he took Bruce as a nickname while spending a childhood year in the USA.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Eleven-year GAL member Fan Tao directs R&D at D’Addario. He conducts violin acoustics research, is an accomplished string player, and holds degrees from Caltech and Princeton. He’s a trustee of the CAS, a director of the VSA, and codirector of the VSA-Oberlin Acoustics Workshop.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Bob Taylor failed at his first attempt to make a guitar, but hey, he was only nine. At sixteen he succeeded in completing his first guitar, and started Taylor Guitars at the age of nineteen. Most of you know the story of Taylor. What you might be interested to know is that Bob, like most of you, has made many hundreds of guitars with his hands and a scant supply of tools. Whether you make one guitar a month, one a day, or three hundred a day, Bob knows what you’re going through. Bob believes in using tools and techniques to make the guitar building process successful, and is always happy to talk about those methods.
▪ bio current as of 2009
Four year member Robert W. Taylor thrives at the intersection of woodwork, music, and boats on Marylands Eastern Shore. Alongside a career as an architectural woodworker, hes learned to repair various stringed instruments since his own first broken Gibson headstock in the 70s. Several basket-case restorations and emergency repairs have provided valuable experience along the way. After retiring from building heavy things like rose windows and 10´ doors, he is enjoying the deep dive into building guitars and a bass or two.
▪ bio current as of 2024
Twenty-one-year Guild member Don Teeter is a past author and lecturer.
▪ bio current as of 1990
Six-year GAL member John Thayer’s lutherie adventure began with building electric guitars at the age of sixteen. He attended the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery and stayed on as an assistant. Next, John worked under Ervin Somogyi who instructed him in soundboard voicing and French polish. Since 2004 he has run his own business building and repairing instruments.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Twenty-four-year GAL member Tom Thiel built instruments and other wooden things in the 1970s when he jumped ship from academia. He was side-tracked by making high-end loudspeakers in the ’80s and ’90s. Now he splits his time between lutherie and supplying reclaimed, unusual, and otherwise crazy tonewood to high-end luthiers through his company Northwind Timber & Tonewood.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Perry Thomas is a dendrologist with the World Resources Institute. At present he is living and conducting research in Costa Rica with his entomologist wife Ann.
▪ bio current as of 1988
After retiring from Peter Cooper Corporations, Eugene Thordahl continues his life-long career in the hide glue and gelatin business by supplying quality adhesives and technical information to a wide range of users, including luthiers.
▪ bio current as of 2018
A Guild member since 1985, David Thormahlen builds primarily harps, but lots of other instruments too. He and his wife and work partner Sharon still find time to enjoy sailing, hiking, and making friends with musicians all over the world.
▪ bio current as of 2022
Judy Threet started out as a philosopy prof. How does a philosophy prof become a luthier?
▪ bio current as of 1998
Mark Tierney is a ten-year Guild member.
▪ bio current as of 1992
Gerald Sheppard has been a GAL member since 1998. When he was fifteen, in 1965, he told his parents he wanted either a guitar or a motorcycle for Christmas. Lucky for him, they bought him an inexpensive Strat copy. Gerald has been repairing, refinishing, and building guitars for twenty years, building exclusively since 1993. He prides himself in knowing how to get something nearly perfect, then goofing it up.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Otis Tomas has been making instruments at his home on Cape Breton Island for over 30 years. Though specializing in violins, over the years his production has included custom made flat top and arch top guitars, mandolins, harps, and other instruments.
▪ bio current as of 1990
Harry Tomita was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and learned to play his $10 Martin ukulele in the mid-1940s. After a stint in Korea he graduated from UC Berkeley with a BSEE. Now retired, he has decided to resume his interest in playing. The cost of instruments drove him to build his own ukulele and that has been his hobby ever since.
▪ bio current as of 2012
A member of the GAL since 1997, Rudolf Tomusic was born in 1943 in Zagreb, Croatia. An engine fitter by trade, he has built guitars since 1978, originally under the tutelage of Mijo Bockaj his “big teacher and friend.” (See Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, p. 402.) He went on to study with Ernest Köröskeny, Helmut Hanika, Josip Krog, Dragan Musulin, Dieter Hopf, Mirko Hotko (Zagreb), and Carl Hermann Schäfer, alias ” Nicolaus Wolf.” At the music school of Wolfsburg he has taught musical instrument construction for adults for eight years. He has built a number of instruments and repaired many, in the process making about 150 drawings of various guitars. He does not build tamburas.
▪ bio current as of 2013
Violinmaker and 2 year member Janet Toon makes her debut as an author.
▪ bio current as of 1990
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Aquiles Torres originally wanted to be a painter. Then a school choir gave him the opportunity to visit other countries and learning about their cultures and music. He then worked as a graphic designer before a course in instrument construction brought him to lutherie, the perfect blending of art, music, and craft.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Six-year GAL member Ben Tortorici retired in 2000 after a thirty-five year career as an aerospace engineer. He began making classical guitars in the late 1970s and counts Bob Mattingly and Tom Blackshear as mentors.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Dake Traphagen has been a nut farmer, an early-instrument nut and, for his entire adult life, a hard-working lutherie nut. The Pacific Northwest is lucky to have him in residence.
▪ bio current as of 2003
Jeff Traugott and his wife Cori Houston work together at his guitar building and repair shop. Then they go out and play soccer together. They welcome visitors. Call ahead.
▪ bio current as of 1997
Scot Tremblay has specialized in building and concertizing on guitars of the Romanic period since the 1980s.
▪ bio current as of 2010
After a career in architecture and design education, eight-year GAL member Peter True trained in guitar making at Merton College (south London, not Oxford). He taught for a while at Merton and now offers his own courses, mainly for ukulele building. He has attended two Romanillos summer guitar-making sessions.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Swiss-born musician/teacher-turned-luthier Benz Tschannen was a Guild member in the ’80s, but got sidetracked starting a family, building a house, and a few other things. He joined up again in 2002, built a new shop in 2003, and is now building concert classical guitars full time.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Growing up in Uzbekistan, nineteen-year GAL member Peter Tsiorba attended a music school studying piano. In the 1990s, an encounter with a fine but battered Manuel Contreras flamenco guitar awakened his desire to make a guitar. Today he is a full-time luthier focusing on building classical and flamenco guitars, as well as the restoration and repair of modern and antique instruments. In his shop you can always catch the aromas of freshly planed wood, shellac, and hide glue.
▪ bio current as of 2023
Jan Tulacek is a luthier focusing his interest on 19th-century guitars. He makes copies or replicas of early Romantic guitars, repairs them, and plays them. He is a graduate of the Music Academy in Prague and still performs as a member of the Prague Guitar Quartet.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Eleven-year GAL member Michael Turko builds all manner of guitars and bowed instruments on a quiet mesa in San Diego.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Twenty-one-year member Harold Turner traces instrument building in his family back five generations to his Quaker forebears who moved to North Carolina from Maryland. A luthier since 1970, he teaches and demonstrates lutherie at the Hagood Mill Historical Site and Folk Life Center in Pickens County, South Carolina.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Former GAL columnist Rick Turner’s pioneering work with the Grateful Dead and Alembic qualify him as a Founding Father of American Electric Lutherie. Make that a founding uncle. He’s a bit young to be a brother of Les Paul or Leo Fender. He continues his quest with Renaissance and Turner guitars which feature his innovative concepts in the amplification of acoustic instruments, and is starting a new buisiness with Seymour Duncan Pickups to be called Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research.
▪ bio current as of 2002
Thirteen-year Guild member Glenn Uhler was born and raised about five miles from the Martin Guitar factory, but has been distracted from lutherie by the restoration of a flooded sailboat.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Six-year GAL member Wilfried Ulrich has been a high-school art and shop teacher for twenty-eight years. He began making instruments in 1977 after seeing a televised course in making a fretted dulcimer by John Pearse. He has made Medieval fiddles, viols, harps, and dulcimers, but hurdy-gurdies are his favorite.
▪ bio current as of 2004
Rebecca Urlacher earned a degree in ceramics before discovering lutherie. Now she makes mighty nice guitars, and is a first-time GAL author
▪ bio current as of 2023
Six-year GAL member Sheldon Urlik is a businessman and former Air Force fighter pilot. His passion is classical and flamenco guitars: collecting them, playing them, and listening to them.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Ehud “Udi” Vachterman is an army man, student, world traveler, and music lover. He learned lutherie in Argentina, where he read recycled copies of American Lutherie. He keeps on building and keeps on learning in Israel.
▪ bio current as of 2005
Veteran AL author, convention presenter, and thirteen-year member Scott van Linge has been revoicing guitars for twenty-five years, following the work of Jon Lundberg. He built his first guitar in 1999, and has finally finished #16, after reaffirming the rule about not fixing something not broke.
▪ bio current as of 2008
First time author Ed Vande Voorde is a eighteen-year Guild member.
▪ bio current as of 1988
Welcome first-time author James Vanderplas!
▪ bio current as of 1995
Born in Brooklyn, Joe Veillette has been a builder since learning from Michael Gurian in 1972, an experience that quickly led him away from the field of architecture which he’d trained for. He’s built acoustic and electric guitars, basses, mandolins, and the occasional tres. He’s done a lot of experimenting over the years with different scale lengths, tuning ranges, and double and triple string courses. He’s also been performing steadily in a wide variety of musical genres. Having recently realized that he’s probably ADD, he’s no longer feeling guilty about his tendency to spread himself too thin.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Alfredo Velázquez made his first guitar at age twenty-one, but he found his father’s workshop irresistible as soon as he could walk, and has spent much of his adult life at the workbench alongside Manuel. He builds guitars in the tradition taught to him by his father, but with, inevitably, his own characteristic sound.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Read Manuel Velazquez’s memoriam
Manuel Velazquez is a classical guitar maker on whom words of respect and praise seem dwarfed by the largeness of the man himself. In his ninetieth year at the 2006 GAL Convention, he spread joy and enthusiasm for the classical guitar with unassuming humility and grace. Manuel passed away in 2014
▪ bio current as of 2008
Dr Carol Ventura, Professor of Art
Carol Ventura received her PhD in Art from the University of Georgia. She currently teaches Art History at Tennessee Technological University.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Do Viet Dung is the GAL’s first member in Vietnam. Welcome!
▪ bio current as of 2003
Peter Vile has been building lutes and guitars since retiring in 1992 from IBM Netherlands, where his work as a systems engineer involved design on an architectural level combined with a strong interest in details. This two-level approach he feels, also applies to lutherie because it requires understanding the theoretical aspects as well as acquiring manual skills.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Jason Villa began repairing and building instruments at the age of fifteen and went on to work for Ernie Ball Music Man Guitars until 2001. After a few years as an elementary school teacher, he took his current position as Product Specialist at Kala Ukulele Company in Petaluma, California. There he leads his team building and setting up ukuleles and U-Basses.
▪ bio current as of 2015
David Vincent is a full-time lutherie teacher.
▪ bio current as of 1991
Buzz Vineyard joined the Guild in 1976 and has attended and exhibited at several GAL conventions going all the way back to 1977.
▪ bio current as of 1997
Gernot Wagner has been building instruments for thirty years and has been a GAL member for twenty years. He started with lutes, but now concentrates on a scientific approach to making classical guitars, including the use of sandwich tops with Nomex honeycomb. “I like constructing gadgetry,” says Gernot, “but that’s an occupational disease I suppose.”
▪ bio current as of 2004
Kevin, Jon, and Erick Waldron, and David Miller are as wet behind the lutherie ears as fish. These old woodmen-turned-luthiers have a rich background in woodcraft and fine furniture. Kevin, the senior administrator, taught vocational woodworking, then progressed to computer drafting and many “cutting edge” machining advances over two decades. Their education, they say, is “from Middle Tennessee by all accounts and is varied from electrical engineering to Biblical studies.” Lutherie turned from hobby to business almost overnight, but they remain a family business: father, sons, and son-in-law.
▪ bio current as of 2010
Jon Waldron works with his father Kevin Waldron, his brother Erick Waldron, and his brother-in-law David Miller in the family
▪ bio current as of 2010
Dr. John L. Walker holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree and has served as principal oboe of the Orquesta Sinf¢nica de Guadalajara, the USAF Heritage of America Band, and the Orquesta Sinf¢nica Nacional del Ecuador. He has published articles in both English and Spanish about Latin American and Ecuadorian music in a number of music journals.
▪ bio current as of 2003
Marilyn Wallin is a member of the Board of Directors of the VSA and of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. She just makes new instruments, as many as possible, as often as possible.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Jacky Walraet started building guitars in 1987 while studying at the renowned Centre for Musical Instrument Building (Cmb) in Belgium. Having completed courses in guitar and violin making, he has been teaching at the Cmb since 1990. Jacky specializes in the making of archtop and steel string guitars and is a founding member of the LGR Project.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Fourteen-year GAL member Terence Warbey built his first guitar at age eleven. He has been steadily improving since then and has made about four hundred and fifty guitars so far. Although he makes his primary income as a silversmith/goldsmith, he builds about four instruments annually. He performs regularly as a musician and loves the info sharing that he finds in the Guild.
2021
Strat-compatible-parts pioneer Ken Warmoth is the founder, mastermind, and head honcho of Warmoth Guitar Products.
▪ bio current as of 2018
Viol maker Donald Warnock lectured at Guild conventions in 1979 and 1990, and has been a GAL member sixteen out of twenty-one years. Donald passed away in 1997.
▪ bio current as of 1991
Peggy Warren works at hammond Ashley Associates, a violin family making and repair shop specializing in bass. She’s a violinist. The shop has maintained Guild membership for the past twenty four years.
▪ bio current as of 1993
David Warther is a full-time ivory carver for a nonprofit museum in Ohio’s Amish community. He is a supplier of bone, legal pre-ban ivory, and mammoth ivory to restorers at the Smithsonian and Colonial Williamsburg as well as to luthiers and other artisans. He has helped wildlife conservation efforts by providing expert testimony in Federal court against smugglers, and has worked as an informant to federal wildlife agents against traffickers in illegal ivory overseas and in the USA.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Paul Weaver builds classical guitars using mostly hand tools. He enjoys tropical fish keeping, chess, and playing guitar. His favorite tree is the chestnut and he enjoys the sounds in the desert.
▪ bio current as of 2013
A luthier since 1973, Jess Wells has quit his job at the pipe organ company and is back to focusing on ‘gambas. His real love, however, is making split-bamboo fly rods. Jess passed away in 2010, read his memoriam.
▪ bio current as of 1996
Sylvan Wells was a practicing trial lawyer until 2003, building acoustic guitars as a diversion. His article on “String Spacing for Guitars” was published by American Lutherie way back in 1978, when it was still the GAL Quarterly. He now lives in Massachusetts and builds guitars under the Bay State brand.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Thirty-six-year member Stan Werbin is not a luthier himself, but has been privileged to employ a number of excellent makers and repair persons. In his 40th year as the owner of Elderly Instruments, Stan is an expert on vintage fretted instruments of all sorts. Before opening Elderly he studied biology at Queens College in New York and biological chemistry at the University of Michigan.
▪ bio current as of 2011
GAL convention lecturer, AL author, and five-year member, Dr. James Westbrook is a British-based organologist who is particularly interested in guitar construction. He is a part-time luthier and restorer, and a consultant and specialist for Brompton’s (a London auction house that specializes in musical instruments). He is a frequent lecturer and consultant on various topics related to guitars and their history. James is currently a member of the music faculty research staff at the University of Cambridge, and holds a Wolfson College (Cambridge) research fellowship for the purpose of investigating the life and work of David Rubio.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Ted White taught marine biology at the University of Guelph and engineering at Malaspina University College. He co-founded Coldwater Fisheries Ltd, Canada’s largest Rainbow Trout producer, was a board member of the Aquaculture Association of Canada, and co-founded Future SEA Technologies Inc.; a company dedicated to creation of innovative aquaculture technology. He has played several instruments since childhood and has been a wood worker nearly as long. Early efforts at instrument making included building six-hole flutes. As a traditional fiddler he became interested in building violins in the early nineties. While largely self-taught, he has attended numerous workshops in order to improve his making. This effort has developed into a fascination with how such an apparently simple thing could be so complex in its behaviour. Working with Jim Ham he built the world’s first balsawood cello. He is a regular attendee at the Oberlin Acoustics Workshop and has an acoustics research setup in his workshop. His latest efforts have been to understand the acoustics of the mandolin working with Mike Kemnitzer. Ted is a long-time member of the GAL, Violin Society of America, and the former Catgut Acoustical Society. He is a member of the VSA’s Board of Directors and the society’s current Secretary.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Twenty-eight-year Guild member Woodley White retired from his day job as a Presbyterian minister in Portland, Oregon, and moved to Hawaii to enjoy the simple life and build acoustic and classical guitars, harp guitars, and ukuleles. Life at the southern end of the Big Island on an active volcano provides fresh fruit, sunshine, island breezes, starry nights, great music, and lots of aloha.
▪ bio current as of 2022
David Wiebe studied his craft at the school for violin making in Mittenwald, Germany in the early ’70s. He returned to his home state of Nebraska where he worked for about thirty years before moving to his current location in Woodstock, New York in 2002. David works in the tradition of the Italian Masters, making violins, violas, cellos, and occasionally basses to special order, mostly on his personal model.
▪ bio current as of 2011
Steve Wiencrot has been a GAL member since 2000. He builds ukuleles and mandolins and rescues old guitars.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Give a big ol’ GAL welcome new author and five-year Guild member Clifford Wilkes!
▪ bio current as of 2015
Byron Will has been involved with the Guild as well as building harpsichords since 1975. His lifelong interest in photography took a digital turn in 2000. He is currently teaching digital photography and Photoshop at Portland Community College in Portland, OR.
▪ bio current as of 2005
As a teenager, twenty-nine-year GAL member January Williams went around the world in 1963, made a violin as an exchange student in Japan, and sailed west, stopping in Barcelona to visit the Fleta shop and take in some flamenco. A serious armchair luthier since, his garage full of tools and attic full of wood have in recent years coalesced into a lutherie shop. January and his sweetheart Susan are also known as Mr. and Mrs. Finger at the GAL auctions.
▪ bio current as of 2024
Laurie Williams has been building instruments of indigenous timbers for over fifteen years in his one man workshop nestled between giant Kauri forests and the pristine beaches of New Zealand’s Far North. An upcoming documentary film The Song of the Kauri featuring Laurie’s use of kauri is due for international release in 2008.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Luisa Willsher is Vice President for Global Sales with Madinter, a European lutherie wood supplier which recently joined with StewMac.
▪ bio current as of 2024
Dave Wilson works at Hammond Ashley Associates, a violin family making and repair shop specializing in bass. He’s a former nuclear metalurgist. The shop has maintained Guild membership for the past twenty-four years.
▪ bio current as of 1993
Twenty-five-year GAL member James Wimmer performed in an old-time string band in Germany in the 1970s. Subsequently, he worked in the violin shops of Wolfgang Uebel and Rainer Knobel for three years before returning to Santa Barbara, California, where he has been making violin-family instruments since 1986. He also teaches a violin repair and restoration course in Chennai, India.
▪ bio current as of 2017
Jimmi Wingert did her first inlay in 2002 and has been addicted ever since.
▪ bio current as of 2008
Sixteen-year GAL member Kathy Wingert did her time in boot camp and around-the-clock lutherie. Sixty-three issues of American Lutherie in her mailbox haven’t shown the error of her ways, so she continues to do what she does in her small southern-California shop.
▪ bio current as of 2012
Darryl Wolfe is the publisher of The F5 Journal and a mandolin player of note. His father Bobby Wolfe is a past author and a six year member.
▪ bio current as of 1989
Eight-year GAL member Alfred Woll is a native of southern Germany who played the violin, mandolin, and guitar as a teenager. In 1977 he took apart a damaged mandolin, repaired it, and assembled it again. Two years later he set up his own workshop and built his first classical guitar. He did repairs and restorations and built all sorts of stringed instruments before deciding to specialize in the mandolin and completing his master’s certificate as a mandolin builder.
Four-year Guild member Brian Woods is an engineer in the auto-parts industry who enjoys guitar making as a hobby. As such, fixtures for low volume production (and low cost!) are a key interest, and he says he has benefited from numerous ideas and inspirations from fellow GAL members.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Ten-year GAL member Paul Woolson is a second-time GAL author, after a nineteen-year hiatus. Hes outdoorsy, and grew up with church music.
▪ bio current as of 2023
Marc Worsfold studied instrument repair at Merton College in Surrey and violinmaking at the London College of Furniture. He has been building acoustic and electric guitars since 1975.
▪ bio current as of 1994
Finding Irving Sloane’s Classic Guitar Construction in his late teens started it all for seven-year GAL member David Worthy. Not being a fan of the dreaded nought, most of his efforts have been focused on small-bodied fingerstyle guitars. For the past ten years he has been trying to swap his “real” job as a touring theater production manager for a quieter life in the workshop.
▪ bio current as of 2006
David Wren stayed behind in Toronto when the rest of the Larrivée crew moved west in the ’70s. It worked out OK. He’s made a name for himself as a maker of fine steel string guitars. When not making his own guitars, he can be found photographing those of his friends.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Thirty-year member Rossco Wright has been involved in stringed instrument repair and other guitar-related businesses for twenty years. In his current endeavor he builds and sells cool practice/travel guitars with partner Frank Nakatsuma. In his spare time he enjoys fly fishing and playing jazz guitar.
▪ bio current as of 1994
George Wunderlich was recently featured on the PBS show “The Woodwright’s Shop.”
▪ bio current as of 2003
The Guild’s only member in India, Dominic Xavier has a high-ranking day job with the National Drinking Water Mission. Read about his lutherie obsession in this issue. He’s also the only GAL member with a name beginning with X.
▪ bio current as of 1997
Twenty-two-year GAL member Brian Yarosh began his lutherie journey as a student of Harry Fleishman back in 2000 and has never stopped building. He currently constructs custom steel string and classical guitars in his basement workshop. Brian is often seen at the local Colorado luthier get-togethers (and GAL Conventions).
▪ bio current as of 2022
Michael Yeats has been an instrument maker since 1975. He started his career as an apprentice lute maker, and has made and repaired instruments ranging from concertinas and guitars to pipe organs. He focused on bows in 1987, moving to New York City, where he worked for fifteen years, making, repairing, and restoring bows for musicians from all over the world. He is now making bows in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In addition to bow making, Michael enjoys a good mystery, and a great fountain pen.
▪ bio current as of 2021
Thirty-eight year Guild member Peter Yelda makes and repairs guitars. He is an NEA recipient in guitar making and a six-year Artist In Residence with the California Arts Council. See the film about him on Youtube called A Fair Exchange. He cofounded the Blue Note guitar shop in San Luis Obispo. He exhibited at the 1978 and 1980 GAL Conventions and has not punched a time clock since he joined the Guild.
▪ bio current as of 2015
Twenty-year Guild member Jeffrey Yong travels from Malaysia to GAL Conventions, a twenty-hour flight each way. He’s an urbanite who traverses the jungles in search of tonewood. He’s a guitar maker and a teacher of lutherie, and he welcomes visitors.
▪ bio current as of 2013
David Zachman is a graduate student at Purdue University, specializing in mechanical design and robotics. He is an avid fan of guitar-centric music and is an amateur musician. While taking a class with Prof. Mark French, he helped design a linkage to approximate curves for guitar soundboards.
▪ bio current as of 2018
After a successful career in the banking industry, José “Pepito” Reyes began building guitars and cuatros in 1986. Three years later he was infected with a passion for the Puerto Rican tiple, and since that time he has dedicated himself (with huge success) to the rescue and promotion of this lovely little instrument. He builds tiples in the mountains of central Puerto Rico.
▪ bio current as of 2006
Dmitry Zhevlakov is the son and grandson of luthiers, making guitars and decorative mosaic work. He is the only current GAL member in Russia.
▪ bio current as of 2007
Since 1974, Dale Zimmerman has worked at Franklin International, makers of Titebond glues, serving as a technical specialist since 1990. He has consulted on numerous adhesive-related articles and publications and served as a technical advisor to Popular Woodworking magazine.
▪ bio current as of 2010
David Zogg has been a guitarist since 1962, an amateur luthier since 1987, and a full-time pro doing repair and restoration since 1993. He was previously a designer of industrial robots and the like.
▪ bio current as of 2000
Twenty-one-year member Lloyd Zsiros is a composer expert, a guitar maker, and a maker of small intricate boxes.
▪ bio current as of 1992
▪ bio current as of
2024
AL#153 p.95
Steve Kennel
▪ Steve says it’s an oldy but a goody: You mount a piece of work, like a guitar neck for instance, to an octagonal beam. Now you can clamp it at an angle in a standard bech vise.
2024
AL#153 p.94
Dan Alexander
▪ Dan says he does not like to measure stuff. These graduated tool-grade steel rectangles help him make things parallel without any measuring.
2024
AL#153 p.93
C.F. Casey
▪ Don’t toss those cheap busted scissors. Make tools out of them.
2024
AL#153 p.90
Tim Olsen
▪ Were sure gonna miss good ol Harry Fleishman. Luthier, designer, teacher, mentor, raconteur, author, Convention presenter, inventor, and so much more.
2024
AL#153 p.90
January Williams
▪ Were sure gonna miss good ol Harry Fleishman. Luthier, designer, teacher, mentor, raconteur, author, Convention presenter, inventor, and so much more.
2024
AL#153 p.90
Fabio Ragghianti
▪ Were sure gonna miss good ol Harry Fleishman. Luthier, designer, teacher, mentor, raconteur, author, Convention presenter, inventor, and so much more.
2024
AL#153 p.90
Fred Carlson
▪ Were sure gonna miss good ol Harry Fleishman. Luthier, designer, teacher, mentor, raconteur, author, Convention presenter, inventor, and so much more.
2024
AL#153 p.90
Michael Bashkin
▪ Were sure gonna miss good ol Harry Fleishman. Luthier, designer, teacher, mentor, raconteur, author, Convention presenter, inventor, and so much more.
2024
AL#153 p.70
Aaron Cash
▪ Heres how to mess up a perfectly good set of tuners without messing them up. Its funny, but this process of distressing part of a new instrument to fit a certain received aesthetic is pretty much what fiddle makers have been doing for a couple centuries and getting paid handsomely for it. I guess were on the right track now.
2024
AL#153 p.66
Steve Kennel
▪ Kennel is a sculptor who usually uses salvaged wood to make his guitars. But for this one, he splurged on some new poplar planks from the home improvement center. He ended up with a nice, simple guitar with a blues-era vibe at a low cost.
2024
AL#153 p.62
Carl Formoso
▪ Formoso presents some basic experiments and tells us why things wiggle the way that they do. You know, a string couldnt vibrate if it didnt push back. Let that be a lesson to us all.
2024
AL#153 p.46
Tim Olsen
▪ Its just a good, detailed, accurate drawing of a golden-age Martin.
2024
AL#153 p.40
Robbie O’Brien
▪ Heres Part One of a three-part series, in which veteran lutherie teacher OBrien follows the construction of an instrument in deep detail. Everything moves right along on an intense and carefully developed schedule; a student starts with a box of wood and strings up a nice classical guitar only six days later.
2024
AL#153 p.32
Barry Grzebik
▪ There is a lot of design territory between a solidbody guitar and an electrified archtop guitar. Grzebik explores that spectrum in his work by controlling many factors including unsupported top area, enclosed air, body resonance, asymmetry, weight relief, and physical balance.
2024
AL#153 p.20
Mark French
▪ For decades now, various lovable eggheads have been prodding, bombarding, and tickling stringed instruments in their labs to produce arcane charts and tables, which they then explain with equations worthy of Oppenheimer. Some of us may have been waiting for them to calm down and tell us, in plain English, what they have figured out, and what they have not yet cracked. This article takes a serious swing at it.
2024
AL#153 p.6
James Condino
▪ Condino has been a sought-after restorer of vintage American plywood bass viols for many years. He has recently developed practical and accessible vacuum-bag techniques for repairing delaminations in the plates, as well as fabricating those extra-large rib sections. Now he applies those same techniques to make laminated ribs for guitars and mandolins, and reports great success. Mentions Kay, American Standard, venturi, Roarocket.
2024
AL#153 p.3
Harry Fleishman
▪ In his very last writing for the GAL, Harry praises the lutherie work of Todd Cambio and Todd’s lecture published in AL#151. Harry goes on to talk about his own early work renovating and hot-rodding old inexpensive American factory guitars. Mentions Abe Wechter, Harmony Soveriegn, and Ferretta’s vintage guitar shop.
2024
AL#153 p.3
R.E. Brune
▪ Brune acknowledges J.R. Beall’s letter in AL#152 regarding the founding of the GAL. Mentions Marc Connelly.
2024
AL#152 p.71
Steve Kennel
▪ Kennel reminds us to respect the simple beauty of a limp cloth measuring tape.
2024
AL#152 p.71
Robert-W. Taylor
▪ Use industrial-strength hand cleaner to cut the finger schmutz that builds up on a guitar.
2024
AL#152 p.69
Ralf Grammel
▪ Grammel shows us how to replace the rings in a rosette after the instrument is completed.
2024
AL#152 p.66
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Kent Rayman was a kind-hearted giant of a man who was helpful and influential in the Guilds earliest phase. Kents lutherie mentor remembers him here with fondness and respect.
2024
AL#152 p.63
Federico Sheppard
▪ Action matters. It matters to the playability and to the sound. And the height of the strings off the soundboard is no accident on a fine guitar. Sheppard takes a very close look at eighty-nine extraordinary examples in one of the worlds great classical and flamenco guitar collections and gives us the deets. Mentions Shel Urlik.
2024
AL#152 p.60
Jon Sevy
▪ Unlike some of us, Jon Sevy paid attention in high school geometry class. He calls this method of setting up a router to cut a binding ledge simplified but it is really more like optimised; it is both simpler and better.
2024
AL#152 p.58
John Huffman
▪ If you are a guitar maker, Ill bet you know the thrill of adapting some cheap gizmo into a specialized tool for the lutherie trade. Huffman quickly jury-rigs an inexpensive fish scale into a useful jig for measuring individual string tension.
2024
AL#152 p.56
Steve Kennel
▪ The do-it-yourself mentality is at the root of the whole American Lutherie Boom. Kennel helps you mimic recent advances in commercially available tooling, but DIY it with that stuff they use for competition-level skateboard ramps.
2024
AL#152 p.52
Devon Pessler Alyssa Fernandez Mark French
▪ A lot of people have a rough idea of how it would affect the sound of a flattop guitar to make the sides deeper, or to make the soundhole smaller. But now a college professor and two students have built the test apparatus and quantified the question. Read this article and see if you guessed right.
2024
AL#152 p.46
Raymond Bryant
▪ Guitarist Bryant fell in love with an instrument that he tried at a local music store. When he learned to his surprise that it was individually handcrafted just a few miles from his home, he had to make the short pilgrimage. He takes us along to meet Mark Goodman, who has been working alone for decades in his simple and efficient home workshop.
2024
AL#152 p.41
Kevin Aram
▪ All the native trees on the British Isles yield light-colored wood. And in the case of guitar-making materials, blondes dont have more fun. Thats why Kevin Aram was delighted to find that marinating oak for scores of centuries in an all-natural soup of organic chemicals will turn it black, and that nature already did all the work. He also visits a friend and his wonderful old Stennor bandsaw.
2024
AL#152 p.38
Gary Southwell
▪ Bog oak is the ultimate sinker wood. Giant oak trees sank into peat bogs thousands of years ago. Now they are being dug up, sawed into planks, and carefully dried. Innovative traditionalist Gary Southwell loves the stuff.
2024
AL#152 p.22
Derek Porter
▪ A kid from Idaho finds himself enrolled in a rigorous instrument-making course situated in a story-book Great House in the English countryside. He leaps right into an ambitious project of building a large viol in the elaborate style of Joachim Tielke.
2024
AL#152 p.6
Evan Gluck Larry Fitzgerald
▪ Gluck is a beloved repeat presenter at GAL Conventions. This time, he brought along veteran New York repair guy Larry Fitzgerald. In addition to demonstrating fret-leveling techniques, they tell war stories of maneuvering their businesses to survive the recent global pandemic. Mentions Matt Brewster, Sam Ash, John Suhr, Rudy Pensa, Mandolin Brothers, Dan Erlewine, John Patitucci, Flip Scipio, LeRoy Aiello.
2024
AL#152 p.4
Mark Connelly
▪ Longtime member Marc Connelly pens an appreciation of R.E. Brune, who encouraged his early efforts.
2024
AL#152 p.3
J.R. Beall
▪ J.R. Beall had the original idea for the Guild of American Luthiers. Now nearing ninety, he takes a look back on the whole project.
2024
AL#151 p.71
Steve Kennel
▪ Welders use soapstone slips to mark on metal. They also work great on dark colored wood. Get them at welding supply places.
2024
AL#151 p.71
Mike Doolin
▪ Using CAD, Mike designs these guides to fit the spacing of the strings and the width of the files. Then he cuts them from plastic using a laser cutter.
2024
AL#151 p.70
Spiros Mamais
▪ This is a double-sided jig made of square steel tubing.
2024
AL#151 p.67
Dan Erlewine
▪ Frank Ford was an icon of the instrument repair field and an overachiever when it came to sharing information with this fellow luthiers. He had legions of friends and fans. Erlewine brought Ford to the GAL Convention, and they became a team which was a fixture at the next several gatherings. Dan takes this moment to praise Frank’s name.
2024
AL#151 p.67
William Eaton
▪ Frank Ford was an icon of the instrument repair field and an overachiever when it came to sharing information with this fellow luthiers. He had legions of friends and fans. Eaton worked closely with Ford for many years, and takes this moment to praise his name. Mentions Richard Johnston, Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, Joy Imai.
2024
AL#151 p.67
GAL-Staff
▪ Frank Ford was an icon of the instrument repair field and an overachiever when it came to sharing information with this fellow luthiers. He presented at several GAL Conventions, and had legions of friends and fans.
2024
AL#151 p.64
Geoff Needham
▪ A cheap mail-order gizmo for measuring tire tread wear; a pair of nippers; a scrap of plexi; a bottle of superglue. Put them all together and youve got a sweet tool like the cool kids use. Mentions Chris Alsop.
2024
AL#151 p.60
Lee Herron
▪ Author Herron tinkered together this bandsaw jig to cut the kerfs in lining strips. He explains the construction and capabilities of his time-tested design.
2024
AL#151 p.58
Mark French
▪ Its amazing what you can do with a smart phone these days. Think you would need an anvil, a block-and-tackle, and a bathrom scale to measure the breaking strength of a guitar string? Nope. Theres an app for that. Mentions Fine Chromatic Tuner.
2024
AL#151 p.54
Federico Sheppard
▪ An Art-school girl from the UK goes to Spain as a flamenco dancer. There she meets a guy who has a business selling wood to local luthiers. Things go well. The business grows and gets bought by StewMac, and now shes VP of Global Sales. And if you go to their sawmill, you can pick up pelletized fuel of the finest rosewood. Mentions Bob Taylor.
2024
AL#151 p.50
Harry Fleishman
▪ As a fourteen-year-old kid, Harry Fleishman was lucky enough to find a kindly and perceptive mentor in Seymour Drugan, an older legit jazz player who was running a guitar store. Although Seymour passed away long ago, Harry imagines a present-day interview in which he expresses his gratitude to Mr. Drugan. Mentions Carol Kaye, Johnny Winter, Fife & Nichols, Milt Owen.
2024
AL#151 p.40
Jay Anderson
▪ Innocently attending a James Taylor concert, an Art major learns to his surprise that guitars are made by people. Its an epiphany that changes his life. He has a day job as a building contractor, but he transitions to a full-time maker of fully functional musical sculptures. Along the way he finds himself established as the fun uncle of talented group of young musicians. Mentions James Taylor, Jim Olson, Brian Sutherland, Jenn Bostic, Dave Fenley, Pablo Picasso, Emil Ernebro, JLD Bridge Truss System, Don Kendall, pyrography, Harry Fleishman, Kevin Aram, Charles Rufino, Chris Herrod.
2024
AL#151 p.34
Joshua-Alexander French
▪ Imagine the fun of attending an intensive seminar where nine builders build fine classical guitars from scratch with an instructor whose strong background qualifies him to carry on the teaching work of Jose Romanillos. Now make the setting an authentic castle in Austria. With a gourmet restaurant. What a wonderful world. Mentions Tobias Braun, Jose Romanillos, Marian Harris Winspear, Santos Hernández, Alberto Martínez, Luise Walker, Miguel Llobet, Jeffrey Elliott.
2024
AL#151 p.24
Tobias Braun
▪ How do you explain that the glue squeeze-out in some fine old guitars by Spanish masters drips the wrong way? Seems like that could only happen if the top was glued last, face-up. The key to the mystery may be an unusual century-old workboard from the shop of Santos Hernández. Tune in for the rest of the story. Mentions Jose Romanillos, Marian Harris Winspear, Jeffrey Elliott, Richard Brune, Alberto Martínez, Domingo Esteso, Enrique Garcia, Francisco Simplicio, Miguel Simplicio, Marcelo Barbero, Marcelo Barbero (Hijo), Arcangel Fernández Léonard Plattner, Faustino Conde, Mariano Conde, Julio Conde, Felipe Conde, Felipe Conde Crespo, Modesto Borreguero, Hernández y Aguado, José Ramírez III, Julián Gómez Ramírez, Manuel Ramírez, Antonio Torres, Robert Bouchet.
2024
AL#151 p.6
Todd Cambio
▪ From his 2023 GAL Convention lecture. For decades, it was received wisdom that the inexpensive steel-string guitars, made in their millions before WWII in American factories using American woods, were crap. Todd Cambio has been taking another look, and finds a lot to like and even to emulate. Hear him out; its a ripping yarn. Mentions Gibson, Martin, Lyon and Healy, Harmony, Sears, Wilhelm Schultz, Oscar Schmidt, Stella, Galiano, poplar, tulip tree, oak, parlor guitar, ladder bracing, bajo sexto, R. Crumb, Lead Belly, John and Alan Lomax, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Lonnie Johnson, Carter family, Bristol sessions, Ernest Stoneman, Nick Lucas, Eddie Lang, Raphael Ciani, John D’Angelico, Lydia Mendoza, Guadalupe Acosta, Luis Acosta, Mike Acosta, Miguel Acosta, 12-string guitar, Michael Iuchi, mandolin, John Greven.
2024
AL#151 p.3
January Williams
▪ A reader asks about the swing-arm binding router shown among Denny Stevens tools in AL#150. Author January Williams gives an informative answer. The tool’s design is a collaborative effort between Stevens and Harry Fleishman.
2023
AL#150 p.70
Danl Brazinski
▪ K&K pickup positioning and gluing tool.
2023
AL#150 p.70
Terence Warbey
▪ No-slip scarf joint clamping.
2023
AL#150 p.70
Steve Kennel
▪ Easy alignment for guitar mold halves.
2023
AL#150 p.69
Steve Kennel
▪ Make try squares and bevel squares with clear-plastic blades.
2023
AL#150 p.68
Paul Dzatko
▪ Apply superglue with a quill pen that you made from a Q-tip.
2023
AL#150 p.68
Dan Alexander
▪ Make your sanding dish even more useful.
2023
AL#150 p.67
John Calkin
▪ After decades in the wood shop, the burning energy of ones young self can seem remote. Our reviewer says that this little book about a remarkable life in lutherie helped him to remember.
2023
AL#150 p.66
Harry Fleishman
▪ Snip a drinking straw at an angle to make a great tool for clearing wet glue squeezeout. And theres a sharpee thats better than a Sharpee-brand sharpee. Plus more simple things. Like, get the good brand of pencils.
2023
AL#150 p.65
David Franzen
▪ George Smith was one of that rare breed: A self-starter guitar maker before the American Lutherie Boom. Heres three fond remembrances by people who were glad to have known him well.
2023
AL#150 p.65
Peter Tsiorba
▪ George Smith was one of that rare breed: A self-starter guitar maker before the American Lutherie Boom. Heres three fond remembrances by people who were glad to have known him well.
2023
AL#150 p.64
Maria Gonzalez-Leon
▪ George Smith was one of that rare breed: A self-starter guitar maker before the American Lutherie Boom. Heres three fond remembrances by people who were glad to have known him well.
2023
AL#150 p.62
Birck Cox
▪ The late Robert Lundberg is legendary as a lute maker and educator, but Birck Cox knew him before all that, back when Lundberg was working on fiberglass race cars. They met while unloading a moving van and were friends for many years.
2023
AL#150 p.60
Mike Doolin
▪ Doolin shows us how to make nice solid wood linings starting with veneer from the hardware store. They turn out great, and you have your choice of colors: light, or dark.
2023
AL#150 p.56
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Whatever the task may be, million-year GAL member Jeff Elliott does it right. Here he turns his attention to a jig for accurately placing and cleanly cutting a side sound port in a classical guitar.
2023
AL#150 p.54
John Kruse
▪ Like you might have heard, it is possible to locate a buzzing fret on a guitar that uses metal strings by exploiting the fact that an electical connection would be made when the string briefly touched the fret. It can be hard to see a flickering light or see a response on a VOM. This little project is optimized to make that contact visible and audible.
2023
AL#150 p.50
Carl Hallman
▪ Author Carl Hallman likes to develop methods and jigs that let the various operations involved in making a fine guitar repeatable and accurate. This one is an evolution of an idea used for making bolt-on necks for solidbodies, adapted for an acoustic guitar neck with a full heel and angled peghead.
2023
AL#150 p.44
William-T. Crocca
▪ A group of mature woodworkers set themselves the challenge of designing and presenting a two-day class in which kids and families can build a StewMac uke kit. It involved setting up twenty workstations. The class was a success, and everyone went home with a strung uke in the white.
2023
AL#150 p.38
Mark French Devon Pessler Alyssa Fernandez
▪ Ya talk about rabbit holes. Research into guitar intonation just gets deeper and deeper. This article homes in on individual string compensation at the nut, plus small adjustments to the position of the 1st and 2nd frets. Industrial strength data collection. Heed the eggheads.
2023
AL#150 p.32
January Williams
▪ Author Williams bought the lutherie estate of the late Denny Stevens several years ago. He has taken an archeological approach to it, pondering over the nicely crafted gizmos he has discovered, and reporting them to us as he figures out the function of the various treasures.
2023
AL#150 p.24
Lee Herron
▪ A Dobro is good clean fun. And then maybe youll want to expand your lap-steel playing to include an acoustic Hawaiian guitar. Wouldnt it be great to have them both on your lap at the same time? Do it. Go on; you are a luthier, you can mash them up. A Dobro… a Weissenborn… a WeissenBro!
2023
AL#150 p.16
Mark French
▪ Richard R.E. Bruné was in the GALs very first cohort and was an author and convention presenter from the very beginning. Weve visited him a couple of times over the decades. His son Marshall was born into the business, and into the Guild. Together they run a large workshop and epicenter of classical guitar making, scholarship restoration, appreciation, and dealing.
2023
AL#150 p.14
Sjaak Elmendorp
▪ When you tighten the strings on an archtop guitar, the neck lifts forward and the action height increases. At the same time, the bridge pushes the top down and the action height decreases. Its a win-win! So you can just feel lucky about it and proceed naively along your life path, or you can do what Elmendorp did: get a bucket of water, a piece of wire, and a dial indicator; collect some data; then crunch the numbers.
2023
AL#150 p.6
Sjaak Elmendorp
▪ The technology and fashion of wooden instruments move forward inexorably, although whether that forward motion is the same as improvement can be a matter of debate for decades or centuries. Elmendorp made what he calls a faithful impression rather than accurate reproduction of a 1907-style Gibson L1: small body, carved top, floating bridge, round hole.
2023
AL#150 p.5
Martin Moen
▪ An Australian retiree has made a cello, and intends to make more.
2023
AL#150 p.5
Rad Brashaw
▪
2023
AL#150 p.4
January Williams
▪ The Hammond Glider saw is a rare and wonderful thing. It was intended to cut type metal, but we get guidance on using it to cut wood. Mentions Ken Parker.
2023
AL#150 p.2
Michael Breid
▪
2023
AL#150 p.2
Margaret Mlamba
▪
2023
read this article
Herbert Family
▪ Chris Herbert was a guitar repairman in Colroado. Mentions Denny Stevens.
2023
read this article
Ken Parker Mike Doolin
▪ Ken’s colorful telling of the invention and development of the early archtop guitar was too long to fit in AL#149, so we present it here along with front and side view X-rays of a 1898 Orville Gibson guitar. Mentions Lloyd Loar, John D’Angelico, Thaddeus McHugh, Maybelle Carter, Eddie Lang, Nick Lucas, Raphael Ciani, Charlie Christian, Freddie Green.
2023
AL#149 p.71
Steve Kennel
▪ Kennel is a sculptor. He sees a pile of scraps and misc hardware and builds a swanky-lookin’ fretwire roller. He’s on a roll. (Get it? Roll?) So he makes a guitar hanger that plugs into a workbench dog hole.
2023
AL#149 p.71
Danl Brazinski
▪ It’s like a little square bag on the end of a blood-pressure squeezie bulb. It’s made for helping you hang a door all by your lonesome. Also works as a lutherie clamp. Life is just one work-around after another.
2023
AL#149 p.69
Dan Alexander
▪ Those big eraser-like logs of rubber that you may use to clean a sanding belt can yield sweet little sanding blocks.
2023
AL#149 p.69
Dan Alexander
▪ Gravity: Friend or enemy? Friend, if you flip the rim after gluing in the lining.
2023
AL#149 p.69
Brent Benfield
▪ Ever snip out a piece from a plan drawing to use as a template? It will work so much better if you put clear tape on both faces of the edge.
2023
AL#149 p.68
Steve Dickerson
▪ When you see a big horrible blister form on a thick commercial finish, it means two things. Firstly, the finish is ruined. Secondly, it will come off nice and clean with a spatula and heat gun.
2023
AL#149 p.67
Harry Fleishman
▪ Warm up that brown paper tape with a hair dryer before you pull it off. Softens it up and makes it less likely to tear out wood fibers. Thats a simple thing.
2023
AL#149 p.64
Graham McDonald
▪ Fourteen years ago, McDonald wrote up a survey of the steel string guitar making books that were available at that time. More books have appeared since then, so hes back with an update. Look up the earlier article in our Premium Online Content.
2023
AL#149 p.62
Mark French
▪ This super-simple table saw jig is a strip of plywood with two alignment pins in drilled holes. Easy to make and to use.
2023
AL#149 p.60
Bob Gleason
▪ Sure, you can fit the sole of a bridge to its soundboard by putting sandpaper on the tender spruce or cedar and rubbing the bridge on it. But this jig is easier and safer.
2023
AL#149 p.58
Jon Sevy
▪ A couple of cheap gizmos from Harbor Freight can be cobbled together to let you measure the thickness of the sides or plates of an assembled guitar.
2023
AL#149 p.56
Karl Hoyt
▪ Hoyt found a way to make a simple and reliable bolt-on neck joint that is easy to assemble, not withstanding his large fingers.
2023
AL#149 p.54
Robert Hamm
▪ Sometimes you need a bicycle. That is, something between a skateboard and an automobile. This slick little shop-built unit lives in the space between a full-sized auto-feed belt sander and a Robo-sander drum chucked up in a drill press.
2023
AL#149 p.50
Mark French Eddy Efendy
▪ Putting a tube in the port of a loudspeaker box changes the lower resonances. Makers of classical guitars have known about that for a century and a half. They call that tube a tornavoz. French and Efendy give us the math on how it works.
2023
AL#149 p.46
Robin Connaughton
▪ Lots of materials can work for a flattop guitar bridge saddle. Will they sound different? Connaughton tries several, and collects data with an ingenuously simple plucking technique.
2023
AL#149 p.42
John Calkin
▪ One operation at a time, Calkin is showing us how to make ukes in a direct and effective way. Its all done by one worker with simple tools in a small space. Here he shows us how to get the back onto the ribs quickly and accurately, with no cleanup needed.
2023
AL#149 p.36
Rebecca Urlacher Paul Woolson
▪ A conversation is kinda like two interviews happening at the same time. Thats what we have in this article; questions and answers come from both makers, as we meet them and learn about their lutherie lives. Mentions Charles Fox.
2023
AL#149 p.28
Charlie Price
▪ Guitar intonation exists at the intersection of math, music, and mojo. How good is good enough? Can we ever quite get there? Price brings us one step closer with a money ball approach of adding up all the errors at each string and fret position, then optimizing for the lowest total error.
2023
AL#149 p.24
Lee Herron
▪ You know what they say: When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you are a luthier, everything looks like it could be made into a fine handmade guitar. Like that chunk of firewood over there. Its way too short to make sides, but well figure something out.
2023
AL#149 p.4
Mike Doolin Ken Parker
▪ Can you believe we have never met this guy? Hes a giant of the American Lutherie Boom, he was at the Guilds 1979 Convention, and he has been a GAL member for over twenty years. The world knows him as the maker of the Fly solidbody guitar, but now he has returned to his first love: the archtop guitar. Mentions Larry Fishman, John D’Angelico, Jimmy D’Aquisto, Scott Chinery, Orville Gibson, Lloyd Loar, Raphael Ciani, Nick Lucas, Michael Greenfield, Sam Zygmuntowicz.
2023
AL#148 p.71
Steve Kennel
▪ Kennel builds an electric aluminum bending iron. It’s sturdy. Like, you could plow a field with it.
2023
AL#148 p.70
Michael Breid
▪ A slice of dowel, a rivet, a strip of sandpaper, and you’re in business.
2023
AL#148 p.70
Federico Sheppard
▪ For guitar back braces: Arch them first, then taper them with this simple jig.
2023
AL#148 p.69
Peggy Stuart
▪ This gentle setup does not suck up the chips with a screaming vacuum, but lets them fall through a grating with a calming pitter-pat.
2023
AL#148 p.67
Harry Fleishman
▪ The very basics of using that brown paper binding tape. Because it is OK to be a beginner.
2023
AL#148 p.65
John Calkin
▪ Our reviewer has seen a ton of instructional lutherie videos. And he likes this one.
2023
AL#148 p.63
R.M. Mottola
▪ Legit scientist Graham Caldersmith was an early GAL member and a prolific author for us and other journals. Those articles have now been gathered and published in a book. Our reviewer talks about the book, and about Caldersmiths position in the lutherie literature.
2023
AL#148 p.62
John Calkin
▪ The Lutherie Curmudgeon casts his eye on the lutherie scene, and speaks his truth. He’s kinda grumpy, but you know you love him.
2023
AL#148 p.60
Bob Gleason
▪ It looks like one of those fancy powered rolling-pin sanders, but it does not spin. It just works.
2023
AL#148 p.58
Brent Benfield
▪ It’s an easy improvement over the traditional old-school 6-hole bridge, but you have to do it right. Brent shows you how. Mentions John Gilbert.
2023
AL#148 p.54
John Calkin
▪ Get serious about building ukes in spherically-radiused workboards. These dishes are easily built from lumberyard material and use a drill press for power.
2023
AL#148 p.44
James Buckland
▪ Beautiful books about the pre-classical guitar, with lush and informative photography, are being published in Europe. Dont worry; they include English text for the benefit of us new-worlders. Mentions Mauro Giuliani, Gennaro Fabricatore, Joseph Pons, Johann Stauffer, Rene Lacote, Wappengitarre.
2023
AL#148 p.39
January Williams
▪ Williams purchased the lutherie estate of Denny Stevens. In a sort of archeological exercise, he digs through a pile of jigs and considers their possible functions.
2023
AL#148 p.34
Harry Fleishman
▪ The late Denny Stevens was one of the earliest self-taught guitar makers of the American Lutherie Boom. He was also a mentor to author Harry Fleishman, who goes back in memory and imagination to interview Denny as he never did in life. Mentions Dale Bruning, Paul Killinger, Tony Jacobs, Richie Furay, Johnny Smith.
2023
AL#148 p.28
Mark French
▪ If you are like me, you probably think you know what the Helmholtz resonance of a flattop guitar is. And like me, you may be exactly wrong. Turns out it is the note that you don’t hear. Mentions Fender Acoustasonic Stratocaster, tornavoz.
2023
AL#148 p.22
Karl Hoyt
▪ Hoyt stumbled upon a small and distressed old instrument that turned out to be made by a founding father of the authentic ukulele. Mentions Augusto Dias, Jose do Espirito Santo, Jim Tranquada.
2023
AL#148 p.16
Paul Schmidt Steve Klein
▪ Steve Klein started his lutherie endeavors fifty-five years ago as a teenager in his parents house. Today hes collaborating with Steve Kauffman on dazzlingly decorative acoustic guitars, and continuing to make innovative ergonomic solidbodies in his own shop. Mentions Fibonacci, Carl Margolis, Frank Pollaro, Leonardo DaVinci Steve Kauffman, Larry Robinson, Bob Hergert, Joe Walsh.
2023
AL#148 p.10
Tim Olsen Steve Kauffman
▪ What has happened with Steve Kauffman since he was interviewed for American Lutherie twenty-four years ago in AL#59? Hes still working with the other Steve K, that is, Klein. He has moved from an idyllic shop in a California garden to an idyllic shop in an Oregon garden. Mentions 1978 GAL Convention. Mentions 1979 GAL Convention. Mentions Steve Klein, John Dillon, CF Martin IV, Jimmy D’Aquisto, Richard Schneider, David Russel Young, George Peacock, Ervin Somogyi, Wilson Schunemann, Les Stansell, Port Orford cedar.
2023
AL#148 p.9
Kelly Reynolds
▪ Reader solicits opionions about the use of Lyptus, a typle of eucalyptus wood.
2023
AL#148 p.9
Roger Haggstrom
▪ Haggstrom was intrigued by Harry Fleishmans assertion that necks will stay straighter if frets are not installed in an obvious, sequential order from one end to the other. Roger tried it out, and reports that it works.
2023
AL#148 p.7
Steve Dickerson
▪ Some say we will play mandolins in heaven. Oh no? Go ahead; prove that we will not! Dickerson discusses this matter and reviews the evolution of his lutherie work.
2023
AL#148 p.7
Federico Sheppard Adam Levin
▪ Federico Sheppard and Kithara Project cofounder Adam Levin announce a new guitar-building program for at-risk youth in Mexico City. Mentions Boston and Detroit.
2023
AL#148 p.6
Glen Friesen
▪ The long-running guitar-building program on the Saskatchewan prairie had another successful year. But the future looks uncertain as shop teacher Frisen moves toward retirement.
2023
AL#148 p.6
Dan Alexander
▪ Dan has been a vintage guitar dealer for decades. He avers that there is no such thing as a bad-sounding Martin Guitar made between 1930 and 1944.
2022
AL#147 p.70
Steve Gonwa
▪ Simple jig made of MDF helps you make accurate wooden binding strips with a thickness sander.
2022
AL#147 p.70
Steve Kennel
▪ Specialty files intended for sharpening steel tools are unexpectedly perfect for specific lutherie tasks. In this case we are talking about files made for sharpening brace-and-bit augers, and files made for sharpening Japanese pull saws.
2022
AL#147 p.69
Michael Breid
▪ Make a handle for skinny nut files from a standard hinge.
2022
AL#147 p.69
Mark French
▪ Thumb too fat for a plastic thumbpick? Fix it with hot water. The pick, not the thumb.
2022
AL#147 p.69
John Jordan
▪ Your bottle of expensive shielding paint is getting old and gloppy. Save it with simple material available at the art supply store.
2022
AL#147 p.68
Beau Hannam
2022
AL#147 p.68
Steve Klein
▪ The GAL remembers an early supporter and author, who was also an influencial innovator of electric guitars. Plus he was a super-nice guy and mentor.
2022
AL#147 p.68
David Bolla
▪ The GAL remembers an early supporter and author, who was also an influencial innovator of electric guitars. Plus he was a super-nice guy and mentor.
2022
AL#147 p.67 read this article
Ronald-Louis Fernandez
▪ Janette was a sweet Scottish lass, the wife of luthier/dealer Ron Fernandez, well known in guitar circles and a regular at GAL Conventions.
2022
AL#147 p.66
John Calkin
▪ Calkin gives the thumbs-up to a fine 5-hour video just about wet sanding and buffing a lacquer finish. Prepping and spraying the finish is a whole other matter, not covered here.
2022
AL#147 p.65
James Condino
▪ Condino loves this lavish book about the history and construction of the Neapolitan (or tater bug) mandolin, which runs from classic to contemporary.
2022
AL#147 p.64
Bob Gleason
▪ When doing a small resawing job in the shop, it may seem intuitive to set the fence of the bandsaw close to the blade. You never have to move the fence. But there are good reasons to do it the other way and move the fence after each cut. The clue is in the title.
2022
AL#147 p.62
Brent Benfield
▪ There are several ways to make a nice tightly-closing seam for a back or top guitar plate. Heres a low stress method that uses a granite slab, some sticky-back sandpaper, two little C clamps, and a plywood scrap.
2022
AL#147 p.60
Roger Haggstrom
▪ They say you can improve the sound of a new guitar by attaching a machine that will provide direct vibration to the instrument for a few days, simulating the breaking-in that might occur from months of playing. Not surprisingly, “they” will also sell you such a machine. But what else might work? Ask a luthier who also publishes a magazine for exotic fish fanciers, and he might suggest belting an aquarium air pump to the face of the guitar.
2022
AL#147 p.58
F.A. Jaen
▪ Heres an elegant and sophisticated way to build an adjustable bracket to support the pickguard of an archtop guitar. Most of it is inside the guitar, so it gives a slick, minimal look.
2022
AL#147 p.56
John Calkin
▪ In lutherie work, you often need to make something accurately perpendicular to the instruments centerline. Squares designed for carpenters and machinists dont do the job as well as these simple and inexpensive clear-plastic tools.
2022
AL#147 p.52
Michael Burton
▪ What do you do with a guitar that seems beyond repair? Repair it anyway. Why not? After decades of neglect and wildly improper storage, this sturdy Asian-built flattop had developed the mother of all neck warps. Burton ripped into it with clothes iron, heat blanket, router, and neck jig to replace the truss rod and fix earlier disastrous repair attempts. It turned out great.
2022
AL#147 p.42
John Calkin Peggy Stuart
▪ Peggy Stuart is not famous as a guitar maker, but her life story is one that every luthier under age fifty should hear and think about. She was one of “Sloanes Children,” struggling to make a guitar from that early book back in the dark ages of the middle 1970s. She discovered the GAL and soon attended conventions and wrote articles as her skills improved. But she ultimately saw that she would not be able to support herself as a luthier, and turned to law school. If you making a living building instruments in these days of milk and honey, thank your lucky stars and the Guild of American Luthiers.
2022
AL#147 p.38
Carl-David Hardin
▪ A lot of lutherie work gets done on the road by the techs who travel with bands. Makes sense when you think about it. And its also understandable that this work gets done with a minimum of tooling. Heres a nice example of a new bone nut being made and installed on an old Gibson flattop.
2022
AL#147 p.36
James Buckland
▪ This plan may authentically be built either as an early 6-string guitar, or as the “missing link” 5-string guitar.
2022
AL#147 p.28
James Buckland
▪ Baroque guitars were 5-course instruments. That is, they had ten strings in five pairs. Then suddenly here comes the 19th century and guitars had six single strings. Yadda yadda, now its today and everything is normal. The real story is a lot more interesting than that and it actually involves a missing link; the 5-string guitar. Luthier, guitarist, and scholar Buckland lays it all out for us.
2022
AL#147 p.24
Robbie O’Brien
▪ Lutherie uber-pedagog Robbie OBrien has taught beaucoup guitar makers and repair techs to set the action of steel string flattops, so his thoughts on the matter are crystal clear. Here he steps us through the process in a relaxed, logical, and concise presentation. From his 2017 GAL Convention workshop.
2022
AL#147 p.18
Beau Hannam
▪ In a former lutherie life, Hannam cut saddle slots with a big honkin milling machine. A change of situation led him to design this practical and straightforward router jig to do the job. He gives clear and detailed instructions for building and using it.
2022
AL#147 p.8
Brian Yarosh Beau Hannam
▪ Beau Hannam came up in the productive and innovative shop of Australian luthier Gerard Gilet, then migrated to Colorado to found his own shop making guitars and ukuleles. Hes all over the Interwebs with his generous lutherie advice and his gorgeous instruments.
2022
AL#147 p.7
George Taylor
▪ In the 1960s, Hart Huttig, a founder of the American Lutherie Boom, had a guitar-playing friend named Chico Taylor. Decades later, Chico’s son has sent us a photo and a remembrance.
2022
AL#147 p.7
Ralph Novak
▪ The pandemic has taken a toll on many aspects of life. Novak keenly feels the loss of in-person interaction with luthiers, and looks forward to the upcoming GAL Convention.
2022
AL#147 p.6
James Condino
▪ Lutherie estates. That’s all the wood, tools, jigs, and parts left over when a luthier retires or passes away. What to do with these materials is becomeing a real issue as the origian; Lutherie Boomers age out. Condino says we will soon be drowning in this stuff.
2022
AL#147 p.5
Ron Lira
▪ One long-time guitar repairer and GAL member eulogizes another. Honest Ron Lira tells us of the passing of his friend, the well-known author Don Teeter.
2022
read this article
John Calkin
▪
2022
read this article
John Calkin
▪
2022
read this article
John Calkin
▪ When you are making guitars, are you making money or making your dreams come true? Both are worthy goals, but this article is about making money.
2022
AL#146 p.71
Geoff Needham
▪ Use a lumberyard laser level to align guitar parts during construction.
2022
AL#146 p.70
Graham McDonald
▪ Make a simple jig to get double duty from a strip of ivoroid binding material.
2022
AL#146 p.70
Mark French
▪ Make a quick and dirty guitar humidifier out of materials you may actually have in your pocket, like a ball point pen and some lint. Kidding about the lint.
2022
AL#146 p.69
Steve Kennel
▪ Post-It material comes in other forms besides notes, and they can be particularly useful for lutherie.
2022
AL#146 p.69
Harry Fleishman
▪ When you are pressing frets into an unmounted fretboard, it matters what order they go in, though that’s counter-intuitive.
2022
AL#146 p.68 read this article
Staff
▪ G.D. lived in Yamhill, Oregon, built a wide variety of instruments, was the repairman and proprietor of the Newburg (Oregon) Music Center, and was a regular attendee at GAL Conventions in Tacoma
2022
AL#146 p.64 read this article
Federico Sheppard Kevin Aram Josep Melo Mónica Esparza
▪ Romanillos was a towering figure in the lutherie field during a long and productive career as a maker and scholar. He was also a generous mentor and friend to many guitar makers. Four of those makers share fond memories of him here. Many more will miss him.
2022
AL#146 p.62
Aaron Cash
▪ Lutherie is way cool. The guitars that people are making these days are mind-blowing. Standards of craftsmanship and creativity are sky high. And all that can be daunting to a sincere wanna-be. Here’s how to talk yourself into not talking yourself out of it.
2022
AL#146 p.60
John Calkin
▪ Ukes are serious lutherie projects these days. Standards and expectations are high. The same is true for instructional videos. The reviewer is favorably impressed with the instruments, the instructors, and the presentation.
2022
AL#146 p.58
Beau Hannam
▪ These simple plywood squares with dowel halves glued to them can replace all the carefully shaped side cauls that thousands of luthiers have been using for decades. Sometimes one size really does fit all.
2022
AL#146 p.50
Richard Bozung
▪ Here’s a new kind of autoharp that can change keys in seconds without retuning or switching chord bars. It’s easy to build, and sounds great because you play it with your ear pressed to the side.
2022
AL#146 p.44
Mark French Alyssa Fernandez
▪ How stiff is that neck blank? You could cut all your blanks to the same dimensions and then set up a rig with a hanging weight to measure deflection and such. But hey, got a smart phone? It can listen while you tap on a bunch of neck blanks, and then tell you how stiff each one is.
2022
AL#146 p.38
Lee Herron
▪ Sometimes you get a customer who just wants you to run wild. Check out the design and build process of this 17.75-inch, 7-string, multiscale black-locust flattop guitar. Fun!
2022
AL#146 p.36
Tim Olsen
▪ A double-soundhole guitar in koa and red cedar.
2022
AL#146 p.34
January Williams
▪ Here’s a quick review of how the slack-key guitar got to be a thing. See GAL Plan #81
2022
AL#146 p.26
John Calkin
▪ David Thormahlen started making many kinds of string instruments in the woodshop in college, and then made a strategic decision to focus his lutherie career on lever harps. It all worked out well, and he still makes guitars, mandolins, and bouzoukis in addition to the harps. He shows us some of his gluing fixtures which involve bicycle inner tubes; some stretched, some inflated.
2022
AL#146 p.23
Samuel Barnes
▪ Remember those heroic old days when a few of us self-starting hippies dreamed of a forging a renaissance of guitar making in America? Well if you do, you are probably already past “retirement age.” What will become of all your tools and wood? Will your grandkids just toss them out? Time to start thinking about it. Sorry.
2022
AL#146 p.22
Don Barnes
▪ Remember those heroic old days when a few of us self-starting hippies dreamed of a forging a renaissance of guitar making in America? Well if you do, you are probably already past “retirement age.” What will become of all your tools and wood? Will your grandkids just toss them out? Time to start thinking about it. Sorry.
2022
AL#146 p.14
Max Mclaughlin
▪ Here’s a story that will sound familiar to a lot of us old farts of the Lutherie Boom generation for the decades-old echoes that it evokes. A bold young person wants to do unusual and arty things with guitars, and they find an older mentor in the crowded back room of a New York City guitar store. That takes you back, don’t it Gramps?
2022
AL#146 p.6
Flip Scipio
▪ Ten years ago, Flip Scipio attended the last of the summer seminars given by José Romanillos at his base in Sigüenza, Spain. Now, after the recent passing of the Maestro, this review is both informative and poignant.
2022
AL#146 p.5
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Mentions Richard Schneider, Michael Kasha, and how to determine guitar value for appraisal and considerations for purchase. See letter same issue same title from Ted Moniak.
2022
AL#146 p.5
Ted Moniak
▪ Mentions Richard Schneider, Michael Kasha, and how to determine guitar value for appraisal and considerations for purchase. See letter same issue same title from Jeffrey R. Elliott.
2022
AL#146 p.3
Taffy Evans
▪ When the day comes when you want to give away your tools and jigs, that will be easier to do if you remember what they were for. Document them with photos now. You will be glad you did.
2022
AL#146 p.2
Rich Jaouen
▪ The zinc in galvanized sheet steel can be safely used for bending guitar sides, contrary to widly distributed opinions.
2022
AL#146 p.2
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Gives updated info on guitar restoration materials that were mentioned by Elliott in AL#145.
2022
AL#145 p.70
John Calkin
▪ Calkin thinks about a few things that have changed since he started making guitars nearly 50 years ago. And some things that have not.
2022
AL#145 p.68
Joe Browne
▪ make a sort of vertical solera for working on the sides and ends of guitars.
2022
AL#145 p.68
Dan Alexander
▪ A simple and non-toxic recipe for glue remover. You probably have the ingredients in your kitchen right now.
2022
AL#145 p.68
Steve Kennel
▪ Use the parts from pipe clamps to make super-powered bench hold-downs.
2022
AL#145 p.67 read this article
Rick Rubin Michael Elwell
▪ Buzz was a very early GAL member who made beautiful and unusual mandolins and archtop guitars.
2022
AL#145 p.64 read this article
Staff Cyndy Burton Jeffrey-R. Elliott Woodley White
▪ Jon was a member of the GAL staff for over two decades. He wrote many articles, and did all the photography for Robert Lundberg’s landmark book Historical Lute Construction.
2022
AL#145 p.56
John Calkin
▪ John Calkin looks at another fine instructional video from Robbie O’Brien: Inlay Techniques with Larry Robinson. He likes it.
2022
AL#145 p.60
John Calkin
▪ Our frequent author and online lutherie resource hero RM Mottola has finally gone all the way. He has written Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar, a comprehensive, detailed construction method for building a flattop guitar. Speaking of frequent authors, John Calkin reviews it.
2022
AL#145 p.60
Federico Sheppard
▪ Our frequent author and online lutherie resource hero RM Mottola has finally gone all the way. He has written Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar, a comprehensive, detailed construction method for building a flattop guitar. Speaking of frequent authors, Federico Sheppard reviews it.
2022
AL#145 p.58
Phil Ingber
▪ Mounting an electric bending iron in such a way that it pokes up out of a work surface helps you avoid a twist in the bent side. Mentions Ted Harlan, R.M. Mottola.
2022
AL#145 p.52
John Calkin
▪ Using simple, non-dedicated tooling, Calkin steps us through his straightforward, no-nonsense process of routing control cavities in solid guitar bodies.
2022
AL#145 p.48
R.M. Mottola
▪ Mottola precisely describes his process for slotting a nut. All the spacing work is done on-screen, then printed out to make a template for the bench work.
2022
AL#145 p.46
C.F. Casey
▪ We sometimes hear of a luthier who enjoys the challenge of building an instrument from lumber-yard materials rather than from picked and approved tonewoods. but Casey goes one better when he makes two successful instruments from a single softwood two-by-four. And it had a knot in it, just for extra fun.
2022
AL#145 p.42
Sjaak Elmendorp
▪ Here’s the story of a big guy and his little balalaika. After rashly promising a friend that he would make a balalaika although he knew nothing about the distinctively triangular Russian instrument. We’ve all been there, right? Sjaak went on to explore and build the rare descant member of the family. Mentions balalaika player Jan Van der Hoogt.
2022
AL#145 p.38
Roger Haggstrom
▪ Haggstromm uses a commercially-available radiused sanding block, a few scraps of wood, and a handful of parts from the hardware store to make this simple jig. It that lets him quickly and quietly produce a fretboard with the radius and the relief accurately sanded in.
2022
AL#145 p.32
Mark French
▪ Frequent author Mark French spends a lot of time in the physics lab and the workshop. But here he emerges, blinking, into the Arizona sunshine to visit a fabulous musical instrument museum. In fact, it’s The Musical Instrument Museum.
2022
AL#145 p.25
Evan Gluck
▪ Imagine you were a guitar repair guy, and there was another guitar repair guy in your same town. What would you do about it? If you were Evan Gluck, or any other enlightened, right-thinking luthier, you would march right over there and make him your best friend. These guys have a blast “competing” in the same market, sharing stories, customers, tools, and techniques. And yes, it does help if your hometown has over eight million people in it. Mentions Brian Moore, Dan Erlewine, Michael Bashkin, Ian Davlin, Jimmy Carbonetti.
2022
AL#145 p.16
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Elliott is best known for his long career of making classical guitars of the highest quality, but he has also undertaken some major restorations of important historic instruments. Here he reviews three projects and shares thoughts about his approach. Mentions Jose Romanillos, Hermann Hauser Sr., Antonio de Torres, Francisco Tarrega, Francisco Gonzalez, Peter Radcliff.
2022
AL#145 p.4
Michael Bashkin
▪ Bashkin ornaments his pegheads and end grafts with marquetry combined with thin, free-flowing veneer lines. He shows us in detail how he accomplishes some of these effects, including scorching decorative pieces in hot sand.
2022
AL#145 p.3
Rob Zwally
▪ More input and questions about how a luthier should deal with the challenge of winding down a lutherie career.
2022
AL#145 p.3
Rick Rubin
▪ More input and questions about how a luthier should deal with the challenge of winding down a lutherie career.
2022
AL#145 p.3
Raven Ravary
▪ Raven likes the Dragonplate company as a supplier of graphite epoxy material. Awesom customer service, he says.
2021
AL#144 p.71
Steve Kennel
▪ How to take the warp, cup, and twist out of a plank. You attach scrap-wood rails that carry it through a planer in the proper orientation.
2021
AL#144 p.71
Michael Breid
▪ Make tiny C clamps from hardware-store parts.
2021
AL#144 p.71
John Calkin
▪ You might decide to cram sawdust into those nice freshly-cut fret slots. Sounds weird? It’s so you can wax the board before fretting and not get wax into the slots.
2021
AL#144 p.70
Jason Hull
▪ Fret erasers are easier to use if you attach them to a handle, especially if you have carpal tunnel syndrome.
2021
AL#144 p.70
Dan Alexander
▪ Prebend rosette rings the cheap and easy way, with a hair dryer.
2021
AL#144 p.70
Steve Kennel
▪ Make a dead-blow hammer out of stuff you might find around the shop.
2021
AL#144 p.68 read this article
Michael Yeats Dan Compton Mark Moreland Chris Brandt
▪ Wesley Brandt was a luthier in Portland, Oregon who reached a rare degree of quality in his work with early instruments. Four friends mourn his sudden passing. Many more will miss him.
2021
AL#144 p.66
John Calkin
▪ Online video lutherie instruction has come of age. Our reviewer John Calkin is a veteran luthier and a fan of lutherie videos from way back in the VHS days. He gives this course a strong reccomendation.
2021
AL#144 p.65
Kevin Aram
▪ Our reviewer Kevin Aram praises this gorgeous book which includes interviews with several luthiers about the methods and ideas of the great Spanish master builder.
2021
AL#144 p.61
John Calkin
▪ Thickness sanders have come a long way since the days when luthiers commonly made their own jury-rigged and cantankerous contraptions. Two experienced builders give the SuperMax 16-32 a thorough workout and pronounce it worthy and workable for an individual luthier’s shop.
2021
AL#144 p.60
Ralf Grammel
▪ Thickness sanders have come a long way since the days when luthiers commonly made their own jury-rigged and cantankerous contraptions. Two experienced builders give the SuperMax 16-32 a thorough workout and pronounce it worthy and workable for an individual luthier’s shop.
2021
AL#144 p.56
Debbie French Mark French
▪ There is a national movement to teach teachers how to teach STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math) to high-school students; you have them make guitars. Turns out people think it’s fun to make guitars. Who knew?
2021
AL#144 p.52
Jon Sevy
▪ If you are cutting pearl inlays with a benchtop CNC router, then cutting the recesses for them with that same CNC, they ought to fit perfectly, right? Well yes, in the perfect world of math. And even out here in the messy real world of sawdust and bearing slop, you can get pretty close if you understand the forces at play and calculate their effects.
2021
AL#144 p.44
Mark French Charles Fox
▪ In this concluding episode of the series, the neck is fretted and the frets are filed and polished. Threaded inserts are installed in the heel and the neck is attached. Finally, the bridge is glued on, the nut is set in position, and the guitar is strung and set up.
2021
AL#144 p.36
John Calkin Robert Anderson
▪ Robert Anderson made banjos part-time for decades while he worked a respectable day job. But since he has “retired” into a full-time lutherie career, he is in demand for his beautifully carved, inlaid, and engraved instruments. We take a look into his converted tobacco barn and talk shop. Mentions Doug Unger, Stan Werbin, Kathy Anderson, Grateful Dead.
2021
AL#144 p.24
Federico Sheppard
▪ Federico Sheppard completes his uncompromising copy of FE08, the elaborate early opus of the master luthier Antonio Torres Jurado. Beautifully figured wood and excruciatingly detailed marquetry come together and receive a French polish finish. Mentions Jose Romanillos, Marian Romanillos, Eugene Clark, and Robert Ruck.
2021
AL#144 p.6
Roger Haggstrom
▪ A hundred and some years ago, Swedish folks sat around the house all of a dark winter and sang hymns together, accompanied by the strummings of cheap mass-produced guitars. Those days are gone, but a lot of the guitars are still hanging on the walls of old houses. Roger Häggström has made a business of restoring them to useful condition and modifying them to sound and play better than they ever could have. He restores and modifies. Restomods. Mentions the Levin guitar company.
2021
AL#144 p.5
Rossco Wright
▪ Long-time GAL member and small-scale guitar manufacturer Wright asks how one should wrap up a lutherie business when the time comes to retire.
2021
AL#144 p.5
Jonathan Dale
▪ In the Letters section of AL#143, Sjaak Elmendorp said that for a bolt-on neck on a flattop guitar, the non-glued fretboard extension causes a structural risk whereby the neck can break off at the heel. Dale says to leave the fretboard unglued, but add a dowel to the neck’s heel.
2021
AL#144 p.5
Federico Sheppard
▪ Details about the timelime of Sheppard’s construction of the replica of Torres’ FE08 are clarified somewhat.
2021
AL#144 p.5
Clifford Wilkes
▪ Details about the timelime of Sheppard’s construction of the replica of Torres’ FE08 are clarified somewhat.
2021
AL#144 p.4
Gila Eban
▪ The reference in AL#143 should have been to AL#141, but it wrongly said #142. Correction.
2021
AL#144 p.4
R.M. Mottola
▪ Berge seeks plans for small classical guitars, suitable for kids. Readers suggest he look at commercially available student models and draw his own plans. Hope that was helpful.
2021
AL#144 p.4
Mark French
▪ Berge seeks plans for small classical guitars, suitable for kids. Readers suggest he look at commercially available student models and draw his own plans. Hope that was helpful.
2021
AL#144 p.4
Ron Berge
▪ Berge seeks plans for small classical guitars, suitable for kids. Readers suggest he look at commercially available student models and draw his own plans. Hope that was helpful.
2021
AL#144 p.3
Anya Ezhevskaya
▪ A fancy prototype shred guitar built, then lost, then found. Mentions Russ Lintz, Eric Stadler.
2021
AL#144 p.3
Neil Harrell
▪ Harrel thanks Gluck for an enlightening and informative take on responding to career changes.
2021
read this article
John Calkin
▪ Bang some hunks of particle board together to make the simple jigs you need, in this case a 90 degree fence for a horizontal belt sander. Remember to write on them what they are.
2021
read this article
John Calkin
▪ In your workshop, are you drowning in a sea of beautiful little scraps of wood? Dr.JC is here to administer some tough love about your hoarding problem.
2021
read this article
John Calkin
▪ In your workshop, are you drowning in a sea of beautiful little scraps of wood? Dr.JC is here to administer some tough love about your hoarding problem.
2021
AL#143 p.71
Jon Sevy
▪ Little rare-earth button magnets are cheap. Sevy cleverly recesses them into a peghead face to hold the truss rod cover in place with no screws. He figures the cover is less likely to be misplaced by the guitar’s owner if they don’t need to use a screw driver to put it back on.
2021
AL#143 p.70
Steve Kennel
▪ Kennel modifies the often-seen but seldom-used Zyliss vise into a configuration that is specifically engineered for safely and securely holding guitar necks.
2021
AL#143 p.69
Aaron Cash
▪ Off-brand hand planes with the iron and cap missing are rightfully cheap in junk stores. They can be affixed with carpet tape onto things like radiused sanding beams to give you a better grip.
2021
AL#143 p.69
Bob Gleason
▪ Rare-earth magnets recessed into the back of a piece of plywood let it act as a quick-and-easy zero-throat jig for ripping narrow strips for kerfing and binding. Each edge is a different setup.
2021
AL#143 p.66
John Calkin
▪ This is a major instructional video from Robbie O’Brien’s school, with a running time of 14 hours.
2021
AL#143 p.66
John Mello
▪ Although the Micro 299 was reviewed, the current model at the time of publication was the Micro 431.
2021
AL#143 p.63
Mike Doolin
▪ This book is published by the National Music Museum (NMM, formerly Shrine to Music Museum) as a companion to their permanent exhibit of guitars and tools of John D’Angelico, James L. D’Aquisto, and Paul Gudelsky.
2021
AL#143 p.63
Mike Doolin
▪ The second edition of this book was reviewed in American Lutherie by Linda Manzer in AL#59, 1999.
2021
AL#143 p.62
Bryan Johanson
▪ Contains many colorized historic photos of the great virtuoso and an essay on his career, in addition to the complete full-color facsimilie of his autograph book with notes and translations.
2021
AL#143 p.60
R.M. Mottola
▪ Mottola gives short, not-too-technical summaries of two articles recently published online by Savart Journal. In the first, Mark French et al. take on the fraught task of “Comparing Subjective and Objective Data from a Pool of Classical Guitars.” In the second, Gabriele Caselli et al. present an “Analysis of Violin Combination Tones and their Contribution to Tartini’s Third Tone.”
2021
AL#143 p.56
Steve Dickerson
▪ The author hit on an unusual program for building his first uke. He bought a kit, but then set aside the good wood for a later build. He went to the lumberyard to buy cheap wood, then proceeded with reduced anxiety. Makes sense when you think about it. The humble uke came out fine.
2021
AL#143 p.54
Harry Fleishman
▪ Start with the cheap half of one of those little bench-top drill presses. Add a small piece of plywood with some holes drilled in it. Bolt on a vise. Now you have Vise on a Stick, which can clamp to any bench top and can swivel and tilt all over the place. It’s especially great for bringing a good solid vise up to eye level.
2021
AL#143 p.48
Mark French
▪ Here’s how to quickly make a frequency-response curve of a guitar on your bench, using a handheld digital recorder and free software. Not cheap and easy enough for you? The author goes on to tell you how to do the whole thing on a smart phone. Mentions Spectroid, MATLAB, and Audacity.
2021
AL#143 p.40
Leonardo Michelin-Salomon
▪ In AL#141 Leonardo showed us how he was building Romantic-era guitars at the craft school in Norway. This time he is taking a deep dive into building with local spruce. Although the trees are not big, the wood is very good. Mentions Gennaro Fabricatore, Johann Anton Stauffer, Josef Pagés, Coffee-Goguette.
2021
AL#143 p.30
Alfred Woll
▪ The Vinaccia family was at the heart of the development of the Neapolitan mandolin, beginning in the mid-18th century and running well into the 20th. This article follows those developments with changing string technology and musical taste. The author then gives us a step-by-step demonstration of making the distinctive arched-and-canted soundboard.
2021
AL#143 p.22
Mark French Charles Fox
▪ In this article the fretboard is slotted, crowned, and glued to the neck. The neck is then shaped.
2021
AL#143 p.6
Federico Sheppard
▪ It is a story of mystery, dedication, and destiny. The wide-eyed young novitiate is mentored by oracles, sorcerers, and craftsmen until he finds his great quest and pursues it against all odds. To put it more plainly, but no more truthfully, it is the story of Federico Sheppard constructing a copy of FE08, the astonishingly elaborate early opus of the master luthier Antonio Torres Jurado. Mentions Nick Kukich, Ray Jacobs, Shel Urlik, Jose Romanillos, Richard Brune, Robert Ruck, Robert Lundberg, Abel Garcia Lopez, Nicolo Alessi.
2021
AL#143 p.5
Mark French
▪ Leo asks what sealer Charles Fox uses on his MDF jigs, noting that they look great in the Guild’s Fox Method series and that Charles says he has been using some of them for twenty years. Author Mark French responds with info straight from Charles. He also comments on the use of MDF as wasteboards for vacuum hold-downs in CNC work.
2021
AL#143 p.3
Mark French
▪ Steve asks for more specific info on the device seen on the cover of AL#141. It is a sander which refines the plane of the top at the neck joint so that the angle of the neck will give the correct height of the bridge saddle. Mark answers and provides explanatory photos.
2021
AL#143 p.2
Harry Fleishman
▪ Harry praises Charles Fox for his decades of work as a lutherie teacher. He also encourages communal lutherie projects such as the cigar-box swap described by John Calkin in AL#142. Mentions Bryan Galloup.
2021
AL#143 p.2
James Buckland
▪ Jim talks about meeting famous guitarists through his teacher Eli Kassner. Mentions John Williams, Leo Brouwer, and the Toronto Guitar Society.
2021
AL#143 p.2
Gila Eban
▪ Gila replies to Howard Stephens writing in AL#142. Mentions Tom Higgins, Alan Carruth, and Tom Knatt.
2021
read this article
James Buckland
▪
2021
read this article
John Calkin
▪
2021
read this article
John Calkin
▪
2021
read this article
John Calkin
▪
2021
read this article
John Calkin
▪
2021
AL#142 p.71
Steve Kennel
▪ Assure symmetry in shop templates by making two identical halves and bookmatching them.
2021
AL#142 p.70
Steve Dickerson
▪ Make your own cabinet scrapers and burnishers from stuff you may easily find lying around.
2021
AL#142 p.68
Reg Beardsley
▪ Fix finish checking with diluted linseed oil. You have to dilute it with mineral spirits to reduce the viscosity. Some discussion of refractive index.
2021
AL#142 p.68
Steve Kennel
▪ Sacrifice a wobbly old Workmate to make a nice guitar holding rig for your bench top.
2021
AL#142 p.66
John Calkin
▪ A positive review for a big and ambitious on-line course. Offered through Robbie O’Brien.
2021
AL#142 p.64
John Littel
▪ A positive review for this arty book about luthier Freeman Vines. Tintype photos are featured.
2021
AL#142 p.62
Monica Esparza
▪ A positive review of this elaborate, gorgeous, thorough, and expensive book by Josep Melo. Mentions Pepe Romero.
2021
AL#142 p.60
John Calkin
▪ Sometimes a bargain is no bargain, like when the work that a power tool accomplishes is less valuable than space it uses in your shop. If you don’t love something, set it free.
2021
AL#142 p.58
Bob Gleason
▪ A big honkin’ C clamp for pressing home a dovetail joint can be easily built from plywood, wood scrap, cork, and a commercially available press screw. It can just as well be pretty, because that’s fun. And if you don’t see what’s fun about it, maybe lutherie is not for you.
2021
AL#142 p.55
Max Krimmel
▪ If you are luthier who does not remember the name of Max Krimmel, you might be under age fifty. Max was a pack leader in the early days of the American Lutherie Boom, before he went on to specialize in a few of his many other artistic interests. Anyway, why and article about marimbas? As Max says, “Think of it as deep background learning.”
2021
AL#142 p.52
Terence Warbey
▪ Not only does Warbey make the entire bending form and the outside mold from a single sheet, but the form pops apart like a Swedish Christmas ornament and stores flat in a plastic bag. Mentions Charles Fox and Mark French.
2021
AL#142 p.40
Doug Hunt Mark French
▪ Two luthiers dare each other to make a useful guitar for a total investment of $75 each. One makes a flattop, the other a solid body. There are rules, and rules are meant to be broken.
2021
AL#142 p.38
Ben Haskenhoff
▪ The author steps us through a full refret of a solidbody guitar with a bound fretboard where the new frets nestle right back into the binding. Save the nibs!
2021
AL#142 p.36
James Buckland
▪ This plan drawing of an anonymous instrument from the early 19th century includes the authentic adjustable neck joint and the rule-of-18 fret spacing.
2021
AL#142 p.30
James Buckland
▪ The terz guitar was a smaller Romantic-era guitar, which played in a higher range and was written in a different key. Knowing this history helps us understand several otherwise-puzzling old instruments.
2021
AL#142 p.28
Dan Erlewine
▪ Good ol’ Dan Erlewine is known for finding and spreading efficient new tools and techniques for guitar makers and repairers, as well as for mentoring and promoting young talent in the lutherie field. He’s at it again in this article, as he loosely wrangles a team to consult on the design of a specialized new shop vise.
2021
AL#142 p.22
Luis Colmenares
▪ The traditional Venezuelan cuatro is a small 4-string instrument with a distinctive flush fretboard and wooden tap plate covering the entire upper bout. See our GAL Instrument Plan #58. The author of this article is a working musician and a member of the Venezuelan diaspora. He has developed an electric version of the instrument for playing the evolving music of the Venezuelan culture.
2021
AL#142 p.14
Mark French Charles Fox
▪ In this article the peg head is shaped and drilled, the neck shaft is slotted for the truss rod, the heel is formed, and the neck is fitted to the body.
2021
AL#142 p.6
Cyndy Burton Jose Romanillos R.E. Brune Jeffrey R. Elliott Kevin Aram Gary Southwell Simon Ambridge
▪ The great classical guitarist Julian Bream was well known for supporting and encouraging contemporary composers and promising young players. Less noticed by the public, but of special importance to luthiers, was Bream’s work with a handful of classical guitar makers from whom he commissioned the fine instruments that he played. In this article, those luthiers offer memories of their interactions with Julian Bream. Mentions Hermann Hauser Sr.
2021
AL#142 p.5
John Calkin
▪ Two luthiers trade cigar-box guitar builds.
2021
AL#142 p.4
Gerry Hayes
▪ A broken guitar string can be more than just annoying, if it punctures your skin and sticks in your bone.
2021
AL#142 p.4
Michael Cone
▪ Collecting frequency response data from completed guitars. In reply to a question in AL#141.
2021
AL#142 p.3
Mike Ashley
▪ Brief wisdom from fifty-plus years in lutherie.
2021
AL#142 p.3
Paul Norton
▪ Fond memories of attending the Charles Fox guitar-making course in long-ago Vermont.
2021
AL#142 p.3
Sjaak Elmendorp
▪ Lesson learned from a puppy-vs-guitar encounter: glue down the fretboard extension over the body of a flattop guitar when using a bolt-on neck.
2021
AL#142 p.2
Steve Kennel
▪ A quick and dirty Dobro made partly from yard sale stuff.
2020
AL#141 p.71
Kerry Char
▪
2020
AL#141 p.70
Howard Stephens
▪ The author argues that they don’t sound very different.
2020
AL#141 p.70
Todd Cambio
▪
2020
AL#141 p.70
R.M. Mottola
▪
2020
AL#141 p.70
Federico Sheppard
▪
2020
AL#141 p.68
Terence Warbey
▪
2020
AL#141 p.68
Steve Kennel
▪ Plastic pipe scraps with sticky sandpaper .
2020
AL#141 p.67
Steve Dickerson
▪
2020
AL#141 p.67
Cary Corson
▪
2020
AL#141 p.67
Carl-David Hardin
▪
2020
AL#141 p.66
Chris Garland
▪ Heat them and stretch them to make super-skinny ends.
2020
AL#141 p.66
Steve Johnson
▪
2020
AL#141 p.65
Chris Sobel
▪ Françoise and Daniel Sinier de Ridder, authors of The Spanish Guitar, will be familiar to American Lutherie readers from their ambitious restoration articles. Our reviewer loves this lavish and informative picture book.
2020
AL#141 p.62
R.M. Mottola
▪ Pickguard outlines are like body shapes; you could copy them, or you could sketch them freehand. Or, if you are serious about it, you could construct them geometrically. Mottola gives us step-by-step instructions for drawing a pickguard to fit any size or shape of guitar to get that authentic traditional look.
2020
AL#141 p.58
John Calkin
▪ There’s no fancy-schmancy foolin’ around at Calkin’s shop. Your bench is covered in projects and tools? Make a little benchtop on legs and let it stand above the clutter. Wish your bench had a radiused top? Make a tiny one that does. Frustrated by cam clamps that don’t reach the middle of your workbench? You know what to do.
2020
AL#141 p.50
Mark French
▪ Here come the robots. Although CNC routers are not yet at the Jetsons stage, we are far beyond the days when computer-driven tools were only in luthiers’ dreams, not their workshops. Mark French brings us up to date as he selects and installs an inexpensive machine in his home shop.
2020
AL#141 p.47
F.A. Jaen
▪ These linings are something like reverse kerfing, but they are built up in place, starting with an ingeniously aligned set of individual blocks. There’s always a new way to do it.
2020
AL#141 p.41
Erik Wolters
▪ Wolters started his first instrument-making project later in life than some. But with an excellent mentor and years of patient determination, he completed a doozy of a first guitar. Dreams can come true. At least lutherie dreams.
2020
AL#141 p.38
Gerry Chicalo
▪ All the guitar soundboards ever made don’t add up to a toothpick in the vast lumberyard of the timber industry. A stray cedar log that washes onto a beach in British Columbia can be lutherie gold, and harvesting it can be a lot of nice fragrant outdoor fun.
2020
AL#141 p.36
Steve Kennel
▪ Here’s a detailed drawing of a straightforward and ubiquitous mid-century, solid-wood, American-made guitar. This inexpensive model was the first instrument of a generation of would-be folkies and rockers. Not a classical, but certainly a classic.
2020
AL#141 p.34
Peter Hurney
▪ Here’s a direct and accurate real-world method for calculating the exact position of a uke bridge. The jig does all the work and considers all the variables. No math required!
2020
AL#141 p.26
Leonardo Michelin-Salomon
▪ A Uruguayan luthier enrolls in a craft school in Norway to study Romantic-era guitars built by Italian, German, and French makers two hundred years ago. He writes an article about his techniques and discoveries that is published in an American journal with readers in over forty countries. Yes, it’s a big beautiful lutherie world. We are all just leaves on one wide-spreading, figured-maple branch.
2020
AL#141 p.18
Evan Gluck
▪ What should you do when an unexpected event upsets the smoothly-running apple cart of your guitar-repair business? Don’ freak out. Take good advice from the trustworthy folks around you, and proceed with confidence. That’s the story, but raconteur and lutherie superstar Evan Gluck tells it better.
2020
AL#141 p.7
Charles Fox Mark French
▪ In this episode of the landmark series, the back and top plates are braced and glued to the rim to form the body of the guitar. The body is then bound and purfled using Fox’ distinctive method of fitting everything dry, taping it in place, and running superglue into the seams.
2020
AL#141 p.5
David Breeze
▪
2020
AL#141 p.5
Victoria Tierney
▪ Includes a nice watercolor portrait of Mark Tierney.
2020
AL#141 p.5
C.F. Casey
▪
2020
AL#141 p.4
Tony Pizzo
▪
2020
AL#141 p.4
Staff
▪
2020
AL#141 p.4
John Jordan
▪
2020
AL#141 p.3
Dan Erlewine
▪
2020
AL#141 p.3
Jim Marsh
▪
2020
AL#141 p.3
Steve Dickerson
▪
2020
AL#140 p.69
Stephen Faulk
▪ Describes mounting tap plates with white glue, and with adhesive Mylar transfer sheet. Mentions David Serva, Diego del Gastor, Paco de Lucia.
2020
AL#140 p.67
Mike Doolin
▪ A positive review. Mentions Martin, Gibson, National, D’Angelico, Selmer, Les Paul, Fender Stratocaster, Danelectro, Vox, Val-Pro.
2020
AL#140 p.65
James Buckland
▪ A positive review.
2020
AL#140 p.62
C.F. Casey
▪ Nearly twenty years ago, Casey made a detailed drawing of a 7-string Russian guitar which we published as GAL Instrument Plan #48. Recently, he was called on to make a replica of that instrument. Sure, he had the drawing, but he took a few liberties with the project. He tells us what he did, and why. The original guitar showed some Stauffer inspiration.
2020
AL#140 p.60 read this article
Juan-Oscar Azaret
▪ Pioneering guitar maker, guitar designer, acoustics researcher, and author Graham Caldersmith has passed away. If you knew him, perhaps from his attendance at GAL Conventions, read this affectionate remembrance. If you didn’t, read it to find out what we’ve lost. Mentions Carleen Hutchins, Jim Williams, Greg Smallman.
2020
AL#140 p.58
Bob Gleason
▪ Straightedges that are notched to fit over frets have become popular tools for judging the straightness of fretboards, and for projecting the surface of the board for setting neck angles. You can make your own, with the advantage that you can use any fret scale. Here’s how.
2020
AL#140 p.56
Geoff Needham
▪ Bamboo is kinda like wood, right? Ever wonder if you could make a guitar out of it? Nowadays it comes in large panels of edge-laminated strips that are about the right thickness. The author made two nice classical guitars with bamboo sides and backs, and gives the material a big thumbs-up for workability, appearance, and sound. Mentions Miguel Rodriguez and Domingo Esteso.
2020
AL#140 p.52
Glen Friesen
▪ Some public servants take on challenging tasks that many of us would fear to attempt. I’m not talking about fire fighters or the people who change light bulbs on the tops of suspension bridges. I’m talking about high school shop teachers. And here’s a guy who has been teaching guitar making in public school for twenty years. Hats off to you, sir! And respect to the students. These guitars look pretty good.
2020
AL#140 p.48
Federico Sheppard Javier Campos-Tijeras
▪ Many of the fine hand-made guitars that are born in Ganada, Spain, spend a few weeks in the shop of Javier Campos Tijeras receiving a light, thin coating of shellac before they venture out into a cruel world of fingernails, cigarette smoke, and shaky guitar stands. Javi explains his process and holds nothing back about the specific materials and supplies he uses.
2020
AL#140 p.34
Kerry Char
▪ This ornate contraption had seen a lot of use and abuse in almost a dozen decades of service. Long-ago modifications plus the pull of sixteen strings left it in a sorry state. It had to be taken in hand rather decisively to be brought back into playing condition. Two necks, the back, the enormous bridge, and a lot of bracing came off. Content warning: contains lutherie gore.
2020
AL#140 p.20
Mark French Charles Fox
▪ Building a Charles Fox guitar reveals the beautifully developed interdependence between the design and the process. In this episode we rough out the neck, work with the unusual neck block and the distinctive two-part lining, and then brace the top and back plates.
2020
AL#140 p.10
Paul Schmidt John Jordan
▪ John Jordan was a young guy happily repairing instruments and making guitars when he got a commission to make an experimental electric violin. It turned out well enough to take his career in a new direction. Read his story and see some of his diverse and beautiful work. Mentions Ervin Somogyi, Shelley Rosen, Rolland Colella, Dave Matthews, Boyd Tinsley, nyckelharpa, D’Angelico, D’Aquisto, Neyveli S. Radhakrishna, Miri Ben Ari.
2020
AL#140 p.2
Stephen Marchione
▪ The braces in an archtop guitar are very similar to the bars in fiddles, and Marchione fits them with the same traditional techniques. The mating surface of the brace is roughed out with a chisel, then refined with a small plane, and perfected with files and scrapers. Chalk shows the whole truth of the fit. Believe the chalk.
2020
AL#139 p.70
Tom Thiel
▪ They say to cut lutherie trees when the sap it down. But what does that really mean? Also, that old story about cutting the trees during the right phase of the moon might be more than a story.
2020
AL#139 p.70
Noel Liogier
▪ Hand-stitched rasps work well on bone and horn.
2020
AL#139 p.69
John Calkin
▪ Our resident straight-shooting curmudgeon says to start with super-simple kits, then move to good-quality kits, then just make ukes.
2020
AL#139 p.69
Mike Doolin
▪ When you use a bolt-on neck for a flattop guitar, can you just not glue down the part of the fretboard that lies on the soundboard?
2020
AL#139 p.63
Pat Megowan
▪ Our reviewer compares, contrasts, and waxes eloquent about The Ukulele: An Illustrated Workshop Manual by Graham McDonald and The Uke Book Illustrated by John Weissenrieder and Sarah Greenbaum. In addition to a lot of thoughful and practical analysis, he uses the metaphore of different ice-cream eating experiences to explain their complex relationship.
2020
AL#139 p.61 read this article
Ronald-Louis Fernandez
▪ Felix Manzanero was a classical guitar maker and collector in Madrid. He spent twelve years in the shop of Jose Ramirez II, starting at age fourteen. Felix was a friend of author Ron Fernandez’ father, and then a lifelong friend of Ron; they visited each other’s homes in Spain and California. Mentions Seiko Sesoko, Laurindo Almeida, Manitas de Plata, Sabicas, Segovia, Paracho, German Vazquez Rubio.
2020
AL#139 p.58
Roger Bucknall
▪ Can people really hear the difference between different back-and-sides wood? Brittish guitar builder Roger Bucknall is in an excellent position to explore this question. He’s the founder (in 1973) and still head honcho of boutique brand Fylde Guitars. He made a set of identical guitars except for the wood choices, and….. Read the article to see what happened.
2020
AL#139 p.56
Harry Fleishman
▪ Harry has been a lot of places and made a lot of instruments in a lot of shops. Now, after fifty years as a luthier, a lutherie teacher, and a hired-gun designer, he’s right back where many folks started: in a spare bedroom. He encourages us (and himself) not to let a humble shop space be an excuse for inaction. Just do it (registered trademark)!
2020
AL#139 p.48
Lee Herron
▪ Check it out: a standard cheeze grater is easily adaptable as a guitar tailpiece. But why would you even want to know that? Because you are crafting an electric lap steel guitar on a kitchen theme, obviously! This instrument uses pots, pans, flatware, everything but the kitchen table. Wait a minute…. Yes, it actually does use the kitchen table.
2020
AL#139 p.42
Erick Coleman Evan Gluck
▪ Erick and Evan (the two Es) are back with more helpful hints for the guitar repair shop. Some of the things they show are nicely developed professional tools, like for leveling frets while the guitar is still under string tension. Then there’s a diagnostic tool that is just a stick, a guitar string, and a salvaged tuning machine. If you think that’s gronk, how about the tool that Evan calls “my string.” It’s just a string. Not even a guitar string. Mentions gluing frets, DeoxIT, WD40, tri-Flow, slotting bridge pins, regluing bridges, fret nipper, notching fret tang, Matt Brewster, fret leveler bar, StewMac, Stewart-MacDonald, bridge removal, shark skin, fret rocker, fret leveler. From their workshop at the 2017 GAL Convention.
2020
AL#139 p.38
Sjaak Elmendorp
▪ Holland had a lutherie boom in the 1970s, too. Arie started out as a carpenter, but moved into lutherie after an injury. Today he makes steel string guitars and a variety of other instruments. Mentions Roger Siminoff, Irving Sloane, Arthur Overholzer, Cees van Loon, Vox Humana, preparing cow bone, humidity control.
2020
AL#139 p.36
Kerry Char
▪ Reduced image of the full-scale plan.
2020
AL#139 p.35
Kerry Char
▪ Vintage guitar restoration specialist Kerry Char runs down the many changes that Gibson’s most popular flattop has gone through over the decades. Then he presents a full drawing of one that falls into the best period of the model: a well-worn example from 1947.
2020
AL#139 p.26
Mark French Charles Fox
▪ If, some day, there is a Mt. Rushmore for the American Lutherie Boom, the ruggedly handsome face of Charles Fox will be boldly chisled in a place of honor. For over half a century he has led the way as developer and teacher of guitar-making methods and tooling. He is also a thoughtful and articulate philosopher of the craft, whose words will inspire luthiers yet unborn. Here’s the first in a series of four articles which will cover his process, and his thinking behind it, in detail.
2020
AL#139 p.6
Federico Sheppard
▪ Here’s a lutherie carreer so wide-ranging, so full of amazing travels and fortuitous connections, that you might be thinking of Baron Munchausen or Forrest Gump. But this is a true adventure, and he left a lot of it out in order to pack the story into a 75-minute lecture. Must read to believe. From his 2017 GAL Convention lecture. Mentions Torres, Simplicio, Garcia, Leo Kottke, Bozo Podunavac, Ray Jacobs, John Fahey, Peter Lang, Norman Blake, Robert Larson, Agustin Barrios, Ray Whitely, Sanfeliu, Enno Voorhorst, Jeffrey Elliott, Cyndy Burton, Richard Brune, Jorge Morel, Pepe Romero, Shel Urlik, Romanillos, Dmitry Zhevlakov, Paracho, Abel Garcia, Antigua Casa Nunez, Cecilio Lopez, Fernando Sor, Francois de Fossa, Cite de la Musique, Santos Hernanadez, Domingo Esteso, Antonio Marin, Eugene Clark, Michael Partington.
2020
AL#139 p.3
Michael Bashkin
▪ Fixing a boo-boo.
2020
AL#139 p.3
R.M. Mottola
▪ Fixing a boo-boo.
2020
AL#139 p.3
R.E. Brune
▪ Brune has donated several drawings of fine Spanish guitars to the GAL . Here he talks about why he thinks it was a good idea.
2020
AL#139 p.2
Ron Zentz
▪ Ron has been a woodworker for decades and finally maade a guitar after attending a Charles Fox survey course. He’s glad he did.
2020
AL#139 p.2
Dean Coss John Calkin
▪ Does a solid body lap steel guitar need a truss rod? No. Plus a discussion of alernative woods and some appreciation of the virtues of quick-and-dirty lutherie.
2019
AL#138 p.70
Art Robb
▪ How do you take the back off a 19th-century guitar? Carefully, and slowly. The author offers good advice based on long experience.
2019
AL#138 p.70
Gregg Miner
▪ Can you avoid excessive string tension in a long-scale harp guitar?
2019
AL#138 p.70
James Condino
▪ Can you avoid excessive string tension in a long-scale harp guitar?
2019
AL#138 p.69
Fan Tao
▪ Can you avoid excessive string tension in a long-scale harp guitar?
2019
AL#138 p.69
R.M. Mottola
▪ Can you chemically age new brass hardware? Probably not. Modern brass stuff has a bomb-proof coating that you can’t wash off.
2019
AL#138 p.69
John Calkin
▪ What do you do with cupped soundboard sets? Go ahead and use them. Calkin offers some practical tips for avoiding problems.
2019
AL#138 p.66
Bryan Johanson
▪ Orfeo Magazine represents a new idea in marketing. It is free online, or you can buy it as gorgeous coffee-table books of collected issues. Either way, it sure is pretty. Written and photographed by Alberto Martinez, Orfeo Magazine presents one man’s lavishly illustrated pilgrimages into the world of the classical guitar.
2019
AL#138 p.65
Ralf Grammel
▪ Sometimes the bent binding needs a little more convincing to lie down at the waist than just a piece of tape. This easily-made set of jaws for a pistol-grip clamp gets teh job done.
2019
AL#138 p.63
Gregg Miller
▪ A throw-away garment clamp from the dry-cleaning place happens to be a fine thing for clamping kerfed lining into a guitar.
2019
AL#138 p.63
Steve Dickerson
▪ Make a cheap and easy nut vise out of two wood scraps and a few inches of masking tape.
2019
AL#138 p.63
Harry Fleishman
▪ It’s easy to modify standard hardware-store spade bits for special purposes, like making a recess around a control knob.
2019
AL#138 p.63
Fabio Ragghianti
▪ A guitar string scrap is the perfect cleaner for a superglue snout.
2019
AL#138 p.60
Terence Warbey
▪ If you will attach a neck to a body with bolts rather than a dovetail, you will first want the two pieces to fit tightly at the correct angle. This can be done by a process which is sometimes called flossing; sandpaper is pulled between them while they are pushed together. The author presents a simple jig to facilitate this process.
2019
AL#138 p.56
Graham McDonald
▪ Rope binding uses contrasting wooden lozenges around the outer edge of a guitar, such that when they are rounded over, the binging seems to be twisted like a rope. The effect was popular in the early 20th century on ukuleles and Hawaiian guitars. The author takes us throught the process of slicing and dicing to produce the binding strips.
2019
AL#138 p.54
Harry Fleishman
▪ Harry teams up with the owner of one of his flattop guitars to try some major changes to the bridge and evaluate the results. He reaches conclusions about the relationship between saddle height and bridge beefiness. And speaking og beef, Harry shows how he makes individual tapered saddles out of chopsticks.
2019
AL#138 p.48
R.M. Mottola
▪ Sometimes when a vintage instrument is being restored, you want to leave a few of the dings and a lttle of the funk, just for authentic flavor. Sometimes you want to leave the big dings and all the funk, and end up with something that is very tasty to a certain sophisticated palate. Mottola takes a century-old beater and ends up with a sweet-playing silk purse disguised as a sow’s ear. Mentions B&J, Buegeleisen and Jacobson, Oscar Schmidt, and Stella. Instrument is ladder-braced.
2019
AL#138 p.38
Steve Denvir Jay Lichty Corrie Woods
▪ Jay Lichty was late to the lutherie game, having spent a lot of years in a real job building houses as a general contractor. But he’s deep into instrument making now, and finding success with an eclectic line of ukuleles and small guitars. Jay’s wife, Corrie Woods, is the marketing department, working with photography and online media to make the most of Jay’s work at the bench. Together, they are making it work. From their lecture at the 2017 GAL Convention.
2019
AL#138 p.36
Tom Blackshear
▪ Arcangel Fernandez was a student of Marcelo Barbero, and he is considered to be one of the best Spanish makers of flamenco guitars in latter half of the twentieth century. This instrument is a blanca, with sides and back of cypress, and has a slotted peghead for tuning machines.
2019
AL#138 p.28
John Calkin
▪ Got a used humbucker, a wall stud, some extruded aluminum, and a couple other odds and ends? Make a lap steel guitar! Author John Calkin likes to get right down to business. There’s nothing precious or over-thought here. Minimum tooling, maximum lutherie fun. This is how Leo Fender got his start, ya know.
2019
AL#138 p.20
Mark French
▪ Author Mark French is walking the lutherie path in the reverse direction of many makers. As a physics prof trained in the crazy magic of CNC and industrial robot processes, he had made a lot of guitars before he did much in the way of traditional low-tech hand-tool work. As part of an intensive effort to fill in those gaps, he attended an eight-day course at Robbie O’Brien’s shop in Colorado to make a flamenco guitar with Spanish luthier and licensed bloodless toreador Paco Chorobo. O’Brien went to Spain and visited Paco’s shop in 2015. Read all about it in AL124.
2019
AL#138 p.6
Michael Bashkin
▪ Michael Bashkin’s lutherie cred is unimpeachable, and it turns out that he previously had a career in forestry, with years of experience in many places from the tropics, to the temperate zone, to the arctic. So he knows a lot about trees and about wood. How should we feel about using the earth’s dwindling supplies of fine traditional woods to make our wonderful, precious guitars? And will our clients give us less of their wonderful, precious dollars if we don’t? Let’s ask Michael. This fascinating article is based on his 2017 GAL Convention lecture.
2019
AL#138 p.3
Bill Garofalo
▪ The author has been a GAL member for many years. Lutherie has always been a hobby for him, not a profession. At age ninety, he continues to produce simple and unpretensious instruments with a considerable element of immediacy.
2019
AL#138 p.2
Rolf Hagglund
▪ The author says we Americans should just go ahead and join the rest of the civilized world in using the metric system.
2019
AL#138 p.2
Steve Kinnaird
▪ The author praises the GAL’s ideals of inclusion and openness.
2019
AL#138 p.2
David Laupmanis
▪ The author built a springless magnetic thickness gauge from Mike Doolin’s article in AL109. It works fine. He presents a photo. It should be noted that Doolin’s model was inspired by the work of Alaine Bieber, writing in AL96.
2019
AL#137 p.71
Andy Birko
▪ Advice for selecting CAD/CAM/CNC software for arched plates. Technology moves fast. Bear in mind this is from 2019.
2019
AL#137 p.70
Marshall Brune
▪ You have to build up the color slowly, over many coates, to get a good looking tint with French polish.
2019
AL#137 p.70
James Buckland
▪ Straightforward advice for getting the best result with simple hand planes.
2019
AL#137 p.69
john Calkin
▪ How come my Flying Vee uke did not sound great? Probly not enough air in it.
2019
AL#137 p.69
James Buckland
▪ What’s the best way to calculate the extra freets for a quarter-step fretting scheme? And how accurately do they need to be placed?
2019
AL#137 p.66
Juan-Oscar Azaret
▪ This new book is a thoroughly illustrated step-by-step method for making classical guitars, using mostly inexpensive small power tools. It also takes a luthier’s look at a dozen different instruments by well-known hand-makers. Yes, it is only in Spanish. But even if you do not read Spanish, our reviewer says you will probably still get a lot out of it. The author of the book, Luis Alberto Paredes Rodriguez, is a long-time Guild member, a GAL Convention presenter, and an AL author. He takes a close look at twelve different guitar designs, by Voboam; Stradivari; Grobert; Lacote; Panormo; Torres; Esteso; Hauser; Ramírez; Fleta; Schneider/Kasha; Romanillos; and Smallman. He goes so far as to build one of each.
2019
AL#137 p.65
C.F. Casey
▪ With a simple L-shaped block of scrap wood, you can easily mark the bottom of a fretboard overhang.
2019
AL#137 p.64
Peter Hurney
▪ A thoroughly hot-rodded wooden clothespin becomes an evolved lining clamp.
2019
AL#137 p.64
Steve Dickerson
▪ A regular old laser printer can help you quickly make a fretting template.
2019
AL#137 p.62
Greg Maxwell
▪ Australian luthier Trevor Gore is the co-author of the two-volume book Contemporary Acoustic Guitar, Design and Build. Gore teaches a three-day seminar in which he demonstates his very specific and number-based method of measuring and controlling the resonant frequecies of guitars. Maxwell attended one such seminar, held at Robbie O’Brien’s shop, and gives a brief overview.
2019
AL#137 p.61 read this article
Tim Olsen
▪ Leo Bidne was great example of the restless rabble from which the GAL arose in the early 1970s. He was a curious and persistant teenager who, without instruction and with slim resources, managed to make guitars. Leo was member of the GAL Staff in its formative days.
2019
AL#137 p.60 read this article
Tom Ribbecke
▪ Fred Campbell was a fixture on the lutherie scene for decades, specializing in finish work. Many of his friends will recall that he was notably forward in his appreciation of his Scottish heritage.
2019
AL#137 p.58
R.M. Mottola
▪ Mottola gives short, not-too-technical summaries of two articles recently published on-line by Savart Journal. The first is an update of frequent author Mark French’s efforts to define stringed instrument body outlines by use of math equations. The second looks at what can be learned about lutherie wood by reading ancient Chinese texts.
2019
AL#137 p.52
J.A.T. Stanfield
▪ There are many settings in which one might receive lutherie instruction these days. Looking for a change of scene? This article describes a 12-week course held in a 300-year-old building near the Devonshire coast of southeast England. It has a 40-year history and roots in the legendary London College of Furniture program. Mentions Norman Reed and Phil Messer. Also describes a systematic method of planing a board flat. Discusses doming a flat soundboard with shaped cauls and a go-bar deck.
2019
AL#137 p.44
Todd Mylet
▪ As a repairman in a busy guitar shop, Todd Mylet has a lot of Martin-style neck resets under his belt. There is a lot involved in doing it right. Todd presents a detailed account of his well-considered and time-tested method.
2019
AL#137 p.32
Gregg Miner
▪ Ready for an Americana-infused, vintage-lutherie, history-detective-style nerdfest? Yes, that old joker Orville Gibson is still full of surprises, even now, a century after his death. We have a lot to learn about string material, tension, intention, and nomenclature. Not to mention marketing and musical snobbery.
2019
AL#137 p.26
Tim Olsen Joshia de-Jonge
▪ Here’s Joshia’s method of building an elevated neck with a sophisticated geometry to let the bridge height be constant across its width while the low strings have the necessary clearance over the frets. It is inspired by the work of Eric Sahlin.
2019
AL#137 p.22
Cyndy Burton Joshia de-Jonge
▪ Joshia de Jonge was a sensation at the 1998 GAL Convention when, as a young female luthier, she brought a nicely-made and fine sounding instrument to the classical guitar listening session. It helped to have grown up in a guitar-making family. And now that she has left her parents’ home and shop, she is raising guitar-making sons. Mentions Geza Burghardt; Linda Manzer; Sergei de Jonge; Eric Sahlin.
2019
AL#137 p.16
Mark French
▪ CNC Routers are kinda like computers. Once they were huge and cost more than a house. Therefore they were mostly in the domain of large corporations. Now they are far smaller, and the price tag is closer to a few months’ rent. Therefore they will be ubiquitous. This article lets you know what it would take to get on the bus. Mentions Easel; VCarve; BobCAD; Draftsight; AutoCAD; SketchUp; Fusion 360; Rhino3D.
2019
AL#137 p.4
Federico Sheppard Todd Cambio
▪ Federico has traveled the world to bring us news of excellent and unusual luthiers and their work. This time he journeyed from Green Bay, Wisconsin all the way to Madison, Wisconsin to meet a guy who keeps his work on the cutting edge of innovation by closely following the century-old work of American guitar factories, and Italian-American luthiers who worked in New York City before WWI. A word to the wise: Tulip poplar is not, and never shall be, banned by CITES or the Lacey Act. Mentions the Acosta family; John D’Angelico; Lydia Mendoza; Lonnie Johnson; Stella; Regal; Oscar Schmidt; Harmony; Lyon & Healy; Lead Belly; Favilla.
2019
AL#136 p.71
Stan Werbin
▪ Stan Werbin of Elderly Instruments does not want to speak for other shops, but he says his busy repair shop is always happy to provide any needed paperwork.
2019
AL#136 p.69
James Blilie
▪ How much clamping force do different types of clamps exert? Blilie shows us how to calculate the force for some kinds of clamps, and comments about how much force is enough.
2019
AL#136 p.69
R.M. Mottola
▪ Can you still get Bradley signal generators, the kind used for glitter-testing instruments and instrument parts, now that Don Bradley has passed away? No, but there are many more-modern alternatives.
2019
AL#136 p.69
Ken Warmoth
▪ What’s the deal with deep V-shaped necks on old guitars?
2019
AL#136 p.69
James Buckland
▪ What’s the deal with deep V-shaped necks on old guitars?
2019
AL#136 p.69
Walter Carter
▪ What’s the deal with deep V-shaped necks on old guitars?
2019
AL#136 p.66
Peter Tsiorba
▪ It’s called a book, but the format is a box of thirty-four folded sheets, each one a life-size photo poster of a famous guitar. Our reviewer takes a close look. Mentions Antonio Torres.
2019
AL#136 p.65
Doug Berch
▪ Inexpensive golden taklon paint brushes are great for glue.
2019
AL#136 p.65
Peter Grafton
▪ A shallow secondary outside form can be helpful for making cutaway guitars.
2019
AL#136 p.65
Steve Dickerson
▪ A table saw can fuction as a jig to clamp top and back plates while joining their center seams.
2019
AL#136 p.54
Mark French Charles Fox
▪ Author Mark French has made a lot of guitars over the years, but when he wanted to up his game he attended an intensive two-week course by the dean of all American lutherie teachers, Charles Fox. Four students each built a guitar in the white from scratch and strung it up.
2019
AL#136 p.52
Harry Fleishman
▪ Many years ago, innovative classical guitar maker Richard Schneider made instruments with frets made of rod stock set in wide saw kerfs. Fleishman updates the idea by having round-bottomed slots cut by CNC and laying in Delrin rod.
2019
AL#136 p.48
R.M. Mottola
▪ What’s the scale length? Isn’t it just twice the distance from the nut to the 12th fret? Yeah, kinda, but there can be a lot of complicating factors when working on old instruments. Like maybe the nut position was compensated, or just cut wrong. Or maybe the 12th fret was a little off. The fret positions might have been calculated using the old rule of 18. Here’s how to find out what’s really going on.
2019
AL#136 p.42
Massimo Maddaloni Lizabeth-Jane Hella Giacomo Parimbelli
▪ From the time that the violin was invented, Cremona was the world center for the highest quality string instrument making, until it gradually became known for lower-quality mass production of fiddles. After its dark age, Cremona has more recently seen a renaissance of its lutherie heritage. This article looks at an unusual guitar made by a Cremonese luthier in the 1930s and sees echoes of the old masters in its design. Mentions Stradivari, Panormo, Fibonacci spiral, Archimedean spiral, golden ratio.
2019
AL#136 p.36
Mike Gluyas Shaun Newman
▪ Although he had fallen in love with the classical guitar the first time he heard one as a teenager, Shaun Newman was already well along in a career as a language teacher when he first tried to make one. He was lucky enough to find a mentor in his corner of England, and he has been making and restoring an impressive variety of fine instruments for the last thirty years.
2019
AL#136 p.28
January Williams
▪ There are Tatay guitars, and then there are Tatay guitars. They could be from Valencia or New York; from one of four generations of the family; from one maker or his brother, father, son, uncle, or cousin. This article helps you sort them out. Photos of representative guitars, and lots of photos of labels from the various eras.
2019
AL#136 p.22
January Williams
▪ Before there were cheap Spanish guitars from Asian factories, there were cheap Spanish guitars from hard-working Spanish luthiers using traditional methods. If there was an inexpensive classical guitar kicking around your house or dorm room before about 1965, it might very well have been a Tatay. The family business was in Valencia, Spain, but they had an outpost in New York where one of the brothers turned out instruments at an amazing pace.
2019
AL#136 p.20
Mark French
▪ We all know what “impedance” is, right? It’s that stuff… the force that… well, what is it really? Turns out it’s something like pushing a kid on a swing at the wrong time. And it has a lot to do with the resonances of acoustic instruments, which has a lot to do with how they sound. Anyway, in this largely math-free presentation, Professor Mark gives us the scoop.
2019
AL#136 p.12
Kerry Char
▪ A cool old Gibson-era Epiphone guitar got well and truly smashed in an incident involving large and excited dogs. Better call Char! Kerry Char, that is. He jumps right in to remove the top, take off the braces, and then put the whole thing back together and polish it up nice before you can say “Kalamazoo!” From his 2017 GAL Convention slide show.
2019
AL#136 p.4
Federico Sheppard
▪ Robert Ruck was one of the young self-starters who founded the American Lutherie Boom, and he remained a leading light in the movement until the end of his life. Federico Sheppard was an aquaintence and admirer who became closer to Ruck when they spent time together at Federico’s place on the Camino de Santiago in Spain one summer. In this article, Federico presents a photo tour of Ruck’s shop in Eugene Oregon and explains some of the tools and techniques we see. Mentions French polising with hardware-store shellac. Mentions Richard Brune.
2019
AL#136 p.3
John O’Sullivan
▪ Guitars don’t always have twelve equally-spaced frets per octave. They almost always do, but not always. Here’s another take on the possibilities, ccalled Eagle 53, which attempts to come closer to the beautiful dream of just intonation.
2018
AL#135 p.71
John Calkin
▪ Can a guitar be saved after soaking in flood water?
2018
AL#135 p.69
Mark Hatcher
▪ What’s the deal with hardwood tops on steel string guitars?
2018
AL#135 p.67
R.M. Mottola
▪ Info on slotting a fretboard to have 24 frets to the octave.
2018
AL#135 p.67
Ron Hock
▪ What’s the right kind of steel for a Paracho knife blade? The real ones that they make in Mexico appear to be made form Sawz-all blades. Is high-speed steel the right thing?
2018
AL#135 p.65
Brent Benfield
▪ Use Post-it notes to accurately position braces for gluing, and simplify the removal of squeezed-out glue.
2018
AL#135 p.64
Steve Dickerson
▪ Improvise a simple table saw from a cordless circular saw and a piece of MDF.
2018
AL#135 p.64
Stephen Mangold
▪ Make a tiny chisle from an X-acto blade. It will be 0.020 inches wide, good for getting into fret slots.
2018
AL#135 p.60 read this article
Federico Sheppard R.E. Brune Peter Oberg
▪ Good ol’ Bob Ruck was part of the dozen or two friends whose talent and commitment formed the basis for the American Lutherie Boom. He was always way ahead of the curve, and as they developed, his fine classical guitars provided inspiration for others of his generation. Three friends who knew him well share their appreciations. Article mentions Hart Huttig, J.R. Beall, John Shaw, Ervin Somogyi, Manuel Barrueco, Neil Ostberg, yoga, tai chi.
2018
AL#135 p.58
Mark French
▪ Want a robot lutherie apprentice? It is here today and it is cheap. But it doesn’t look like something from the Jetsons. It looks like this; a digital readout connected to a lead screw. With a friendly whirr, it will move the saw guide right up to the next fret position for you. But get your own dang coffee.
2018
AL#135 p.54
Mark French
▪ Lutherie is changing. Digital tools are transforming factories, and also opening new possibilities to individual shops. This brigs up new issues. Like, what if the normal accuracy gets so high that the instruments sound too similar to each other? Will it become desirable to build in a certain amount of random variation?
2018
AL#135 p.45
Juan-Oscar Azaret
▪ Tap on a guitar. Or listen to just the first fraction of a second as you pluck a note. Those tiny samples contain a wealth of information. Our brains already form an impression of the guitar’s sound, long before the first second has elapsed. Computers can reveal the math behind the music and help us understand and visualize what is happening. Good basic info about the FFT, that is, the Fast Fourier Transform, and how the information in a guitar tap can be viewed in the time domain or the frequency domain.
2018
AL#135 p.38
Federico Sheppard
▪ In his youth, before Federico Sheppard found his calling as a luthier, he was a mere physician working for the Olympic Games. One day he heard a classical guitar being played on the radio of his car. It shook him to “his inner core being” as Lord Buckley would say, and changed the course of his life. And now he has finally made the pilrimage to Chile to visit the shop of the man who made that guitar, Rafael Mardones, and his son, Rafa Jr.
2018
AL#135 p.36
Tim Olsen
▪ Martin’s 15-style guitars were the bottom of the line back in the 1940s and ’50s. All the fancy stuff was stripped away, leaving a very respectable all-mahogany guitar with no binding. Here’s a drawing of the smallest, cheapest one in the time-tested series. Hardwood top.
2018
AL#135 p.30
Kerry Char
▪ Kerry Char sawed the top off an old Gibson flattop in front of a group of several dozen luthiers at the 2017 GAL Convention. And within the same hour he pried the back off a Knutsen harp guitar. Step by step photos.
2018
AL#135 p.16
Dan Erlewine Erick Coleman Chelsea Clark
▪ “Uncle Dan” Erlewine has been a constant presence in the American Lutherie Boom era, because he personifies the can-do ethos that underlies the whole dang movement: figure something out, and tell everybody about it. As a young man hoping to move from rocker to luthier, he found a generous mentor in Herb David of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dan has paid that forward many times as he has brought young people into his shop and given them a place to grow. Mentions Herb David, Mark Erlewine, Jerry Garcia, Albert King, John O’Boyle, David Surovel, Bryan Galloup, Charlie Longstreth, Tom Erlewine, Gary Brawer, Joe Glaser, Steve Olson, Albert Garcia, Elliot John-Conry, Adam Fox, Exodus Almasude, Johan Powell, Max Feldman, Paul Lampley, Aaron Smiley, Rodrgo Gomez, Chelsea Clark. From his lecture at the 2017 GAL Convention.
2018
AL#135 p.4
Charles Rufino
▪ Here’s a close look at the process of setting a violin neck. No innovative tools or new miracle adhesives here; just good old-fashioned methodical, careful work with traditional toos and designs. From his workshop at the 2017 GAL Convention.
2018
AL#135 p.3
Bill Garofalo
▪ Good old Bill Garafolo has been a GAL member for a long time. He’s been having fun with lutherie for half a century.
2018
AL#134 p.69
Fan Tao
▪ How do I adjust string gauge to keep playing feel constant when changing scale length?
2018
AL#134 p.69
Eugene Thordahl
▪ How do they test for hide glue gram strength? It’s actually kinda technical and involves expensive lab gear. But Thordahl tells us how to get a good estimate the easy way.
2018
AL#134 p.69
Luis-Alberto Paredes-Rodriguez
▪ Is it bad to cut into the lining when routing a binding channel? Paredes says no it’s actually a good thing. He shows how he does it, and says that in this he is a follower of the late Arthur Overholtzer.
2018
AL#134 p.69
C.F. Casey
▪ String action height for ukes.
2018
AL#134 p.66
Steve Kennel
▪ Make a wooden screwdriver for use on nice, shiny guitars.
2018
AL#134 p.66
Lee Herron
▪ Quickly make a set of spreaders that will keep slackened strings out of your way and off the lacquer while you file a set of frets.
2018
AL#134 p.66
January Williams
▪ There are pencils that do a good job of writing on sawn lumber.
2018
AL#134 p.60
Mark French David Zachman
▪ There are times when a luthier may want to draw a good long-radius arch. If jury-rigging a 25-foot compass seems like a hassle, you may have been tempted to just bend a straight stick a little and call it good. Turns out that’s a better solution than you may have thought. This article evaluates several techniques and gives the math that undergirds them.
2018
AL#134 p.52
Chris Herrod
▪ You’ll often read article in American Lutherie where scientists explain the sound of guitars in terms of resonant frequencies and onset transients. On the other hand, longtime wood merchant Chris Herrod is here to give the metaphoric pendulum a big old shove back to the right-brain tradition of using evocative adjectives like “dry,” “creamy,” and “poignant.” He also discusses psychoacoustics research and how confident we should be about our “ears.”
2018
AL#134 p.42
Michael Bashkin Harry Fleishman
▪ Everybody knows Harry Fleishman, right? We first “Met the Maker” in 2001, but by then Harry had already been an active GAL author and convention attendee for some time. Now we are catching up with him. This recent chapter of his story is a doozy, with major moves, businesses opening and closing, fruitful collaborations, international travel, and new beginnings.
2018
AL#134 p.34
Greg Byers
▪ So you made a classical guitar, and it sounds good. You want your next one to sound good, too. You want your output to be consistently good. How do you do that? After decades of lutherie experience, Byers has developed a method of recording the frequency responses of the soundboard at each major stage of construction. Does the tap-tone of the raw top set tell the whole story? No, but it can help you steer the project to a successful conclusion.
2018
AL#134 p.16
Tim Olsen
▪ Ken Warmoth is one of the pioneers of the Strat-compatible guitar parts scene, starting small in the 1970s and working up to the sophisticated operation he runs today. He’s a born engineer, constantly refining and rethinking each operation for better accuracy and efficiency. Of course these days that involves CNC machines, and he’s got them. But you may be surprised to see which operations use them and which don’t. Our last visit with Ken was in 1991, so there is some catching up to do.
2018
AL#134 p.9
Monica Esparza Josep Melo Stefano Grondona Antigoni Goni
▪ Two guitarists and a luthier tell their stories of working with Romanillos.
2018
AL#134 p.6
Cyndy Burton
▪ Jose Romanillos has been an influential maker for the last fifty years, beginning with his fruitful collaboration with Julian Bream. Here we see a few photos that put his long career in perspective.
2018
AL#134 p.4
Monica Esparza
▪ There was a party in Spain when luthier, scholar, teacher, and author Jose Romanillos turned 85. Luthiers, musicians, dignitaries gathered to honor him. We get a close-up look through the eyes of his longtime admirer and student Monica Esparza.
2018
AL#133 p.71
James Buckland
▪ Trouble with hide glue raising soundboard grain around a bridge.
2018
AL#133 p.71
Cyndy Burton
▪ Trouble with hide glue raising soundboard grain around a bridge.
2018
AL#133 p.70
Andy Powers
▪ Thoughts about short-scale guitars.
2018
AL#133 p.69
Tom Harper
▪ Sharpening scalpels.
2018
AL#133 p.69
Harry Fleishman
▪ Source of plastic rulers.
2018
AL#133 p.69
Harry Fleishman
▪ More about the Bridge Doctor device.
2018
AL#133 p.69
Harry Fleishman
▪ Sources for specialty adhesive tapes.
2018
AL#133 p.66
Juan-Oscar Azaret
▪ This big new book, written in Italian, is available in English. It’s got some math in it. (Insert your own joke here about still being in an incomprehensible language.) Our reviewer finds a lot of value in it, which he explains in some detail.
2018
AL#133 p.65
Ed Smith
▪ Use the truss-rod slot in a neck for a simple holding jig.
2018
AL#133 p.65
C.F. Casey
▪ Place rare-earth magnets for crack repair inside acoustic guitars the easy way.
2018
AL#133 p.65
Rodney Stedall
▪ Sand perfect angles on the nut end of peghead laminations.
2018
AL#133 p.64
James Blilie
▪ Make a simple work board to cut nice round burl rosettes on a bandsaw.
2018
AL#133 p.62
Paul Neri
▪ Here’s some good, simple advice on how to keep your repair customers happy from a guy with decades of experience.
2018
AL#133 p.60
Jay Anderson
▪ Here’s a simple device that lets you string, play, and set up a flattop guitar before you glue the bridge on.
2018
AL#133 p.56
C.F. Casey
▪ We’ve all seen bad repairs. They can be frustrating, or maybe enraging. But sometimes they are just dazzling in their spectacular daring and ignorance. Here’s a couple of those.
2018
AL#133 p.54
Edmond Rampen
▪ OK, we are probably some distance yet from pushing a button and 3D-printing a functioning guitar. And if you think that something about that sounds kinda crepy and disappointing, you just might be a luthier. But what we are talking about in this article is entirely different: Using surprisingly inexpensive printers to make templates, tools, and parts for guitars. The future is here, people. Get into this while you wait for your hover car.
2018
AL#133 p.48
James Blilie
▪ We all have ideas about the stiffness of brace wood, probably based on a combination of intuition, hearsay, and informal flexing. Blilie aims to accumulate more quantitave data. Here he reports on his latest tests. He also describes his methodology and the reasoning behind it. This is Blilie’s third article on this topic.
2018
AL#133 p.40
John Armstrong
▪ Many different designs have addressed the problem of making a travel guitar with a full scale length. Here’s one that solves the problem by completely redesigning the tuning mechanism so that it can fit into the body behind the bridge.
2018
AL#133 p.34
D.-and-F. Sinier-de-Ridder
▪ So you need to restore a guitar that is a third of a millienium old. Of course it was originally a Baroque guitar. A couple hundred years ago somebody chopped it into a Romantic-era 6-string guitar. No prob, you’ll just find a similar authentic instrument for a guide. Except there aren’t any. Spain was packed with them 300 years ago, but now not a single one is known to exist in original condition. Nonetheless, a full and successful restoration is made.
2018
AL#133 p.22
R.M. Mottola Mark French
▪ Mark French was a kid who took guitar lessons and paid the guy at the music store to change his strings. He went on to be an aerospace engineer, but with all that book learning he still did not know how guitars worked. Now he teaches college courses on guitar making and hangs out with captains of industry at Fender and Taylor.
2018
AL#133 p.6
Federico Sheppard
▪ There are luthiers way up in the tributaries of the Amazon River. They have wood galore, and they are teaching large numbers of local kids to make their own instruments. But they are short on good sharp tools and modern information. Our intrepid adventurer Federico Sheppard sets out to address that lack by bring in donated tools and holding master classes. He was multi-tasking; on the same trip he researched and commemorated the 1931 visit of Agustin Barrios to the remarkable Teatro Amazonas, which you might recognize from the Werner Herzog movie Fitzcaraldo. And he got in some fishing.
2018
AL#133 p.3
Philippe Refig
▪ The writer talks with first-hand knowledge about Robert Bouchet’s earliest guitars.
2018
AL#133 p.3
Greg Nelson
▪ The writer seeks the guitar that was built by John Natelson for the book Guitarmaking:Tradition and Technology.
2018
AL#133 p.3
Brent Benfield
▪ Do finely-sanded guitar tops actually sound different from the usual ones? An experienced luthier writes in to aver that they do.
2017
AL#132 p.71
Cat Fox
▪ Experienced guitar repairer Cat Fox gives a big thumbs-up to Glooboost products for drop fills on lacquer. Well, her thumbs are not that big. Just regular.
2017
AL#132 p.69
Paul Neri
▪ What oil should I use on a fretboard?
2017
AL#132 p.69
Aaron Smiley
▪ Do I need to de-grease unbleached bone?
2017
AL#132 p.69
John Calkin
▪ How do you get the cleanest routed rosette channels?
2017
AL#132 p.68
Brent Cole
▪ Is Alaska yellow cedar more available than it used to be?
2017
AL#132 p.68
Tom Harper
▪ I have some old unlabeld hide glue; how can I tell if it is any good?
2017
AL#132 p.68
Jim Wimmer
▪ I have some old unlabeld hide glue; how can I tell if it is any good?
2017
AL#132 p.68
Jose Cano
▪ What’s the deal with those little guitar-like instruments they play in the Veracruz region of Mexico?
2017
AL#132 p.65
Doug Berch
▪ A scrap of kerfed lining with a bit of sticky sandpaper can quickly and accurately clean up a binding ledge. And if it is quick and accurate, we like it.
2017
AL#132 p.64
James Blilie
▪ A plywood jig bolted to a belt sander can quickly and accurately sand the radius into a fretboard.
2017
AL#132 p.62
Mark French
▪ We think the old boys found the 1st fret position by dividing the string length by 18. Then they divided that by 18 to get the 2nd fret. Sounds like a job for that nerdy apprentice kid. But 18 is just an approximation of the “right” number; that is, the 12th fret won’t be right in the middle of the string. If you want to do it by hand, here’s some thoughts and numbers about what would be a better approximation, and how much better it would be.
2017
AL#132 p.58
Lee Herron
▪ Take a break from building that replica Joachim Tielke Baroque guitar and step up to this lutherie challenge. Build a fully-functional Dobro from a sheet of 3/4″ construction plywood, a few parts from the plumbing department, and various stuff from the thrift store. OK, you can also have a fretboard, a real set of tuners, and a set of strings. But when it comes to finding a resonator cone, you’ll have to punt. Or Bundt.
2017
AL#132 p.50
R.M. Mottola
▪ Louis Panormo was a popular and influential instrument maker in mid-19th-century London. Some of the features of his guitars and the methods he must have used to produce them can be puzzling to 21st-century luthiers raised on the ideas and standards which have come down to us from Antonio Torres and his disciples. Author Mottola builds a Panormo replica and takes the opportunity to speculate on the master’s motivations.
2017
AL#132 p.44
Juan-Oscar Azaret Graham Caldersmith
▪ Graham Caldersmith’s articles in GAL publications go back a full thirty-five years, earlier than American Lutherie magazine itself. He’s located in a tiny town in the hinterlands of New South Wales, Australia. He uses his scientific training to develop innovative classical guitars, and has long been a leader in the effort to develop a family of guitars of different sizes and musical ranges. Our globetrotting reporter asks about his latest thoughts and methods, which include carbon-reinforced lattice bracing.
2017
AL#132 p.30
Graham McDonald
▪ Mandolins have come in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and styles in over 350 years of history. And while you are not likely to stumble upon the kind of mandolin that Vivaldi wrote for, you may find yourself looking at a century-old American factory-made cutie like this Smurf-head Regal, resplendent in muliple pearloids. This article gives you a quick introduction to the rich diversity in the great Family of Man(dolin).
2017
AL#132 p.18
Kevin Aram
▪ Kevin Aram has long been one of the very top classical guitar makers in the United Kingdom. Here he takes us through his process of setting the action on a classical guitar and making sure the frets are shipshape and Bristol fashion.
2017
AL#132 p.6
Brian Yarosh Michael Bashkin
▪ Michael Bashkin came to lutherie after earlier passions and careers in photography and tropical forestry. But for decades now he has been happily Geppettoing it, building beautiful steel string guitars in a cavernous industrial space. Mentions Harry Fleishman and Abe Wechter.
2017
AL#132 p.5
Federico Sheppard
▪ Federico talks about the possibility of guitar building classes at his 1000-year-old church in Spain.
2017
AL#132 p.3
Matias Crom
▪ The Guild has always taken the attitude that all lutherie info is good for all luthiers. Here’s a case in point. A Guild member has specialized in electric guitars and in Baroque instruments at different points in his career. He unites those ideas in an electric bass with relief carving based on rosette designs from our landmark book Historical Lute Construction by Robert Lundberg.
2017
AL#132 p.3
R.M. Mottola
▪ Mottola collected some data about string length compensation at the 2017 GAL Convention. He promises to publish soon.
2017
AL#131 p.71
R.M. Mottola
▪ How do I find the best compensation angle compromise for a steel string guitar saddle slot?
2017
AL#131 p.69
Tom Thiel
▪ Why does my dimensioned neck stock keep twisting?
2017
AL#131 p.69
Chuck Erikson
▪ Where can you get matched MOP for large inlays?
2017
AL#131 p.66
Paul Eliasson Orn Eliasson
▪ Relax. The clunky Frankenstein of a nut in this photo is not the design to which the article title refers. The Eliasson design is sleek and compact.
2017
AL#131 p.65
Harry Fleishman
▪ Harry loves to learn, and then to teach. Although he has been leveling frets for half a century, he’s always rethinking it and keeping his eyes open for better ways to do it. Here he shows us his latest tools and tips for doing more by doing less.
2017
AL#131 p.58
Kjell Croce
▪ Everybody has seen them; those cracks on the tops of old Martins that form just south of the soundhole when the pickguard shrinks. Croce shows us how to close and reinforce the crack, and then make a well-behaved modern pickguard.
2017
AL#131 p.53
James Blilie
▪ Unless you are really messing it up, the glue line is stronger than the wood. And here’s more numbers to prove it. Blilie uses real lab gear and standard statistical analysis to drive the lesson home.
2017
AL#131 p.50
James Condino
▪ Pop goes the soundpost! Can this affordable old Kay bull fiddle be saved? Plywood-doghouse bass specialist James Condino shows us how.
2017
AL#131 p.44
Paul Ruppa
▪ Without the mandolin orchestra fad of the early 20th-century, we might not see Gibson mandolins today except in museums. The story of the pop-music sensation that triggered that fad is even more curious and unlikely than we have previouosly known. Get the straight poop here. Includes extensive historical references and illustrations.
2017
AL#131 p.20
January Williams Peter Tsiorba
▪ Peter Tsiorba began his working life as a teenager making garments in a semi-legit Soviet cooperative. Today he’s a family man and a maker of classical guitars in the lutherie Mecca of Portland, Oregon.
2017
AL#131 p.18
David King
▪ If you are one of those spoiled-rotten kids who has always just dropped an under-over truss rod into a straight slot, you might want to see how a real old-school single curved compression rod is done.
2017
AL#131 p.14
David King
▪ That great big long thin neck of an electric bass is the ultimate test case for a truss rod. When renowned custom bass maker David King became dissatisfied with the performance of the rod he was using, he took a deep dive on the whole question of how rods work. Spoiler: Leo Fender was right. Mentions Michael Gurian and William Cumpiano.
2017
AL#131 p.6
Federico Sheppard Bernhard Kresse
▪ Bernhard Kresse lives and works in his hometown of Cologne, Germany. He’s one of those guitar-making self-starters who was lured away from college by the siren song of lutherie. He has come to specialize in restoration and new construction of Romantic-era guitars, and also makes a “modern” classical guitar based on their advanced features.
2017
AL#131 p.3
Samuele Carcagno Chris Plack
▪ A study at Lancaster University seeks luthiers to help with a scientific study of the impact of wood choice on the percieved sound of acoustic guitars.
2017
AL#130 p.71
Thomas Bazzolo
▪ How did Thomas Humphrey brace his Millenium guitars?
2017
AL#130 p.69
Gary Clayton-Fisher
▪ Does that miracle photo-setting glue they advertize on TV have any merit?
2017
AL#130 p.68
Arianna Colombo
▪ What’s the Italian method of “French” polishing?
2017
AL#130 p.68
Robert Ruck
▪ Is ipe a good guitar wood?
2017
AL#130 p.68
Mark Brenner
▪ Is there a good sandpaper for sharpening edge tools?
2017
AL#130 p.68
Sebastian Nunez Jan van-Cappelle
▪ How did the old boys make those multi-stave sides on Baroque guitars?
2017
AL#130 p.68
Dave Fifield
▪ Is it a good idea to cover a guitar soundboard with marquetry?
2017
AL#130 p.66
Max Girouard Andrew Mowry
▪ Two mandolin makers test this post-catylized shellac product. They like it.
2017
AL#130 p.65
Paul Neri
▪ A simple gizmo helps tighten a banjo head evenly and quickly.
2017
AL#130 p.65
Graham McDonald
▪ Modern thoughts on the good old zero fret.
2017
AL#130 p.64
Juan-Oscar Azaret
▪ Clever automatic control of a home’s central heating and air conditioning can yield effective humidity control without the use of dehumidifying equipment.
2017
AL#130 p.63 read this article
R.M. Mottola
▪ Kyvelos was a world-respected maker of middle Eastern ouds. See his detailed step-by-step article on oud construction in American Lutherie #94 and American Lutherie #95.
2017
AL#130 p.62 read this article
R.M. Mottola
▪ Jim Mouradian, shown here with his son Jon, ran a guitar repair shop and made electric basses. He was a generous and happy mentor to many.
2017
AL#130 p.60 read this article
Tom Bednark
▪ Tunquist ran the huge circular saw on which most of the wood for Martin guitars was cut in the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. He is remembered by Tom Bednark, an early GAL member.
2017
AL#130 p.59 read this article
R.E. Brune
▪ Cooper was an early member of the GAL as well as a maker of large and detailed airplane models. He wrote what was at the time the only book in English about making a lute, based on the work of the Hauser family. He’s fondly remembered by R.E. Brune, who built lutes from that book in the 1970s.
2017
AL#130 p.52
R.M. Mottola
▪ Did ancient folk know what they were doing? Or did they just have the bad luck to be born too soon? This article can’t settle that question definitively, but it does give some new and helpful information for luthiers. Graphs compare the pitch accuracy of fret scales calculated by the 12th-root-of-2 method vs the Rule-of-18 method. Appropriate string length compensation is considered.
2017
AL#130 p.42
Paul Schmidt Jason Harshbarger
▪ A lot of the makers that we meet in the pages of American Lutherie are grizzled veterans of the early days. Not this one. Harshbarger is a young single father who went to lutherie school in the late 1990s, then survived on cabinet work until he could build a lutherie shop in his basement. His steel-string design work uses Steve Klein’s work as a point of departure, and moves forward boldly from there.
2017
AL#130 p.28
Erick Coleman Evan Gluck Eron Harding
▪ Erick, Evan, and Eron called this workshop “Making Bread with Bread-and-Butter Repairs.” Their emphasis was on tools and techniques to help you get a lot of the usual repair jobs done in a short time and at a high level of quality. from their 2014 GAL Convention workshop.
2017
AL#130 p.22
David Freeman
▪ Freeman has made a number of guitars with varying combinations of off-center soundholes, graduated body depth, rolled-over edges, and adjustable side ports. He gives us his thoughts on how these design factors interact and how they advance his quest for a more erognomic steel string guitar.
2017
AL#130 p.6
Tim Olsen Jason Lollar
▪ Jason Lollar attended the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery way back when founders John Roberts and Bob Venn were still instructors. Jason went on to do a lot of guitar repair and some guitar making, but his early interest in winding pickups eventually grew into a twenty-person shop specializing in reproducing vintage models.
2017
AL#130 p.2
James Condino
▪ James Condino remembers his friend and mentor Eugene Clark.
2017
AL#129 p.68
Charles Fox
▪ List of guitar finishing services.
2017
AL#129 p.68
John Calkin R.M. Mottola
▪ There is no company offering a torrifying service, but maybe you can do something similar in a home oven. I said maybe. Don’t blame the GAL if you make a stinking mess. Or worse.
2017
AL#129 p.68
Mark Dalton Andy Powers John Calkin
▪ Torrified wood has been baked at similar temperatures as baking potatoes, usually in a reduced-oxygen atmosphere. Seems to make the wood lighter in weight, darker in color, and stiffer across the grain.
2017
AL#129 p.68
Pete Daigle Reg Beardsley
▪ Make water-slide decals using specially prepared paper and the right brand of color laser printer. Plus a description of how one could make traditional water-slide decals in the old-school way, that is, by silk screening.
2017
AL#129 p.66
Jeff-Lee Manthos
▪ A trained violin maker takes a thoughtful look at this luxurious picture book cataloging the fine violins of deceased American makers. Mentions Rembert Wurlitzer, Rene Morel, William Salchow, Simone Sacconi, Thomas Metzler, Freelan Stanley.
2017
AL#129 p.64
John Calkin
▪ Calkin’s manifesto of outlaw lutherie. He says real lutherie can be fun, spontanious, quick, and cheap. Relax. It’s good for you.
2017
AL#129 p.63
Paul Neri
▪ This little caliper is made for use in the model-making craft.
2017
AL#129 p.63
Rick Rubin
▪ Use that firm packing foam stuff to clamp a bridge on a flattop guitar. The foam can conform to small transducers that may be glued to the bridge plate.
2017
AL#129 p.63
Kevin-B. Rielly
▪ Simple adjustable jig brings nut and saddle blanks to accurate dimensions in relative ease.
2017
AL#129 p.56 read this article
Cyndy Burton Marc Silber Brian Burns Michael Gurian Jay Hargreaves R.E. Brune Jeffrey R. Elliott Federico Sheppard
▪ Eugene Clark (1934-2016) was one of the earliest and most influential pioneers of the American Lutherie Boom. Mentions Manuel Ramirez, Domingo Esteso, Santos Hernandez, Jon Lundberg, Freddie Mejia, David Rubio, Michael Gurian, David Santo, Lucien Barnes, Freddie Mejia, David Serva, Warren White, Manuel Velazquez, Manouk Papazian.
2017
AL#129 p.52
R.M. Mottola
▪ Grab a piece of paper and a pencil. See if you can find that old plastic triangle. Mottola steps you through the process of actually drawing the outline of an Orchestra Model guitar. Keep a candle handy. If the power goes out you can keep working.
2017
AL#129 p.46
Lisa Hurlong
▪ Lisa Hurlong is an American guitarist who moved to Spain many years ago. The guitar scene in Granada is rich and active. The various guitar makers have deep connections to each other that go back across decades of apprenticeships and partnerships. The young makers she describes here include Jose Marin Plazuelo, Jose Gonzalez Lopez, Juan Antonio Correa Marin, Francisco Javier Munoz Alba, Jose Luis Vigil Pinera, Jesus Bellido, Mauricio Bellido, Juan Manuel Garcia Fernandez, and Juan Miguel Carmona Trapero. Also mentions Manuel Francisco Diaz, Antonio Duran, Rafael Moreno, Antonio Marin, Manuel Bellido, Jose Bellido (Pepe Lopez), Eduardo Ferrer, Victor Diaz, Juan Miguel Carmona, and Rafael Moreno.
2017
AL#129 p.38
Steve Denvir Dave Collins
▪ Dave Collins is a rising star on the guitar repair scene. Take a look at a couple of nice jigs he has developed; one for slotting saddles, one for regluing broken headstocks. Interestingly, he is in the same Ann Arbor third-storey shop previously tenanted by Herb David. Dave counts Dan Erlewine and Bryan Galloup among his mentors.
2017
AL#129 p.34
James Condino
▪ It’s a clean, simple classic from the golden era. These are the working man’s mandos that Gibson was making while Lloyd Loar was busy making the fancy ones in the next room.
2017
AL#129 p.24
James Condino
▪ Condino has developed a clever process by which he can string and play a new mandolin very early in the building process. This makes voicing much more accurate,a nd it reduces the risk of experimental materials and bracing patterns considerably. Must see to believe. Mentions the work of Lloyd Loar at the Gibson company in the 1920s.
2017
AL#129 p.20
C.F. Casey
▪ When a neighbor brought in “Grampa’s old guitar” for Fred Casey to look at, he got a shock. The guitar was a whopper. Or more properly, a monster. That’s what Lyon & Healy called this very wide guitar. It was pretty well smashed, but soon it was back in playing condition. Does this guitar make my hips look big?
2017
AL#129 p.12
John Calkin
▪ Calkin says real lutherie can be fun, spontanious, quick, and cheap. He makes a uke from a lumber-yard 2×4 to drive home the point.
2017
AL#129 p.6
Cyndy Burton Linda Manzer
▪ The prolific maker of high-end flattop and archtop guitars talks about her mentors Jean Larrivee and Jimmy D’Aquisto, the lutherie biz, her collaborations with guitarist Pat Metheny, and a recent project in cooperation with other Canadian luthiers. Also mentions Paul Simon.
2017
AL#129 p.3
Leo Bidne
▪ An electric guitar by pioneering designer Doc Kauffman uses a speaker cone in place of a resophonic cone.
2017
AL#129 p.3
Ralf Grammel
▪ The author praises Elliott and the GAL.
2017
AL#129 p.3
Clifford Wilkes
▪ This is one of many designs that makes a large steel-string guitar more ergonomic. The back is formed in three large flat facets.
2016
AL#128 p.71
Bob Benedetto
▪ What’s the best way to get better at lutherie?
2016
AL#128 p.70
James Buckland
▪ What can you tell me about this old French guitar?
2016
AL#128 p.70
Alain Bieber James Buckland
▪ What can you tell me about this old French guitar?
2016
AL#128 p.68
John Calkin
▪ Graham McDonald has written books about mandolin-family instrument construction as well as speaking at GAL Conventions and writing for AL. Now he has written a book about mandolin history, and long-time GAL member GD Armstrong likes it. John Calkin gives a good review to a recent addition to Robbie O’Brien’s large and deep online lutherie instruction catalog. This one focuses on Kent Carlos Everett’s fret work techniques.
2016
AL#128 p.68
G.D. Armstrong
▪ Graham McDonald has written books about mandolin-family instrument construction as well as speaking at GAL Conventions and writing for AL. Now he has written a book about mandolin history, and long-time GAL member GD Armstrong likes it. John Calkin gives a good review to a recent addition to Robbie O’Brien’s large and deep online lutherie instruction catalog. This one focuses on Kent Carlos Everett’s fret work techniques.
2016
AL#128 p.67
Harry Fleishman
▪ Make an adjustably-magnetic screwdriver.
2017
AL#128 p.67
Paul Neri
▪ Turn a rat-tail comb into a string wrangler.
2016
AL#128 p.67
C.F. Casey
▪ Locate dot markers on a fretboard. All you need is a short straightedge and a pencil.
2016
AL#128 p.66
Sjaak Elmendorp
▪ Add a straightedge to your shooting board setup.
2016
AL#128 p.66
Terence Warbey
▪ Glue temporary tabs onto your guitar plates to align them during construction.
2016
AL#128 p.65 read this article
James Westbrook John Doan
▪ Guild members knew Jim Forderer as the guy who brought an RV full of important antique guitars to the GAL Conventions and let us play them. Disabilities advocates and Neil Young fans knew him as the co-founder of The Bridge School. Sometimes the angels don’t look like angels. Maybe all the time.
2016
AL#128 p.58
James Blilie
▪ We all have ideas about the stiffness of brace wood, probably based on a combination of intuition, hearsay, and informal flexing. Blilie aims to accumulate more quantitave data. Here he reports on his latest tests. He also describes his methodology and the reasoning behind it. This is Blilie’s second article on this topic. The earlier one is in AL128. A third article appears in AL133.
2016
AL#128 p.48
Cyndy Burton Jeffrey-R. Elliott Gabriel Fleta
▪ His grandfather Ignacio Fleta was a violin maker who started making guitars after repairing instruments by Torres, and his father Gabriel Sr. made guitars for decades as one of the legendary “hijos” of Ignacio who made guitars for Segovia, John Williams, and many others. Gabriel Fleta Jr. has been making guitars since the 1970s and has now inherited the family business. We visit his shop in Barcelona.
2016
AL#128 p.32
Andrew Mowry
▪ Andrew Mowry was a one-man mandolin-making shop known for precise high-quality work. When he made the jump and brought a small but capable CNC mill into the mix, he was not trying to flood the market, but rather to further improve his work. All the tools and methods he shows here are well within reach; you don’t need to be a factory to afford it, and it won’t turn you into a factory if you try it. Mowry still runs a one-man shop known for precise high-quality work. From his 2014 convention workshop.
2016
AL#128 p.22
Pat Megowan Jeff-Lee Manthos
▪ People come to lutherie on many different paths. Some of us were nerdy model-making kids, or spoiled lefty college dropouts. Or maybe the garage band was our gateway into the opium den of guitar making. On the other hand, Jeff Manthos was a helicopter aircrewman and rescue swimmer in the Vietnam era. Then, unexpectedly, he went to the Violinmaking School of America in Salt Lake City. He has made a career of it, first in other shops and now on his own.
2016
AL#128 p.8
Alan Perlman
▪ Perlman runs though a restoration job on a Torres guitar, replacing a side and copying fancy purflings. Then he builds a replica of a Stahl Style 6 flattop. So when you are copying a century-old American guitar, how far do you go in the name of authenticity? Do you match the faded tones of the purfling, or use the nice bright colors that the Larson Brothers liked? Do you let the glue blobs roam free like they did, or get all tidy like a nervous modern maker? From his 2014 convention lecture.
2016
AL#128 p.3
Carl Samuels
▪ You know those new-fangled bevels that make fancy hand-made steel-string guitars more comfy to play? Ever wonder what it would be like to have a guitar that was beveled all the way around the body? American lutherie-boom pioneer Carl Samuels has already done it.
2016
AL#127 p.71 read this article
Deb Olsen Chris Herrod Alan Carruth Fred Carlson
▪ Ouch. It’s tough to lose an old friend like good ol’ Don Bradley. Maker of frequency generators, keeper of llamas, attender of GAL Conventions, super great guy.
2016
AL#127 p.67
Mike Doolin
▪ How do you make and locate pinless bridges for steel string guitars?
2016
AL#127 p.67
R.M. Mottola
▪ Where do you get cases for huge custom flattop basses?
2016
AL#127 p.67
Jamie Unden Chris Herrod Matt Brooker
▪ What are the rules about mentioning certain trade names in instructional videos?
2016
AL#127 p.65
Graham McDonald
▪ Take a photo of a ruler under the strings to duplicate nut spacing.
2016
AL#127 p.65
Rick Rubin
▪ Ironwood works great for bandsaw guides.
2016
AL#127 p.65
Gene Simpson
▪ Big Ziplock bags work for vacuum pressing.
2016
AL#127 p.61
John Littel
▪ Lots of luthiers are doing nice clean, sophisticated, carefully developed work. Yes, our standards of fit and finish are high these days. But have we squeezed the soul out of it? Did we lose the spark of wonder as we chased the phantom of perfection? Nah. But you might like to check out this book about a guy who feels inspired to make some primitive and heartfelt instruments out of whatever the Universe sends him. And the Universe has a sense of humor.
2016
AL#127 p.56
Greg Nelson
▪ What’s stiffer: a spruce brace with vertical grain, or one with flat grain? How about diagonal grain? How would you know? Here’s an attempt to gather some data and present it in a way that makes sense. Challenge your assumptions by reading this article.
2016
AL#127 p.46
Don Bradley Knutson
▪ John Knutson personifies the pioneers of the Lutherie Boom generation; a self-taught, self-confident selfstarter who jumped right into making instruments as a young man. He showed his first mandolin at the GAL’s 1980 convention in San Francisco, and briefly met David Grisman there. Decades later he recorded a CD with Dawg, using guitars and mandolins that he built. There is more to his interesting story.
2016
AL#127 p.38
Kevin Aram
▪ Conventional Wisdom says that rubbed-oil finishes are no good for guitars. Well, once again Conventional Wisdom is wearing a dunce cap, because Kevin Aram has made about 200 world-class classical guitars over the last twenty years using a finishing process that involves nothing but Liberon oil rubbed on with a rag. No sealer, no solvent, no compressor, no filters or exhaust fans. Heck, not even a brush. But it does require excellent surface preparation. He shows us exactly how to do it.
2016
AL#127 p.36
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ In an interview in AL127, Jeffrey Elliott goes into some depth about the development of his classical guitar pattern. That decades-long evolution has produced his current sophisticated and successful design, which is presented here in detail. Of course we offer it as a full-scale two-sheet plan.
2016
AL#127 p.34
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ In his interview, Elliott goes into some depth about the development of his classical guitar pattern. That decades-long evolution has produced his current sophisticated and successful design, which is presented here in detail. Of course we offer it as a full-scale two-sheet plan.
2016
AL#127 p.22
Chris Sobel Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Jeffrey R. Elliott has been a luthier for about 50 years, and a GAL member for about 40 years. He has over 50 GAL author credits to his name and has been a frequent GAL Convention presenter. The last time we interviewed him about his life and work was about 30 years ago, so there is a lot of catching up to do.
2016
AL#127 p.16
Robbie O’Brien Antonio Tessarin
▪ So you made a nice 6-string classical guitar for your client, and he loves it. Now he wants to play a 7-string. The guitar has a Spanish heel. What do you do? Saw off the neck and graft on a new one. Scary, but it turned out great. We see every gory step along the way.
2016
AL#127 p.4
Charles Rufino Stephen Marchione
▪ A guitar maker and a violin maker team up for a show-and-tell focusing on hide glue, sizing, linen reinforcement, hand-cut dovetail joints, and getting the best out of a spruce top wedge. From their 2014 GAL convention workshop.
2016
AL#127 p.2
Byron Spain
▪ A Guild member built a guitar from GAL Plan #33, which was drawn from Segovia’s famous Hauser. This new guitar was then analyzed and compared to other fine instruments.
2016
AL#126 p.70
Eric Meier
▪ What is Katalox and is it a good substitute for ebony.
2016
AL#126 p.70
Laurent Brondel
▪ What is the sonic relationship between the steel string bridge and bracing placement.
2016
AL#126 p.70
Tim Shaw
▪ Should the bottom surface of the nut on a steel string guitar be parallel with the bottom of the fretboard, or with the peghead?
2016
AL#126 p.69
Ed Smith
▪ Using a 13″ planer instead of a power sander to thin down guitar wood.
2016
AL#126 p.69
Jack-E. Johnston
▪ Repurposing a Rockler steamer.
2016
AL#126 p.68
John Cross
▪ To cut the slot for a truss rod or reinforcement bar in a guitar neck blank.
2016
AL#126 p.68
Todd Rose
▪ Using this sanding block is a simple and quick way to bring offending frets down perfectly level with others without disturbing them.
2016
AL#126 p.66
Bob Gleason
▪ Gleason has been making instruments for a long time and he’s used a lot of different grain fillers. And he has considerable experience with this particular brand. He likes it a lot.
2016
AL#126 p.62
Bryan Johanson
▪ The second edition of this important book is a considerable advance over the original.
2016
AL#126 p.60
R.M. Mottola
▪ RM describes, in plain English, the contents of two new articles of original research. In the first, high-powered microscopes are used to see if strings really do “wear out” or just get gunked up. In the other, a bunch of spruce samples are carefully finished and tested to see if different types of finish have different effects on acoustic damping.
2016
AL#126 p.58
Rick Rubin
▪ The same thing that makes crazy grain figure beautiful can make it hard to work with a plane. So use a sander, right? Well, not everyone finds that to be a helpful or welcome suggestion. For them, toothed planes and scraper planes can be the solution. Rubin argues that excellent antique tools are available at reasonable prices and will do the job well.
2016
AL#126 p.52
R.M. Mottola
▪ These simple jigs and techniques will help you quickly and easily get the alignment of a bolt-on guitar neck just right.
2016
AL#126 p.48
Robbie O’Brien Antonio Tessarin
▪ Robbie O’Brien keeps up a friendly lutherie competition with his old mentor Antonio Tessarin. Robbie is in Colorado and Antonio is in Brazil, but that’s no prob these days, what with the smartphones and the Interwebs and all that. In this article Antonio shows Robbie how he fixed a nasty smash on the edge of one of his own classical guitars. Sweet! What will Robbie do to one-up that?
2016
AL#126 p.38
James Blilie
▪ How strong is glue? Like, is Titebond stonger than hide glue? Aside from forming generalized opinions based on observation or making assumptions based on conventional wisdom, how would you know? Jim Blilie proposes a test method to help us get more organized. It involves breaking a lot of little sticks.
2016
AL#126 p.36
R.E. Brune
▪ In 1992, GAL stalwart R.E. Brune measured and photographed this instrument, which Segovia famously called “the greatest guitar of our epoch” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Technology has changed for the better since then, and we are delighted to present this new edition of the plan, featuring color printing and razor-sharp lines.
2016
AL#126 p.34
R.E. Brune
▪ In 1992, GAL stalwart R.E. Brune measured and photographed this instrument, which Segovia famously called “the greatest guitar of our epoch” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Technology has changed for the better since then, and we are delighted to present this new edition of the plan, featuring color printing and razor-sharp lines.
2016
AL#126 p.32
Sean Barry
▪ So if you did go down to the butcher shop and get a big ol’ cow bone to make saddles and nuts, what would be your next step? Make some soup. No, really. That’s the first step to preparing bone for lutherie use. But it gets less appetizing after that.
2016
AL#126 p.22
Alex Glasser Brian Michael
▪ Brian and Alex cover a number of interesting repair projects including crack repair and finish touchup on satin-finished guitars, cracked heel blocks, magnets, steamers, and even using a parked car as a neck heater. From their 2014 GAL Convention workshop.
2016
AL#126 p.12
Federico Sheppard Sebastian Nunez
▪ Sebastián Núñez was a teenager in a Buenos Aires garage band, making electric guitars and pickups and searching for prog rock records, until he followed his girlfriend to the Netherlands to escape the troubles in Argentina. There he fell in with a historic-house-restoring, Harley-riding, early-music luthier. He read every early-music magazine in the Utrecht University library while commuting to work. Now he’s an old master, making and restoring lutes, Romantic guitars, and harpsichords. Our globetrotting reporter Federico Sheppard drops in on his busy workshop.
2016
AL#126 p.6
Michael DaSilva
▪ DaSilva builds the uke body normally, then rips into it with a saw and a big honkin’ chisel. He fits a bent wood gore, then binds it, which is complicated by the changing angle. He demonstrated the whole process live at the 2014 GAL Convention.
2016
AL#126 p.5
Tomasz Cierpisz
▪ Tomasz says right on to the tonewood article in AL#69, A Heretics Guide to Alternative Lutherie Woods.
2016
AL#125 p.69
Steve Kinnaird Howard Klepper
▪ Thoughts on locating the X bracing when designing 12 fret steel string guitar.
2016
AL#125 p.69
Jose Romanillos
▪ Is a 4 piece spruce top as good as a 2 piece?
2016
AL#125 p.69
Jeffrey Yong
▪ Types of wood found in fancy wood panelling in Chinese hotels.
2016
AL#125 p.64
Mark French
▪ Professor Mark French and his college students attempt to move the first two frets back a little, and push the nut forward a lot for mathematical accuracy.
2016
AL#125 p.48
James Condino
▪ James Condino does sunbursts on archtop mandolins the way they did it back in the 1920s: rubbing water stains directly on the bare wood.
2016
AL#125 p.38
January Williams Patrick Huff
▪ Doc is a self-reliant man, independent thinker, joyful inventor, world traveler, and maker of highly original and unusual frailing banjos using a dizzying selection of gorgeous woods.
2016
AL#125 p.34
R.E. Brune
▪ A detailed plan of a nice Santos flamenco guitar in the personal collection of R.E. Brune. A full-scale instrument plan. See the GAL website for a low-rez preview.
2016
AL#125 p.28
Federico Sheppard R.E. Brune
▪ On his quest for the secrets of Santos, Federico visits a permanent exhibit of Santos’ original tools and forms.
2016
AL#125 p.24
Federico Sheppard
▪ Santos Hernandez, universally considered one of 20th century’s Spanish guitar makers, had a reputation for secrecy. Federico Sheppard travels to Madrid to find the truth.
2016
AL#125 p.20
James Blilie Alan Carruth
▪ Blilie and Carruth examine the stiffness and density of individual wood samples, making the process more quantifiable.
2016
AL#125 p.12
David Goen Tom Bills
▪ Tom Bill’s journey to a successful guitar maker and lutherie teacher, with some twists and turns along the way.
2016
AL#125 p.4
Jay Lichty
▪ Jay Lichty demonstrates the entire construction process of ukulele fiber sleeve soundports. From his 2014 GAL convention workshop.
2016
AL#125 p.3
James Buckland
▪ Buckland recounts visits to Dejonges home and shop.
2016
AL#125 p.3
James Blilie
▪ The Leonardo Guitar Research Project gathered very many data during their testing, which strengthens the confidence in the findings.
2015
AL#124 p.71
David Cohen
▪ Would a guitar be twice as loud if it to be all strung in double unison courses? The short answer is no. Dr. Dave gives the long answer.
2015
AL#124 p.69
Jeff Jewitt
▪ It’s not easy, but it is possible to spray shellac. Here’s how.
2015
AL#124 p.69
Jeff Jewitt
▪ Working with commercially-branded tung oil can be complicated. It may have unnamed additives, or may contain no actual tung oil at all. But yes, it is possible to produce a gloss finish by wiping tung oil.
2015
AL#124 p.69
Jim Wimmer
▪ Folks who only use Titebond, or who live in comfortably cool countries, may think that traditional hide glue would not hold up in a hot, humid climate. Jim Wimmer has yars of experience as a violin maker and repairer in India. He says hide glue does just fine.
2015
AL#124 p.65
John Calkin
▪ Calkin finds more treasure in the rich mine of Robbie O’Brien’s online lutherie instruction. Instructor Geoff Burghardt covers the process in detail in the 13-hour course.
2015
AL#124 p.62
Robert Miller
▪ Victor Pfeil was an old-school violin maker in the 1920s when he invented and then patented an electric solid body violin using a coil pickup.It did not set the world on fire, and Victor continued to make and repair violins for a few more decades. Author Robert Miller was a young man who knew Pfiel at the end of his career.
2015
AL#124 p.58
Todd Mylet
▪ Pull a couple frets, chip out two hunks of the fretboard, sink a couple screws, and glue the chips back in. You might not want to do this on a fine vintage instrument, but not every guitar that comes through the door is a pre-war D-28. Am I right?
2015
AL#124 p.48
Brian Michael Alex Glasser
▪ Even when an off-the-shelf OEM bridge is available, it might not be the best choice for an older guitar. Brian shows us his method of making a matching Martin-style bridge from the broken original. Alex goes a step further and reproduces a failed bridge from a Gibson SJ-200, which is complicated by pearl inlay and cutout wings. From their 2014 GAL Convention workshop.
2015
AL#124 p.38
Robbie O’Brien
▪ Robbie O’Brien gets around. Among his many lutherie related projects, he recently went to Spain to film an instructional video on making a flamenco guitar. He met up with some great folks over there and brought home lots of great lutherie info. Warning: This article contains brief mentions of food, dance, song, architecture, passion, history, beauty, and cultural richness. There’s a big, wonderful world out there.
2015
AL#124 p.36
Tomas Orellana
▪ A full-scale instrument plan. See the GAL website for a low-rez preview.
2015
AL#124 p.32
Tomas Orellana
▪ The bandola is many things to many people. Several traditional varients exist in northern South America. They share a deep, pear-shaped body, but the number and tuning of strings differ considerably. Author Orellana describes them, then focuses on one regional version.
2015
AL#124 p.26
Mark Swanson Bryan Galloup
▪ Bryan Galloup was raised in a family of machinists, hot-rod makers, and self-sufficent can-do types. As a teenager he had the good fortune to be mentored by guitar repair guru Dan Erlewine, and he eventually took over Dan’s shop.Today Bryan builds and repairs guitars while also running an active lutherie school.
2015
AL#124 p.23
Jacky Walraet Brian Garston
▪ Everybody loves rosewood. Sounds great, looks great. In fact, it looks so great that we might be “hearing” its lovely, familiar deep color. Would non-tropical woods also make good-sounding guitars? And would they “sound” different if we took off the blindfold? To answer these questions, the Leonardo Guitar Research Project built a matched set of fifteen guitars and compared them under controlled conditions.
2015
AL#124 p.16
Steve Denvir Sergei de-Jonge
▪ It’s one of the founding legends of the American Lutherie Boom: the tale of Jean Larrivee’s original workshop in Toronto over forty years ago and the ragged young crew of would-be luthiers who gravitated there. From that beginning, Sergei de Jonge went on to found a lutherie dynasty in the Canadian back country.
2015
AL#124 p.4
Michael DaSilva Bob Gleason Jay Lichty Woodley White
▪ Four prolific uke makers take us into their shops to talk about how and why they build. From their 2014 GAL Convention panel discussion.
2015
AL#123 p.71
Don MacRostie
▪ When tuners changed from ‘worm under’ to ‘worm over’ and why.
2015
AL#123 p.69
Andy Powers Steve Smith
▪ Wiping with acetone VS not wiping, epoxy VS wood glues, and other contradictory information.
2015
AL#123 p.69
C.F. Casey
▪ More thoughts on the use of the word “chocolaty” to describe guitar sound.
2015
AL#123 p.69
C.F. Casey
▪ Quick info on suggested standard action for ukes.
2015
AL#123 p.66
Peter Yelda
▪ Yelda put a handle on an old block plane blade and finds it has a multitude of uses.
2015
AL#123 p.66
Mark Frazier
▪ Expanding earplugs are perfect for keeping peg holes holes clean of finish material.
2015
AL#123 p.66
Tip House
▪ Making purfling strips by gluing together a sheet of veneers in the shape of a side, then slicing the strips off on the bandsaw.
2015
AL#123 p.64
John Calkin
▪ This online course provides information that an endless and distracting internet search will not yield.
2015
AL#123 p.62
Greg Nelson
▪ Controlling the distance between the pin and the bit is the whole game when cutting circles with a router. Here’s a new way to do it that offers very fine control and no threads. Elegant!.
2015
AL#123 p.58
John Calkin
▪ Calkin has purfled and bound a lot of steel string guitars, both in his own shop and in his day job at Huss&Dalton. Here he shows us his current techniques to do a quick, clean, tight job with the traditional fancy trims.
2015
AL#123 p.52
Peter Rosenbladt
▪ Building an octave guitar, a small guitar tuned one octave higher than a regular guitar, which is common in Germany.
2015
AL#123 p.40
January Williams Ken Altman
▪ Ken Altman is a bow maker living in Silverton Oregon, and is part of the group that produces the Northwest Handmade Musical Instrument Show.
2015
AL#123 p.39
Craig Sullivan
▪ This popular plan gives full-scale views of each of four sizes of ukuleles. Be sure to read the article “A Modern Uke Family” in AL#123.
2015
AL#123 p.34
Craig Sullivan
▪ The organization New England Luthiers puts the challenge to its membership to each build a ukulele and share the finished instruments when complete.
2015
AL#123 p.30
Nupi Jenner
▪ Finding a practical solution for bending the plates of bowed or plucked instruments to the desired arching, before carving. The author approaces the problem from a background in viola da gamba by traditional methods.
2015
AL#123 p.29
Grit Laskin
▪ Larrivee’s bracing pattern might have come from his classical sensibility; the Martin method didn’t make sense to him. Laskin has been doing it Larrivee’s way for forty years.
2015
AL#123 p.24
Steve Denvir Sergei de-Jonge Grit Laskin Linda Manzer David Wren
▪ Remembrances of long-ago days working in Jean Larrivee’s Toronto shop by guitar makers who are now considered some of the best in the world.
2015
AL#123 p.16
D.-and-F. Sinier-de-Ridder
▪ This guitar, built in 1875, is the 2nd instrument made in the second epoch of Antonio de Torres, and was subjected to numerous botched repairs over the years. The authors undertake a thorough restoration to put the guitar in playing condition.
2015
AL#123 p.4
Charles Rufino
▪ Why do some instruments made with a rough, crude style have an essence that draws you in, whereas ones meticulously perfect in every degree leave you cold? Rufino examines this question from his point of view as a violin maker with excellent traditional credentials of training.
2015
AL#122 p.70
Daniele Dubois Claudia Fritz
▪ Arguing in favor of defining a tone as ‘chocolaty’ based on multidisciplinary research expertise combining acoustics, psychology, and linguistics.
2015
AL#122 p.70
Chris Herrod
▪ The best quality bone nuts, saddles, and pins come from India.
2015
AL#122 p.70
Guy Rabut
▪ Very little pattern making in wood today eliminates a large demand for these gouges.
2015
AL#122 p.67
Peggy Stuart
▪ Reviewer says the book is a fascinating look at the lives and stories that members of the lutherie community tell about how the current golden age of lutherie came about.
2015
AL#122 p.60
Bob Gleason
▪ Gleason is a subjective builder, everything is tactile, and he gets his signature sound regardless of bracing style. From his 2014 GAL convention workshop.
2015
AL#122 p.48
Juan-Oscar Azaret
▪ Three sister guitars were constructed to study the sonic effects of the very different Kasha, Fleta, and Romanillos bracing designs.
2015
AL#122 p.40
Linda Stuckey Evan Gluck
▪ The life and work of repair-tech role model Evan Gluck, renowned owner of New York Guitar Repair.
2015
AL#122 p.39
Jan-Van Cappelle
▪ A body mold for a tiny guitar exists in the collection of Stradivari’s tools and jigs, but no such guitar has been discovered. This is a thoughtful recreation of what such a guitar may have been, based on the surviving guitars of Stadivari.
2015
AL#122 p.25
Jan-Van Cappelle
▪ An examination of the surviving guitars and guitar forms of Stradivari.
2015
AL#122 p.8
Nick Kukich Cyndy Burton
▪ Nick takes our reporter through the process of making a Franklin OM guitar.
2015
AL#122 p.4
Cyndy Burton Jeffrey-R. Elliott Nick Kukich Jeanne Kukich
▪ Nick and Jeanne Kukich, pop and mom of Franklin Guitars, discuss their 25 plus year partnership in life and work.
2015
AL#122 p.2
Glen Friesen
▪ Friesen checks in about his ongoing efforts to teach lutherie as a woodshop subject in a Canadian public middle school.
2015
AL#121 p.71
Jason Villa
▪ The four traditional sizes of ukuleles and their tuning details.
2015
AL#121 p.71
Walter Carter
▪ The reasons for guitar size increase during the first half of the 20th century.
2015
AL#121 p.69
John Calkin
▪ Pursuing cheap guitar designs that sound good.
2015
AL#121 p.68
R.M. Mottola
▪ Conversion formula for modeling the relationship between the torque on a bolt and the clamping pressure of the bolt in threaded inserts.
2015
AL#121 p.68
Randy Holmes
▪ Information on restoring an old Sunburst Silvertone, in bad shape and missing the pickguard.
2015
AL#121 p.68
Cyndy Burton
▪ Tricks and techniques for finishing slotted headstocks.
2015
AL#121 p.67
Jerry Hoffmann
▪ Slotless nut for ukes and guitars. It uses alignment pins.
2015
AL#121 p.67
Ed Smith
▪ Bending herringbone by taping it down and ironing.
2015
AL#121 p.65
Clifford Wilkes
▪ Wilkes adds binding to the inside edge of a soundhole and avoids clamping damage by using a PVC pipe almost exactly the diameter of the soundhole.
2015
AL#121 p.65
David Freeman
▪ Sanding delicate pierced inserts on two mirror-image ukuleles using a doorstop spring and an L-shaped bracket.
2015
AL#121 p.63
Greg Nelson
▪ Nelson gives a positive review to the Channel Scraper, a simple tool for shaping the edge of a violin plate.
2015
AL#121 p.62
John Calkin
▪ Calkin likes the Edgemate Carbide Knife Sharpener. It’s intended for pocket knives and the like, but it’s also useful for a number of lutherie tools.
2015
AL#121 p.60
John Calkin
▪ Calkin looks at several books on ukulele, guitar, and American history, and finds interesting connections.
2015
AL#121 p.60
Gregory Miller
▪ Miller reviews The Qualities of Craftsmanship, a thoughtful little book self-published by GAL stalwart Kent Everett.
2015
AL#121 p.58
R.M. Mottola
▪ RM Mottola works to build bridges between the dusty bustle of the lutherie shop and the bookish clutter of the egghead’s cubicle. (If the word “math” does not evoke a shuddering fear based on high-school humiliation, check out the Savart Journal, an online research publication hosted by the GAL.) RM describes, in plain English, the contents of two new articles of original research.
2015
AL#121 p.52
Ralph Novak
▪ Ralph has built a lot of multiscale guitars under his “Fanned-Fret” trademark. Here he looks at the advantages and possibilities of the multiscale approach and gives solid technical advice on cutting accurate multiscale fretboards.
2015
AL#121 p.42
Paul Schmidt
▪ Hey all you old hippie guitar makers in the first wave of the American Lutherie Boom: Guess what? Our crazy, beautiful, oh-wow-man dream came true. A generation of young Europeans took a look across the Atlantic and dug our lutherie love-fest. They started an organization to freely share info and encouragement. It only took them four decades, but they finally caught the true religion from us. And they are doing amazing, wild, and wonderful work. I told you this cooperation stuff would work.
2015
AL#121 p.34
Federico Sheppard Manuel Diaz
▪ Manuel Diaz learned lutherie decades ago in a little shop in his hometown. Then he moved across the street and opened his own shop.But what a town, and what a street! This is the Cuesta Gomerez in Granada, Spain.
2015
AL#121 p.28
Woodley White
▪ At the 2014 GAL Convention, each of the four makers on our ukulele panel took the opportunity to present short workshops in which they brought the attendees up close to some of their workbench techniques. Our coverge starts here with Woodley White, who showed six different neck joints for ukes; Spanish, dovetail, spline, domino, barrel-nut, and threaded-insert. He made one of each, and explains the differences.
2015
AL#121 p.16
James Condino Arnold Schnitzer
▪ Arnold Schnitzer was a young and successful working musician in the New York City area. When he found himself with the grown-up responsibilities of a wife and child, he decided to settle down and get a real job. Amusingly, that real job was hand-making string basses. But it has worked out well, so you never know. You’ll be glad you met him in this wide-ranging and lavishly illustrated interview.
2015
AL#121 p.4
James Westbrook
▪ The emergence of the X-braced steel string as the quintessential American guitar was the big pop-music story of the 20th century, as well as the cultural foundation for the American Lutherie Boom a few decades later. The Martin company made the first American X-braced guitars in the 1840s.
2015
AL#121 p.3
John LeClare
▪ John LeClaire builds a hurdy gurdy using GAL plan #49 and makes a few changes.
2014
AL#120 p.71
Graham McDonald
▪ Generalizing the tonal differences among the top woods, redwood, western red cedar, port oxford cedar, and the spruces.
2014
AL#120 p.71
Kevin Aram
▪ A foolproof method to cut the slots in the neck of a classical guitar to accept the ribs with no wedges.
2014
AL#120 p.70
Ralph Charles Tom Thiel
▪ Ponderings on the current plentiful supply of red spruce.
2014
AL#120 p.70
Cyndy Burton
▪ Preventing the impressing of a cloth weave pattern into the not-quite hard shellac following a French polish session.
2014
AL#120 p.70
Fan Tao
▪ Determining whether to use wound or plain strings for odd-sized plucked instruments.
2014
AL#120 p.70
Andrew LaBonte
▪ Information on removing vinegar stains in spruce.
2014
AL#120 p.70
Dave Rauscher
▪ Karin-Rost in Germany is a good source for custom wooden inlays.
2014
AL#120 p.69
Jack-E. Johnston
▪ A Formica-topped clipboard facilitates the sanding of nuts and saddles.
2014
AL#120 p.69
Lennis Laviolette
▪ Making classic guitar armrests from scrap rosewood.
2014
AL#120 p.67
Jack-E. Johnston
▪ Alternative to holding a 5″ speaker to generate chlandi patterns.
2014
AL#120 p.66
Tom Harper
▪ A small downdraft table for a sanding drum in a drillpress is a handy shop item that can be used for shaping and thicknessing.
2014
AL#120 p.64
Eron Harding
▪ Techy gizmos soon go from being cutting-edge miracles to being commodified trinkets, and that can bring the price down like crazy. Harding ordered a cheap borescope from Amazon. The crazy thing doesn’t even have a brand name on it. But the bang per buck is hard to beat.
2014
AL#120 p.62
David Schneider
▪ Keep it simple. Sketch an outline on a piece of butcher paper. Go down to the Home Depot and get a few boards of that pink stuff that they call “mahogany.” Saw it up, bend it freehand, glue it onto blocks. Pretty soon you have a lap steel, no forms, jigs, or patterns needed.
2014
AL#120 p.54
Jerry Hoffmann
▪ Hoffman’s ukes look like their necks have no heels. They do, he says, but the heels are just on the inside of the body. He gives us a detailed look at building two different styles.
2014
AL#120 p.53
Nasser Shirazi
▪ This plan is for the Tanbour, a traditional Persian instrument which is a long-necked lute with three thin steel strings and tied gut frets.
2014
AL#120 p.50
Nasser Shirazi
▪ Mr. Shirazi has given us articles and plans about other instruments used in Persian classical music in the past. He adds to the collection with GAL Instrument Plan #69, the Tanbour, a long-necked lute with three thin steel strings.
2014
AL#120 p.48
Jayson Bowerman
▪ Bowerman steps us through the process of making an exactly-matching outside template from an existing inside template. The process is useful for making body molds and side-bending jigs from half-patterns.
2014
AL#120 p.40
Tom Harper Jayson Bowerman
▪ Many of us in the Lutherie Boom generation started as pre-teen modelmakers or would-be wood crafters. Not Jayson Bowerman. He was studying manufacturing processes in college when he did his first woodworking in a shop class. Soon he was doing R&D at Breedlove.
2014
AL#120 p.30
David Smith
▪ David Smith is a guitarist and lutenist who has wanted to make guitars and lutes for decades. But he was distracted by school, career, family, and stuff like that. His self-starting lutherie adventures never took off. Recently he signed up for an eight-day one-on-one session with lutherie teacher Robbie O’Brien, and finally got that guitar built.
2014
AL#120 p.21
Evan Gluck
▪ Evan Gluck is doing just great as a one-man guitar repair operation, working out of his apartment in New York City. He has some simple and effective ideas about promotion and customer relations that really hit the spot with his audience at the recent 2014 GAL Convention.
2014
AL#120 p.6
Monica Esparza Josep Melo
▪ Melo has been making guitars since the ’60s. In the ’90s he began to seek out and collaborate with the makers whose work he found the most inspiring. He published a gorgeous coffee-table book about it called Following the Masters. His deepest collaboration has been with fellow Spaniard Jose Romanillos. Ironically, they met at the 1995 GAL Convention in Tacoma.
2014
AL#120 p.5
Dion Costigan
▪ About a 1979 Ted Beringer guitar.
2014
AL#119 p.71 read this article
Ervin Somogyi
▪ Steve was a guitarist, luthier, scholar, author, and experimenter who was a GAL member for twenty years and a regular at our conventions. He will be missed. Steve Newberry (Jan 2, 1928 – Aug 8, 2014).
2014
AL#119 p.68
Leo Lospennato Mark French John Bogdanovich
▪ Extensive advice on conceiving, structuring, and publishing a book on guitar building.
2014
AL#119 p.68
Ken Altman
▪ Creating a violin bow using Arabian mare black horsetail hair.
2014
AL#119 p.67
Charles Freeborn
▪ Adapting the dreadnaught-size Freestyle model to the small dimensions of a parlor guitar.
2014
AL#119 p.67
Rodney Stedall
▪ Cutting, de-furring, and sanding tentellones for insertion.
2014
AL#119 p.64
Kevin-B. Rielly
▪ Developing a cheap, easy to make neck and angle jig to build an instrument based on plans for a 1957 Gibson J-45 instrument.
2014
AL#119 p.64
David Thormahlen
▪ An ebony finger rest for those who rest their fingers while playing the mandolin and wear out the finish on the top.
2014
AL#119 p.60
Manuel Velazquez Cyndy Burton Eugene Clark Armin Kelly Robert Ruck Jeffrey R. Elliott Paul Szmanda
▪ Manuel Velazquez made a lot of friends and fans in his exceptionally long career as a maker of fine classical guitars. Here are a few remembrances a few folks who admired his work and his life.
2014
AL#119 p.58
John Mello
▪ John Mello examines two favorite issues of The Fretboard Journal, #32 and #7, and relates the pleasure of the articles with his own mentorship experiences, in particular with Alvino Rey.
2014
AL#119 p.54
R.M. Mottola
▪ Remember the good old Versa Vise? They don’t make it any more. Boo! But now Garrett Wade makes a similar unit. Yay! Is it any good? Mottola takes a close look and delivers his report.