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.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.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.
2023
AL#150 p.68
Dan Alexander
▪ Make your sanding dish even more useful.
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.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.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.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.
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.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#148 p.70
Federico Sheppard
▪ For guitar back braces: Arch them first, then taper them with this simple jig.
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#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.
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.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#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.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.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#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.”
2020
AL#141 p.70
Todd Cambio
▪
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#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#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#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.
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#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.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.
2018
AL#135 p.69
Mark Hatcher
▪ What’s the deal with hardwood tops on steel string guitars?
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.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.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.
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.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.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#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.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#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.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.
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.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.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.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#130 p.71
Thomas Bazzolo
▪ How did Thomas Humphrey brace his Millenium guitars?
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.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.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#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#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.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#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.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.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.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.
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.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.
2009
AL#100 p.6 ALA5 p.60
Gary Southwell
▪ Southwell on using historical influences in contemporary work and design. From his 2006 GAL convention lecture.
2009
AL#100 p.30 read this article
James Blilie
▪ A structural engineer and guitar builder gives his two cents on the guitar as a structure.
2009
AL#99 p.22 ALA1 p.36
Dana Bourgeois
▪ Taken from his 2008 GAL convention lecture, the author explains the basic functioning of a guitar top and how he manipulates the plates and braces to achieve the sound he’s after. Mostly, he says, he’s after the most different tap tones that the top and back can produce, but there are many other details given along the way. Bourgeois is often regarded as one of the champions of tap tuning. With 9 photos, 6 charts, and a bunch of diagrams.
2008
AL#95 p.65 read this article
Joe Herrick
▪ The reviewer not only learned a lot about choosing tops and designing brace patterns, he had a very good time. The class took him beyond building generic guitars and into the realm of building the specific guitars that he andor his customers want to hear.
2008
AL#94 p.64
R.M. Mottola
▪ The builder followed the work of Greg Smallman in this lattice-braced guitar, though he omitted the carbon fiber used in Smallman’s designs. He found the system to be so successful that he abandoned traditional brace patterns in subsequent guitars. With 4 photos.
2008
AL#95 p.8
Alain Bieber
▪ Amateur luthier Bieber and his professional mentor pursue a new direction in classical guitar bracing that spans 10 guitars over the course of the article. Although Greg Smallman is quoted as an inspiration, the Al-Tho designs look nothing like the lattice system we’ve become familiar with. Nor do they look like anything else seen to date. Very interesting stuff. With 11 photos, 2 diagrams, and 2 charts.
2008
AL#93 p.10
Jonathon Peterson Robert Ruck
▪ Ruck has been one of the bright lights among American classical guitar makers for a long time, and this lengthy interview not only shows him to be a fascinating individual with an interesting history, but dwells at some length on the development of his guitars and the bracing patterns and other features he has evolved. Among his influences are Juan Mercadal, John Shaw, Hart Huttig, Neil Ostberg, and Manuel Barrueco. With 24 photos and a bracing diagram.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
2007
AL#91 p.69 read this article
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Reinforcing the bracing of a 10-string guitar, similar to Jeffrey Elliott’s design.
2007
AL#92 p.5
Benz Tschannen
▪ Benz is doing some pretty sophisticated work with classical guitar tops stiffened with graphite threads and epoxy.
2007
AL#92 p.48 ALA1 p.92
Harry Fleishman
▪ This is a transcript of Fleishman’s 2006 GAL Convention workshop.He demonstrated how he could tailor the sound of his guitar by adding, removing, and shaping braces. He also showed slide shows of a similar project by Mark Berry, and the process of cutting an access panel into a finished guitar by Darrel Adams. With 15 photos.
2007
AL#92 p.52 ALA1 p.95
Mark Swanson John Calkin
▪ Mark Swanson brought a brand-new guitar to Harry Fleishman’s 2006 Convention workshop, and had the guts to recut the braces there under Harry’s tutelage with an audience of luthiers looking on. Everyone agreed the results were positive. With 2 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
2007
AL#91 p.24 read this article
Steve Andersen
▪ This is a very detailed look at how a notable builder of archtop guitars fits tone bars and bridges to his instruments. With 22 photos.
2007
AL#90 p.46 read this article
Rodney Stedall Mervyn Davis
▪ Davis’ South African upbringing inspires a wonderful decorative sense in his instruments. He’s built a ton of different stuff but may end up best known for his wildly unique modular guitars called Smooth Talkers. With 16 photos.
2007
AL#89 p.42
Brent Benfield
▪ Lattice bracing in various forms seems here to stay. Norris’ construction method uses graphite fibers in epoxy, and is unique in that it allows the guitar to be strung before the body is officially closed, permitting tuning of the top while the braces are still completely accessible. With 18 photos and a diagram.
2006
AL#88 p.5 read this article
Scott van-Linge
▪ The writer takes exception to some of the brace work done by John Calkin in his AL #85 article, “Resurrecting the Family Guitar”. Van Linge is the current leading proponent of parabolic bracing. Parabolic and ramped bracing (to coin a term) vary significantly in shape and true believers have a large stake in one or the other. Their discussions are fascinating, and since only side-by-side comparison of similar guitars can offer distinctions the general public is usually left to make decisions based on no real evidence. Which is how lutherie mythology is maintained. There’s a truth somewhere, but how do we dig it out?
2006
AL#87 p.48 ALA5 p.58
Alastair Fordyce
▪ The author hunts wolf notes with a lump of clay, and once he finds the spot that cures them he swaps out the clay for a bit of wood that weighs the same as the clay. Pretty ingenious, huh? And it ought to work as well for any other instrument. It may not be bracing in the strictest sense, but if it works, it works. With 4 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2006
AL#86 p.50
John Calkin
▪ This is another of the author’s attempts to save a ruined instrument without ruining the customer’s bank account. The subject this time is a WWI-era Gibson army-navy style mandolin. With 14 photos.
2005
AL#83 p.18 BRB7 p.364
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Restoring famous instruments is a tricky business. If they are also old, well-played, and abused by poor storage facilities the work becomes a cross between knowledge, craft, and art. Elliott goes where few of us would care to travel, explaining every step of restoration as he goes. Perhaps as important is what he doesn’t do. The ethics of restoration is a foundation of the story. With 42 photos as well as a 2-page spread of GAL full-size plan #52.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
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.
2005
AL#82 p.6 BRB7 p.320
Fred Carlson
▪ Carlson makes some of the world’s coolest, most graceful, and weirdest stringed instruments. Focusing on a harp guitar he calls the Flying Dream he discusses at length how he designs and builds his creations. There is lots of detailed info here that will help you build the instruments you see in your mind, as opposed to the ones for which you can already buy a blueprint. Truly inspirational. With 42 photos and 10 drawings.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
2005
AL#81 p.8 BRB7 p.274
Steve Kauffman
▪ Kauffman and friend Steve Klein have used carbon fiber (graphite/epoxy) in as many guitar applications as anyone, stopping short (I think) of an entirely graphite instrument. If you’ve only dabbled with graphite truss rods and such you have no idea how hotly some others are pursuing synthetic materials to make wood guitars sound better and last longer. “All natural materials” has been a battle cry for decades, but perhaps the time is ripe for making natural materials better than nature had in mind. You be the judge. With 36 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2004
AL#80 p.63 BRB7 p.268
John Greven
▪ Radiusing in John Greven’s X brace, as seen in AL#76, page 22.
2004
AL#79 p.60 BRB7 p.512
John Calkin
▪ The reviewer examines Stew-Mac’s top and back brace sets for flattop guitars and finds that they limit the luthiers design options, but he nonetheless is able to put them into one of his guitars with no qualms. With 4 photos.
2004
AL#77 p.68 BRB7 p.107
John Greven Eugene Clark Charles Fox Greg Byers Gernot Wagner
▪ A rationale, acoustic or structural, for single blocks VS solid linings VS kerfed linings between the sides and back and the sides and top when building a first guitar.
2003
AL#76 p.8 BRB7 p.110 read this article
Steve Klein
▪ Klein delivers a lecture that asks as many questions as it attempt to answer. Why has guitar design seemed to stall when so many other fields are jumping into the future? What do musicians really want? How can we make musicians want what we want to build? Is there any more to improve on the steel string guitar? A thought-provoking piece, indeed. With 13 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2004
AL#77 p.30 BRB7 p.162
Wilfried Ulrich
▪ Whether the hurdy-gurdy is a fascination or an abomination is up to each listener, but it has to be built right to be given a fair shot. Ulrich uses historical examples as a basis for his instruments, then modifies them to suit contemporary players. This article contains some hurdy-history, photos of a museum hurdy, and a magazine-size version of GAL Plan #49. Also included are photos and drawings of Ulrich’s hurdy-gurdy, a chart of dimensions for laying out the key box, and a series of drawings to help explain the inner workings of the beast. You, too, can enjoy a bit of history in all its hurdy-glory.
2003
AL#75 p.12 BRB7 p.416
Peggy Stuart Don MacRostie
▪ The author describes her mandolin making class with Red Diamond mandolin builder Don MacRostie, giving us a photo-heavy series that should be of practical use to anyone in the mandolin field regardless of their experience. The emphasis is on hand tools, though power tools are used to add efficiency. With 68 photos and 4 drawings, this is the first in a four-part series.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2003
AL#75 p.42 BRB7 p.76
Jonathon Peterson Dake Traphagen
▪ For those who really make an impact in lutherie complete immersion in the craft is the rule, not the exception. Long days, few breaks, and a lot of work. Traphagan is a good example. Floating to the top of the heap isn’t a simple matter. Still, one can get there while maintaining a sense of humor and a continuing appreciation for the mysteries of the craft, and Traphagan is also a good example of that, too. A really good interview with 10 photos and three diagrams of guitar tops.
2003
AL#75 p.60 BRB7 p.104
John Calkin
▪ The emphasis of this little article is a Jeff Huss jig for quickly producing bridge plates on the tablesaw. With 7 photos.
2003
AL#73 p.61 BRB7 p.523
John Calkin
▪ This video is a collection of shop tips that the reviewer found to be valuable and entertaining, especially in view of the low price.
2003
AL#73 p.36 BRB7 p.14
Jon Sevy
▪ This piece is aptly subtitled “Rules of thumb for approximating changes in the size of braces, tops, and strings,” which sums it up nicely. Our teachers promised us that math wouldn’t be irrelevant in our futures, and here their words come back to bite us. Sevy obviously believed them, and here presents some “easy” formulas for calculating the results of changes in size we might make in our instruments.
2002
AL#72 p.18 BRB6 p.400 read this article
Stephen Frith
▪ How would you like to learn guitar making in a Spanish castle? How about under the tutelage of Jose Romanillos? Cool, huh? Frith explains what it’s like. Any organization with a staff member named Big Pep has to be pretty far out. With 19 photos.
2002
AL#70 p.40 BRB6 p.362
Alain Bieber
▪ Bieber’s classical guitars feature removable, adjustable necks and slight double cutaways to increase fretboard access. They also look quite remarkable. With 8 photos.
2002
AL#69 p.8 BRB6 p.305
Larry Mills
▪ An introduction to free plate and fixed plate voicing of the guitar top, the latter using a jig to fix the braced plate much as it will be on the guitar, though tapping is used as the driver, not strings. Interesting, and a good presentation of current bracing notions. With 8 photos.
2001
AL#65 p.10 BRB6 p.82
Paul Schuback
▪ Schuback learned violin making in a small shop in France during the ’60s. This segment of his 1995 convention workshop lecture covers completing the plates and fitting the neck, fingerboard, nut, and soundpost to the body. There’s lots of local French color, old tools, and old ways presented here, as well as a bit of how the violin has changed since the days of the first Italian masters. Part One appeared in AL#63. With 33 photos, a diagram, and a sequence chart for building a violin.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
2001
AL#65 p.22 BRB6 p.210
John Calkin
▪ The dished workboard can make it easier to make better guitars. Calkin reveals several ways to make them more versatile, more accurate, and more fun to use. With 13 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2001
AL#65 p.28 BRB6 p.174
Jonathon Peterson Eugene Clark
▪ Clark began his guitar building over 40 years ago, which makes him one of the true father figures of our craft. His life has been a crooked path, with interesting things at every jog in the road. You’ll like meeting him. With 12 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
2000
AL#64 p.6 BRB6 p.118
Jeffrey-R. Elliott Greg Byers Eugene Clark Gary Southwell
▪ Four note-worthy builders of the classical guitar talk about their influences, their building philosophies, and some of the their construction techniques in a panel discussion that should inspire anyone interested in the instrument. With 26 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
2000
AL#64 p.50 BRB6 p.156
Nathan Stinnette
▪ Stinnette is the Huss & Dalton Guitar Co. employee in charge of converting split red spruce trees into billets of brace wood, and then into guitar braces. The article describes how the rough chunks of wood are converted into quarter-sawn boards and then how the boards are made into braces. With 15 photos.
2000
AL#63 p.34 BRB6 p.108
John Calkin
▪ OK, so you’ve got all the parts for your flattop guitar body prepped for construction. How do you get all the pieces to fit together? The author details the construction methods used at the Huss & Dalton Guitar Co, all of which should prove useful to any small shop.With 21 photos.
2000
AL#62 p.6 BRB6 p.32
John Monteleone
▪ No one in the field of archtop guitars is more respected than Monteleone. This article represents his full thoughts on the instrument as of 1998. With 12 photos and 4 drawings.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2000
AL#62 p.18 BRB6 p.42
Jonathon Peterson David Freeman
▪ Freeman is an independent thinker who builds a wide variety of instruments and runs his own lutherie school in Canada. He’s also outspoken and articulate. You’ll be glad you met him here. With 21 photos.
2000
AL#61 p.28 BRB6 p.18
Dana Bourgeois
▪ Ten years after the GAL convention lecture that made him a guru to most of the steelstring clan, Bourgeois has new information to offer about the construction and voicing of the flattop guitar. With 2 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1999
AL#60 p.19 BRB5 p.417
Ervin Somogyi
▪ How important is the grain orientation of your braces? Is quartersawn wood really the stiffest? Somogyi ran a small series of tests that suggest that information we all trust and take for granted may be little more than lutherie mythology. With 3 photos and a chart.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1999
AL#58 p.20 BRB5 p.332
Jonathon Peterson George Majkowski Boaz Elkayam
▪ Boaz Elkayam and George Majkowski extend the work of Michael Kasha and Richard Schneider in a project that entails the construction of 10 guitars. A wide variety of building techniques involving hand and power tools, as well as vacuum clamping, is necessary to make these complicated instruments. An unlikely pairing of craftsmen contributes to our understanding of one of the most controversial instrument designers of our times, and the memory of a respected luthier and teacher. With 26 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1999
AL#58 p.32 BRB5 p.362
Graham Caldersmith
▪ Everyone knows that the most responsive instruments often teeter on the edge of self-destruction from string tension. Building fine-sounding instruments that will also have a reasonable lifespan is one of our general goals. Caldersmith takes a scientist’s view of the violin and decides that arching design is the key to longevity, while an understanding of free-plate tuning is needed to release the tonal qualities the luthier seeks. He furnishes 7 charts and diagrams to help make his case, as well as a photo of his Australian self. But what we all want to know is if a pursuit of science will eventually enhance our luthier’s intuition. Is it better to think or to feel? Do we really have to choose?
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1999
AL#57 p.24 BRB5 p.262
Jay Hargreaves
▪ In this installment the top plate is carved and braced. Ribbecke roughs out the plates in a unique vacuum cage that goes a long way toward keeping his shop clean. The chainsaw wheel he attaches to his grinder gives this series its name, and speeds the carving process dramatically. Tuning the top isn’t completed until the guitar is assembled in the next segment. Part 1 was in AL#56. Includes 20 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1998
AL#56 p.6 BRB5 p.248
Lawrence Smart
▪ The demands of contemporary players has forced many changes in the mandolin family since the fabled Loar family of Gibsons was created in the 1920s. Smart has built mandolins, mandolas, and mandocellos to work together as an ensemble as well as separately, and here he discusses the differences that might be desirable in the family as the setting is changed, as well as the changes that players have asked for in his instruments. Accompanied by charts of Smart’s instrument specs as well as those of Gibson. With 5 photos and 5 drawings.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1998
AL#56 p.22 BRB5 p.230
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ In every craft the cream inevitably rises, and Elliott is known to make some of the creamiest classical guitars in the world. Though this article offers a complete recipe for building guitars with “allure,” it becomes obvious that the most important ingredient is the artistic sensitivity he has developed. Not to be overlooked if your goal is to cook up fine classicals. With 9 photos, 1 drawing, and a list for further reading.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1998
AL#56 p.36 BRB5 p.262
Jay Hargreaves
▪ Ribbecke is a renowned maker of archtop guitars. He also opens his shop periodically to small classes that wish to learn his formula for successful and graceful guitars. Hargreaves attended one such week-long session and brought back the straight skinny for American Lutherie readers. Part 1 details the construction of a laminated maple neck and associated details. Part 2 follows in AL#57. With 29 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1999
AL#57 p.3
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Elliott offers a correction to his top brace system as stated in his lecture printed in AL#56.
1998
AL#55 p.32 BRB5 p.224
Jonathon Peterson David Gusset
▪ Gusset’s early work made him intimately familiar with many fine old Italian violins, and he has used their influence to make his mark in world violin making competitions. With one drawing and 9 photos, including wonderful violin close-ups.
1998
AL#55 p.40 BRB5 p.209
Sam Littlepage
▪ Suppose you made a stiff framework that resembled a guitar that was strong enough to resist most of the distortion to which the instrument is prone, and then built a guitar around the framework. Well, Littlepage has beat you to it. He reports that it not only works, but also improves the guitar in every way. With 14 photos and a pair of drawings.
1997
AL#51 p.42 BRB5 p.104
John Calkin Jeff Huss Mark Dalton
▪ Virginia luthiers Huss and Dalton show off their shop and talk about the business of going into business. They make 7 high-end acoustics per month, and they make it sound easy. With 11 photos.
1997
AL#50 p.56 BRB5 p.458
Michael Darnton
▪ This time the GAL’s fiddle guru talks about bridge shoes, fitting pegs, detecting a loose bass bar, streaky ebony, and “Russian” string setups.
1997
AL#49 p.10 BRB4 p.4
Woodley White
▪ Baarslag journeys to the American School of Lutherie to teach a week-long class about building classical guitars. White attended, and gives a full report. With 37 photos.
1997
AL#49 p.36 BRB5 p.34
Brent Benfield
▪ So you bought a spherically dished form in which to build your guitars. But how do you go about it? Benfield describes a path notable for its lack of complication. This is a painless way to bring your guitars into the 21st century. Most of the ideas are applicable to flattop guitars as well. With 10 photos and 4 drawings.
1997
AL#49 p.40 BRB5 p.26
Richard Beck
▪ Beck’s theme is to keep the quality but cut the time involved in building acoustic guitars. He shares his jigs for shaping headstocks and arching braces using a router table and heavy aluminum jigs. You may have to get a machine shop in on this job. With 13 photos and a drawing.
1996
AL#47 p.6 BRB4 p.332
Jonathon Peterson
▪ So you’ve got a guitar that ought to sound better than it does. What can you do to it to perk up the punch? Experts Marc Silber, Scott van Linge, Robert Steinegger, Dana Bourgeois, Frank Ford, and T.J. Thompson describe how they shave braces, and show that brace shaving isn’t your only weapon.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1996
AL#46 p.20 BRB4 p.316
Robert Lundberg
▪ An introduction to the structure and methods of construction of historical instruments, especially the belly. With 12 photos, 2 pages of notes and bibliography, and a family tree of Neapolitan luthiers from the 15th to the 20th centuries.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1996
AL#46 p.42 BRB4 p.326
Jonathon Peterson
▪ Buzz Vineyard builds archtop guitars with pin bridges and strange bracing, and rosewood backs and sides. What’s the result? He tells all to Peterson.
1996
AL#46 p.47 BRB4 p.330
Carl Kaufmann Laurie Williams Nicholas Emery
▪ New Zealanders Laurie Williams and Nicholas Emery build innovative instruments for the homelanders, though export may be in their futures. They have access to wood varieties that most of us have never even heard of.
1995
AL#44 p.26 BRB4 p.238
Chris Foss
▪ This is one of the most invigorating articles on the hammered dulcimer ever. Foss has made over 1000 instruments, has developed some hard opinions, and has tried a truckload of interesting experiments. Ever carpet the inside of a dulcimer? Foss has. Find out why.
1995
AL#43 p.11 BRB4 p.206
Jim Williams
▪ Williams discusses the building style he has borrowed from Greg Smallman for classical guitars. With 14 photos, plus drawings.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1995
AL#42 p.48 BRB4 p.194
Cyndy Burton Des Anthony
▪ An Australian guitarmaker talks about Australian wood, his instruments, and the Australian vacation system.
1995
AL#42 p.12 BRB4 p.174
Robert Ruck
▪ Ruck spends most of his time in this lecture talking about top design and finishing. With 13 photos and several drawings, plus a detailed list of his finish materials and procedures.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1995
AL#41 p.18 BRB4 p.154
John Calkin
▪ The goal is to make the lightest possible instrument that will stay in tune. Calkin examines bracing, bridge design, scale lengths, wood, and hammer design. With 9 photos and several drawings.
1995
AL#41 p.26 BRB4 p.134
Nicholas-Von Robison Debbie Suran
▪ Suran is a performer/builder of hammered dulcimers.
1994
AL#38 p.44 BRB4 p.48
Mike Doolin
▪ Anyone willing to dismantle their first guitar deserves a lot of credit, especially if it came out cosmetically pristine the first time. Doolin replaced the top of his first guitar to bring the bass response up to spec. With 9 photos and a lot to think about.
1994
AL#37 p.54 BRB4 p.442
Michael Darnton
▪ Darnton reflects upon bass bar design and tap tone pitches for viola and cello.
1993
AL#36 p.16 BRB3 p.396
Ervin Somogyi
▪ Somogyi delves into many of the technical considerations of guitar design and construction. With a large number of drawings.
1994
AL#37 p.6 BRB4 p.2
Tim Olsen
▪ Nobody built a better archtop than D’Aquisto did. Olsen outlines the procedures and peculiarities of a famous luthier’s work.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1994
AL#37 p.10 BRB4 p.6
Tim Olsen
▪ Olsen travels from the general (in the preceding article) to the specific. He zeros in on D’Aquisto’s soundboard work for a detailed examination. With 47 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1993
AL#33 p.59 BRB3 p.475
Brett Borton
▪ Bracing cedar classic guitar tops.
1993
AL#34 p.6 BRB3 p.316 ALA5 p.22
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ Elliott believes that top replacements might be far more common in the future than they are now. Instruments with tired tops might have them replaced rather than retire the rare/irreplaceable hardwoods that comprise the rest of the instrument. Anyhow, he tried it out. Here he presents a description of the operation and the ethics involved, with 23 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1993
AL#34 p.24 BRB3 p.334 ALA6 p.30
Jonathon Peterson
▪ In AL#29 Peterson looked back at the harp guitar. This time he takes a forward look. A number of luthiers find fascination and a new potential in the big beast, and this is the best look at their results to date. With 28 photos and 8 detailed drawings. Also available is GAL full-scale Plan #34, the Klein solidbody electric harp guitar.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1993
AL#33 p.12 BRB3 p.278 read this article
Roberto Gomes
▪ Gomes offers a list and short description of some current Brazilian builders.
1993
AL#33 p.14 BRB3 p.280
R.E. Brune
▪ Brune describes a rare 11-string Torres guitar and the manner in which he restored it. With 11 photos and a half-page of drawings. Mentions Romanillos.
1993
AL#33 p.23 BRB3 p.476
Colin Kaminski
▪ Kaminski’s form uses two sheets of plywood of different thickness. They are stacked and screwed together down the center, and the thin sheet is curved by placing rows of wedges between them. A wood frame is built around the plywood, then polyester is poured between the sheets to make the radius permanent. It works, but it can be messy.
1992
AL#31 p.64 BRB3 p.446 read this article
Michael Darnton
▪ Why don’t the ribs of a broken fiddle fit the top any more? How much spring should be built into a bass bar? Why is there a step in the neck behind the nut on my fiddle. Darnton knows, now you will, too.
1992
AL#31 p.8 BRB3 p.212 ALA3 p.44
R.E. Brune
▪ Brune visits with, measures, and draws Segovia’s most famous guitar. The plans offered are a reduced version of GAL full-scale Plan #33. Brune feels that the guitar misses the maestro. With 19 photos.
1992
AL#31 p.21 BRB3 p.9 ALA3 p.48
R.E. Brune
▪ A full-scale instrument plan. See the GAL website for a low-rez preview.
1992
AL#31 p.30 BRB3 p.224 read this article
John Decker
▪ This alternative to wood is outside the reach of most luthiers. It’s interesting to know how hard some are working to make graphite sound like wood. Graphite might have its own sound to offer, but once again inventors have to deal with what humans are used to, rather than with what they might have if they were more open minded. With 7 photos.
1992
AL#30 p.10 BRB3 p.200 ALA4 p.24
Paul Hostetter Maurice Dupont
▪ Meet a French guitar maker whose specialty is the recreation of Selmer guitars. Dupont even mills his own spruce. He is one of the more accessible foreign luthiers, and his guitars are available in the States. Mentions Maccaferri, Django Reinhardt.
1992
AL#29 p.20 BRB3 p.178 ALA6 p.10
Jonathon Peterson
▪ Most people who even knew what one was thought of the harp guitar as a less-than-useless dinosaur. Then came Michael Hedges. Peterson looks back at a strange instrument whose best music might just lie in the future. With 49 photos and a number of good drawings. Mentions Torres, Hauser I, Scherzer, Staufer, Mozzani, Gibson, Knutsen, Martin, and so on.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1991
AL#28 p.34 BRB3 p.126 ALA4 p.10
Phillip Lea Bob Taylor
▪ Few people in Guitarland are as outspoken and clear-headed as Bob Taylor. Others might say he’s just opinionated. He believes a good guitar is a good guitar, no matter if it was whittled by Gepeto or cranked out by a dozen computer-guided milling cutters. This article offers a peek into the Taylor factory and a guided tour through one man’s thoughts about the contemporary guitar. With 28 photos.
1991
AL#26 p.8 BRB3 p.37 ALA4 p.28
Jean Larrivee
▪ Larrivee has overseen the creation of 15,000 acoustic guitars and 12,000 electrics. Much of what he has to say pertains as strongly to the one-off builder as it does to another industry giant, and he doesn’t hold back on anything.
1991
AL#26 p.22 BRB3 p.72 read this article
Rick Turner
▪ Time management advise from a guy who has done a lot of business.
1991
AL#25 p.22 BRB3 p.2
Kevin Aram
▪ Aram offers an anecdotal history of one of the most influential classical guitars of our time. With 26 photos. Mentions Hauser I, Torres.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1991
AL#25 p.48 BRB3 p.24
Bill Colgan Greg Bernd
▪ Like many of his generation, eighty-year-old Summerfield led a hard life. He didn’t turn to professional instrument making until he reached what many would call old age, but after that he didn’t waste any time. There’s quite a few Seth Summerfields out there, and their story is always a good one.
1990
AL#24 p.16 BRB2 p.470
Dana Bourgeois
▪ This is perhaps the strongest article ever published in American Lutherie about voicing the top and bracing of the steel string guitar. The fallout from this piece has been very wide spread.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1990
AL#24 p.19 BRB2 p.476
Gila Eban Dana Bourgeois
▪ Dana discusses his favorite top woods and how they compare.
1989
AL#20 p.20 BRB2 p.318
Dale Randall
▪ Randall lines the entire guitar back with plexiglas mirrors while working inside the body. Looks like a fine idea.
1989
AL#19 p.3
Brett Borton
▪ Borton sends 2 photos updating his work on crank tops (American Lutherie #17), and an X brace substitute.
1989
AL#18 p.3
Rion Dudley
▪ Thoughts abut the value of braces running all the way to the sides.
1989
AL#17 p.44 BRB2 p.198
John Morgan
▪ Bridge setup must be done after the bridge is glued to the guitar in Morgan’s system. It also requires many little operations, but the intonation should come out perfect and the saddles remain individually adjustable for height. The finished bridge looks pretty cool, too.
1989
AL#17 p.46 BRB2 p.208
Brett Borton
▪ Have you ever seen a mandolin with an intentional crease or sharp bend to the top behind the bridge? That’s a cranked top. Borton describes how to add a cranked top to the steel string guitar, though he’s not too specific about why we should try it.
1988
AL#16 p.52
John Morgan
▪ Morgan uses braces that seem to taper the wrong way, but reports good results. They also stop short of the lining. He lists other distinctions in his design that complement the new bracing system.
1988
AL#14 p.59
Richard Jordan
▪ Jordan used spruce of different stiffness to brace three nearly identical classical guitars, and found the differences to be dramatic. His stiffness test was especially easy to run.
1987
AL#12 p.14 BRB1 p.402
J. Jovicic O. Jovicic
▪ This article is more technical talk translated from the original French publication in Acustica. With 51 reproductions of laser interferograms. Part 1 was in American Lutherie #10.
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.
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.
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.
1987
AL#10 p.48 BRB1 p.402
J. Jovicic O. Jovicic
▪ Serious research using a classical guitar with four different brace patterns. The experiment started with a simplified fan brace pattern, and fan braces were added for subsequent evaluation. Translated from the French. Part Two is in AL#12.
1987
AL#10 p.56 BRB1 p.414 read this article
Dave Schneider
▪ A dream comes true. Schneider relates his growth toward a successful lutherie career. He begins with a high school shop program, travels through various repair and furniture jobs, apprentices as a lute maker, and ends up self-employed.
1987
AL#10 p.60 BRB1 p.202 read this article
Frederick-C. Lyman-Jr.
▪ Lyman’s quest is to build an inexpensive but musically useful string bass. In this episode he tries to improve a Kay plywood bass. The results leave him ambivalent but hopeful.
1987
AL#10 p.10 BRB1 p.362
John Rollins
▪ Recreating these instruments required deep research into antique literature and a search of centuries-old woodcuts and tapestries. Many such drawings and sketches illustrate this long article, as well as photos of instruments by the author and Raphael Weisman. A transcription of Rollins’ 1986 convention lecture.
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.
1987
AL#9 p.30 BRB1 p.329
Tim Olsen
▪ A full-scale instrument plan. See the GAL website for a low-rez preview.
1986
AL#8 p.8 BRB1 p.266
Gila Eban
▪ Eban charts the design evolution of the Kasha system of classical guitars as applied to her own instruments. With many drawings, glitter tests, and a discussion of different materials.
1986
AL#8 p.18 BRB1 p.274 ALA3 p.8
Jeffrey-R. Elliott
▪ This lecture transcription presents a chronological overview of the work of Hermann Hauser Sr. 26 photos and 3 drawings complete the article. A major investigation of some important guitars.
1986
AL#8 p.30
Graham Caldersmith Jim Williams
▪ This interview covers the evolution of Smallman’s guitars as he worked his way toward the lattice bracing system for which he has become famous. Classical guitar lore from the outback of Australia.
1986
AL#8 p.38 BRB1 p.292 ALA5 p.7
Jose Ramirez-III
▪ Ramirez expounds upon his experiments with classical guitar top thickness and bracing patterns and size to achieve the best tone and stability.
1986
AL#7 p.6 BRB1 p.232 read this article
George Bissinger
▪ This transcription of a lecture by a professor of physics examines how five variables affect the performance of the violin. The variables are loudness curves and student instruments; free plate tuning and testing; humidity effects on plate modes; bass bar tuning; and coupling between enclosed air and plate vibrations.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1986
AL#6 p.44 BRB1 p.177
Dana Bourgeois
▪ Bourgeois shares a method of making properly arched top braces for the contemporary “flattop” guitar.
1986
AL#5 p.10 BRB1 p.150
Ted Davis William DelPilar
▪ Davis offers his conversation with a professional luthier who made over 800 classical guitars between 1956 and 1986.
1985
AL#4 p.11 BRB1 p.99
William Cumpiano Manuel Velazquez
▪ Velazquez fields a number of questions about the specifics of building the nylon-strung guitar, including types of glue, choice of wood, construction design, and finishing.
1985
AL#4 p.42
Gila Eban
▪ Eban takes on Paul Wyzskowski as she champions the design innovations of Michael Kasha. She has incorporated many of Kasha’s changes into her own classical guitars. Her rebuttal mentions Richard Schneider, Jamey Hampton, and Graham Caldersmith.
1985
AL#2 p.44
Richard Ennis
▪ Ennis kerfs wide boards on the table saw, then rips them to twice the desired width. He then rips each of these at an angle with a bandsaw to produce (after they are sliced lengthwise) two lining strips.
1985
AL#2 p.20 BRB1 p.68 read this article
Graham Caldersmith
▪ Caldersmith discusses the efficiency and pattern of sound radiation in the classic guitar produced by the four lower resonance modes, which he calls monopole, cross dipole, long dipole, and tripole. Mentions Tom Rossing, Gila Eban, Paul Wyzskowski, Fred Dickens, Michael Kasha, Richard Schneider, and Greg Smallman.
1984
DS#266 LW p.94
William Cumpiano
▪ Yet another way to make your own kerfed lining, with 4 diagrams of the procedure. More sophisticated than the previous two articles, but not necessarily a better way to go about it.
1983
DS#238 BRB2 p.340
Ted Davis
▪ The author began building classical guitars before there was much written help out there, and he evolved his design specs by making a lot of guitars. Some of these have been absorbed into the general body of classical guitar literature, other remain unique. With 14 drawings and 2 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1983
DS#243 BRB1 p.214
Gila Eban
▪ Eban offers an eloquent argument for trying the Kasha system in your own shop, as well as many details of her own guitars. A page-sized blueprint is included. She maintains that there is a philosophy and an aesthetic behind the Kasha design that is self-revealing and pleasing to work with, and that the design will always be under-realized until a larger number of builders have come to understand and absorb it.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1982
GALQ Vol.10#2 p.12 LW p.74
Steve Klein
▪ This is a history of Klein’s unusual steel string guitars, as well as a window into the mind of one of lutherie’s most creative thinkers. Includes 5 photos as well as a plan of the top of the guitar Klein built for Joe Walsh.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1983
DS#235 BRB2 p.452
Paul Wyszkowski
▪ It’s well known that designing a guitar for longevity and designing a guitar for best performance may drag the designer in opposite directions. Guitar construction is a compromise (like life itself). The author takes a closer look at the situation. With 1 drawing.
1981
DS#171 BRB2 p.201
Paul Wyszkowski
▪ The author uses a light approach to science to explain the function of the classical guitar top and attempts to translate the functions of physics into a form the luthier can use at the bench.
1981
DS#172 LW p.100 read this article
Don Musser
▪ Get rid of those scalloped braces and the bulge in the top of the guitar in one operation. Musser’s design is asymmetrical and pretty radical from a “vintage” view point, but a number of luthiers have confessed that it has improved their guitars.
1980
DS#145 BRB2 p.99
Roger Siminoff
▪ The author considers X braces as structural elements and tone bars as tone adjusters, and that tone color can be altered by the stiffness of the tone bars and the size of the soundhole. Despite the possibilities, no examples for use are given.
1979
DS#107 LW p.93
Boyd Butler
▪ How to jig up a bandsaw to kerf linings one strip at a time. With 1 diagram.
1978
DS#71 LW p.92 read this article
Rolfe Gerhardt
▪ The author uses a gang saw to produce kerfed lining strips in quick fashion. With a drawing and a photo.