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#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#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.
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.
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.
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#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.
2018
AL#133 p.69
Harry Fleishman
▪ More about the Bridge Doctor device.
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.
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.
2016
AL#127 p.67
Mike Doolin
▪ How do you make and locate pinless bridges for steel string guitars?
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.
2014
AL#117 p.66
Carl Samuels
▪ Proof of concept model of underpass suspension bridge is displayed on a 12-string African Blackwood Lutar.
2013
AL#114 p.54
John-C. Bartlett
▪ Bartlett walks through the steps to creating a pyramid bridge from scratch.
2013
AL#113 p.45
John Monteleone
▪ D’Aquisto’s changes to his traditional New Yorker and Excel models in the late 1970s included the adjustable sliding wedge bridge design concept.
2013
AL#114 p.3
John Monteleone
▪ John Monteleone clarifies the details of his D’Aquisto wedge bridge article in AL#113 by giving additional credit where credit is due.
2012
AL#110 p.71
Steve Carmody
▪ Best procedure for replacing the bridge on an already polished Juan Montero guitar.
2012
AL#109 p.56
Roger-Alan Skipper
▪ Repairing a D-35 Martin bridge plate using among other tools, the Stew-Mac Bridge Saver.
2011
AL#108 p.56 ALA2 p.76
R.M. Mottola
▪ A production technique using a bridge mask applied to the guitar top before finishing, which decreases screw-up potential.
2010
AL#101 p.65
Lennis Laviolette
▪ Temporary string anchor on the workbench helps to determine the bridge placement on a baritone guitar.
2009
AL#100 p.14
Brian Michael Alex Glasser
▪ Michael and Glasser on how to install a pickup system in an acoustic guitar using a Fishman Matrix blend. From their 2008 GAL convention workshop.
2009
AL#99 p.65
Luis Mesquita
▪ In one bundle we are offered a new design in archtop guitar bridge construction, an adjustable neck (no details), and a cool way to hide pickup controls in a side sound port. Way cool!
2008
AL#93 p.64
Peter Vile
▪ The author gives us a quick look at his carbon fiber/balsa, lattice-braced guitars with wingless bridges, and what he achieved with them. He mentions Kasha/Schneider, Greg Smallman, Jurgen Meyer, and Gila Eban. With 3 photos and 6 sketches.
2007
AL#90 p.68
Robert Steinegger
▪ An optionally pinless pin bridge for those who do not desire round bridge pin holes with slotted bridge pins.
2007
AL#91 p.24
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.
2005
AL#81 p.64 BRB7 p.496
Keith Davis
▪ Removing and replacing bridge plates in dreadnought guitars the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) way.
2005
AL#81 p.65 BRB7 p.497
Michael Turko
▪ Cauls made of aluminum and packing foam are quick and easy for gluing braces into a guitar.
2005
AL#82 p.58 BRB7 p.336
Brian Yarosh
▪ Yarosh came up with a top-loaded (pinless) bridge with individual sliding bone saddles. You can build one yourself with his good description and 26 photos.
2005
AL#81 p.54 BRB7 p.300
Thomas-C. DeVeau
▪ A basic archtop-style, floating bridge, that is. With 9 photos.
2004
AL#78 p.68 BRB7 p.495
David Riggs
▪ Correcting common issues when making a flattop bridge.
2004
AL#79 p.6 BRB7 p.206
R.E. Brune
▪ In a sense Brune is laying down the law for successful classical guitar making. Much of it will be useful to any builder, and all of it is interesting because Brune is an interesting man who has his thoughts together. Not to mention that he’s a heck of a luthier with a deep background in the history of his craft. With 30 photos and 8 diagrams. Mentions Santos Hernandez, Marcelo Barbaro, Ignacio Fleta, Hermann Hauser, Sr.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
2004
AL#79 p.46 BRB7 p.224
Paul Woolson
▪ If you’re going to need a bunch of identical parts you might as well jig up to do it. Besides, making jigs is fun. Here’s one method (of many, no doubt) to make bridges a whole lot faster than you can make guitars to put them on. You can do that by hand, too, it just doesn’t feel that way. With 7 photos and a diagram.
2003
AL#74 p.62 BRB7 p.73
R.M. Mottola
▪ Glued on VS floating bridges on flattop guitars.
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.62 BRB7 p.34
Pete Barthell
▪ As the title indicates, a nice fixture for finding the proper location of the classical guitar bridge. With 6 photos and a set of diagrams.
2002
AL#70 p.54 BRB6 p.470
Fred Carlson
▪ Carlson ventures into Plasticland hoping to find a useful substitute for animal parts on his guitars. An aversion to both plastic guitar parts and animal slaughter leaves hardly any useful material for bridge saddles, and he sort of settles on a material called Tusq. Partly tongue-in-cheek and generally philosophical, the review concludes that beef bone saddles will be around for awhile yet.
2001
AL#67 p.64 BRB6 p.459
Robert Steinegger
▪ A jig for slotting bridges, Steiny style.
2001
AL#66 p.16 BRB6 p.182
Scott van-Linge
▪ The author has some unique ideas about how bridge and brace shape and weight effect the volume and tone of flattop guitars. His ultimate guitar bridge is going to make a lot of traditionalists nervous, but it is pretty in a minimalist fashion and should be a winner if it does what he claims. With 10 photos and a diagram.
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.56 BRB6 p.534 read this article
John Calkin
▪ The reviewer finds this video to be more opinion than explanation, and that the limited amount of information included doesn’t justify its purchase.
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.58
Peter Giolitto
▪ A method utilizing a go-bar deck as alternative to gluing on a classical bridge using clamps through the soundhole.
2000
AL#61 p.60 BRB6 p.447
David Kempf
▪ An illustrated description of building a uniquely shaped bridge for a steel string guitar.
1999
AL#59 p.6 BRB5 p.374
Frank Ford
▪ A top repairman tackles the sticky subject of what repair and restoration work should be tackled in this age of vintage instrument mania, especially in the area of elective surgery. Even today’s utilitarian instruments may be tomorrow’s hot collectibles, so every instrument that passes over our bench has to be considered in this light. What work should we refuse, and what are our liabilities for the work we do? Includes 41 photos, mostly of vintage guitars and mandolins.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s fifty best articles published before 2010.
1999
AL#59 p.22 BRB5 p.332
Jonathon Peterson George Majkowski Boaz Elkayam
▪ George Majkowski and Boaz Elkayam complete their work on 10 Kasha guitars to honor the memory of Richard Schneider and to keep his work alive. The hand tools involved, the strange method of fretting, and the cool vacuum clamps, as well as the design philosophy behind the guitars, make this a pair of articles not to be missed. The Old World meets the future here and they blend very nicely. With 58 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1999
AL#59 p.46 BRB5 p.396
Jeff Huss Mark Dalton
▪ Hand carved and compensated bone saddles are a mark of finesse. Fine work is all about the details, and Huss and Dalton discuss a detail that is often overlooked but easy to make. With 8 photos.
1999
AL#59 p.56 BRB5 p.452
Fred Carlson
▪ Carlson checks out Iboney, a specially treated cow bone used for nuts and saddles. Also in this column is an examination of 3 Stew-Mac tools, a fingerboard and bridge heating iron, a purfling cutter attachment for the Dremel MultiPro, and a binding cutter for the Stew-Mac version of the MultiPro router base. Fred likes the Iboney, and decides that both Stew-Mac Dremel attachments are better made than the Dremels themselves. The heating iron passes inspection, too, but the GAL Tool Guy feels a bit luke-warm about it.
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.52 BRB5 p.449
Fred Carlson
▪ How would you like a video camera that can snoop inside your guitar? Carlson examines the Chapin Insight guitar inspection camera and finds that it’s loads of fun and probably very useful to a repairman who has the $350 to improve his inspection capabilities.
1999
AL#58 p.59 BRB5 p.502
Skip Helms
▪ A quick jig for cutting bridge slots and tie block inlays for use with a plunge router.
1999
AL#58 p.6 BRB5 p.262
Jay Hargreaves
▪ The final installment in the series, parts 1 & 2 were in AL#56 and #57, respectively. In this segment the sides are bent, the body is assembled and bound, the neck is fitted to the body, and attention is given to tuning the plates. Special consideration is given to making the adjustable bridges as well as Tom’s elegant ebony/graphite tailpiece. With 36 photos and a drawing.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s 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.
1997
AL#52 p.64
Woody Vernice
▪ An addendum to a tip in AL#43 on installing two small braces between the bridge patch and the waist bar of a classic guitar in an effort to correct a slight caving in, using post-it notes as depth gauges.
1997
AL#50 p.54 BRB5 p.438
Harry Fleishman
▪ Fleishman examines two tools used for changing the width of fret tangs and a Dremel tool jig for routing bridge slots after the bridge is glued to the guitar. He likes them all. With 3 photos.
1997
AL#49 p.20 BRB5 p.12
John Calkin
▪ How to make thin-body guitars intended to be plugged in on stage. The bodies are hollowed from solid stock. Design considerations are emphasized. Production jigs are described, as are a set of jigs for making bridges. With 14 photos.
1995
AL#44 p.59 BRB4 p.498
Rod Hannah
▪ A clear plexiglas piece as an alignment tool for a Teeter-style bridge slot device.
1995
AL#43 p.48 BRB4 p.432
Harry Fleishman
▪ Fleishman examines and enjoys two tools from Stewart-MacDonald, the Bridge Saddle Routing Jig and the Adjustable Fret Slotting Saw.
1994
AL#39 p.10 BRB4 p.52
Bryan Galloup
▪ Here’s the whole story, with some tools for heat removal of the parts not seen in the magazine before. Pull those worn parts and make your own replacements. With 38 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1993
AL#35 p.57 BRB3 p.498
Greg Descateaux
▪ Slight additions to Colin Kaminski’s description of how to build a hollow radius form in AL#33.
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#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.
1989
AL#19 p.5 BRB2 p.221
Arnold-M.J. Hennig
▪ Hennig gives advice about removing guitar bridges with a sharpened putty knife. He also laments the fact that popular opinion believes that guitars, unlike violins, have a “shelf life,” and as a result are often eventually neglected rather than repaired.
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.
1987
AL#12 p.26 BRB1 p.460 ALA4 p.4
Tim Olsen
▪ Enhanced with 6 photos, this is the tale of one luthier’s connection to famous musicians, the Everly Brothers. Have you ever made a guitar with solid gold frets and binding? Robert Steinegger has.
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.3 BRB1 p.459
Ralph Novak
▪ Novak offers tips on fretwork, tool sharpening, fitting bridge pins, recycling clogged sandpaper, and admonishes us to get steel wool out of our shops.
1987
AL#9 p.32 BRB1 p.330
H.M. Kolstee
▪ Kolstee’s adjustable bridge saddle is made of bone, except for the locking set screw. It is easily adjustable for intonation and uses shims to adjust the string height.
1987
AL#9 p.44 BRB1 p.201
Tim Olsen Robert Steinegger
▪ Here’s the low down on a trick Washburn bridge from 1897. A photo and drawing explain the plot line, but the mystery remains.
1986
AL#8 p.35 BRB1 p.463
Francis Kosheleff
▪ Kosheleff changes the treble quality of his classical guitars by using three steel strings run through the standard bridge and then attached to a tailpiece.
1986
AL#7 p.53 BRB1 p.260
Denny Rauen
▪ Rauen’s installation procedure is meant to remove as little wood from the guitar body as possible. This is not a procedure for retrofitting the bridge system to guitars using a stock Fender-style bridge, but for dropping it onto a new body or one with a hardtail bridge.
1986
AL#5 p.22 BRB1 p.168
Ken Donnell
▪ Donnell gives a thorough description of his methods of bridge removal and regluing. Both classical and steel string guitars are covered.
1984
DS#288 LW p.98
Tim Earls
▪ Here’s a simple trick to keep slack strings out of the way while you work on the saddle. Especially helpful on 12-strings.
1984
DS#295 LT p.40
J.R. Weene
▪ Wooden C-clamp for special uses.
1982
DS#221 LT p.61
Don Alfieri
▪ Adds nylon bolts to the bottom corners of a Dremel base. The tool rides on the bolt heads, raising the router above the level of the bridge.
1982
DS#204 BRB2 p.289
Kent Rayman
▪ The author uses a table saw and no jigs to help speed up the creation of classical guitar bridges. With 5 drawings.
1982
DS#210 LW p.99
Jim Williams
▪ Clean bridge removal is almost an art, but the right heat source and the proper tools can give even the first-timer a fighting chance. Williams offers a dedicated lamp setup for heat and a modified cabinet scraper to slide through the glue joint. With 3 drawings.
1980
DS#143 LW p.96
Tim Olsen
▪ Finish your guitar, clean off a footprint for the bridge, then glue it on. It’s easy, here’s how. With 1 sketch.
1980
DS#143 LW p.97
John-M. Colombini
▪ The author couldn’t reach through the small soundhole of a guitar to bolt the bridge on, so he devised a nifty cam clamp that not only holds the socket but aids in lining up all the pieces during the operation. With 3 diagrams.
1979
DS#126 LW p.98 read this article
Tim Olsen
▪ How to use bolts and wing nuts to align a bridge through the pin holes and form part of the clamping force. With 1 drawing.
1978
DS#92 LT p.92
Thomas Rein
▪ Jig uses and end mill in a drill press.
1975
DS#7 read this article
Eric Henderson
▪ Bridge positioning.
1973
GALNL Vol.1#2 p.3
H.E. Huttig
▪ Eight step process for the Spanish luthier bridge gluing method.