Category Archives: flattop

Meet the Maker: John Jordan

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.

Let’s Catch up with Harry Fleishman

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.

The Monster in the Attic

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?

Three Flattop Acoustic Basses

2013
AL#113 p.54               
Graham McDonald                                                                                           

▪ Gerard Gilet, Jim Williams, and Graham McDonald each built acoustic basses simultaneously in Sydney, Australia using the limited information that was readily available in the late 1980s.

Building for Playability

2009
AL#99 p.7      ALA4 p.52         
David Freeman                                                                                           

▪ Some features of guitar construction make the instrument functional for normal humans and tuneful music making, and getting them wrong can/will destroy the guitars usefulness. Other features aren’t necessary but may make the instrument more comfortable to play or offer extended musical capabilities. Freeman addresses both aspects in this article taken from his 2008 GAL convention workshop. He’s not the least bit shy about reconfiguring the guitar’s shape or features to make musicians better and happier. Whether or not you wish to make such alterations, much of this stuff you better know if you wish to make musical instruments rather than guitar-shaped objects. With 5 photos, 3 charts, and a drawing.

Meet the Maker: Jay Hargreaves

2005
AL#83 p.44   BRB7 p.380            
Todd Rose   Jay Hargreaves                                                                                       

▪ Bass maker Hargreaves is hardly a stranger to AL readers. Here he stands on the other end of the interview as he discusses his work as well as his affiliations with Michael Kasha and Richard Schneider.

Plywood

2003
AL#73 p.57   BRB7 p.20            
R.M. Mottola                                                                                           

▪ Does plywood have a place in the luthier’s bag of tricks? The author thinks it may, and gives us some examples to think about. With 2 photos.

The Bassola

2000
AL#64 p.44   BRB6 p.136            
R.M. Mottola                                                                                           

▪ The author’s invention is an attempt to create the tone of the upright bass in a more portable instrument. The Bassola is a carved-plate instrument very much like a huge F-model mandolin, though not as large as a bass mandolin. It utilizes standard bass guitar strings and “fits in any car.” With 9 photos.

Electronic Answer Man

1995
AL#42 p.51   BRB4 p.416            
Rick Turner                                                                                           

▪ Turner’s system of tuning an acoustic guitar pickup is elaborate. He also talks about amps for the acoustic guitar.

In Defense of Short Scale Basses

1989
AL#17 p.50   BRB2 p.153            
Michael Sacek                                                                                           

▪ Sacek prefers a scale length of 31″ for bass fiddles and bass guitars. The article contains no plans, but offers enough food for thought that builders should take his ideas into consideration. In the one photo his instruments look pretty interesting.

Lost Shirts and Curved Braces

1987
AL#12 p.54   BRB1 p.464            
Harry Fleishman                                                                                           

▪ These three articles augment Tim Olsen’s initial bass offering in American Lutherie #9, and as a collection they still offer the largest fund of information on the creation of the acoustic bass guitar to reach print.

A Port, but No Pins

1987
AL#12 p.56   BRB1 p.468            
William McCaw                                                                                           

▪ These three articles augment Tim Olsen’s initial bass offering in American Lutherie #9, and as a collection they still offer the largest fund of information on the creation of the acoustic bass guitar to reach print.

Tap It and Tune It

1987
AL#12 p.58   BRB1 p.470            
David Freeman                                                                                           

▪ These three articles augment Tim Olsen’s initial bass offering in American Lutherie #9, and as a collection they still offer the largest fund of information on the creation of the acoustic bass guitar to reach print.

Building the Flattop Bass

1987
AL#9 p.24   BRB1 p.322            
Tim Olsen                                                                                           

▪ Olsen offers the philosophy, theory, construction details, and plans for a new instrument. The plans are a shrunken version of GAL full scale Plan #13. Though Olsen and a few others began building flattop basses in the 1970s, in a real sense this article is the birth certificate of the instrument. The flattop bass is a flattop guitar on steroids, not to be confused with the bass viol.

This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.