Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tom Blackshear

Tom Blackshear

Tom Blackshear started his lutherie career along with playing the flamenco guitar, and he has never lost his love for the romantic charms of Spain. He takes a leadership role in Internet chat groups, and shares his knowledge freely. Tom has been a GAL member for twenty-one of the last twenty-six years.

▪ bio current as of 2005

James Blilie

Barbarossa Guitars

Twenty-one-year GAL member James Blilie builds steel string and classical guitars, plus a few violins, resonator guitars, ukuleles, and Weissenborn-style lap steel guitars. He enjoys playing fingerstyle guitar and playing/singing folk and rock music. He has been a structural/mechanical engineer for over thirty-one years, working for Boeing, the FAA, Northwest Airlines, and Boston Scientific Corporation. He also enjoys muscle-powered fun in the outdoors with his family, and good food, wine, and beer.

▪ bio current as of 2018

John Bogdanovich

Bogdanovich Guitars

Five-year GAL member John Bogdanovich is a luthier, author, guitarist, lutherie supplier, and teacher. He authored Classical Guitar Making: A Modern Approach to a Traditional Design and produced the 10-DVD set, Making a Concert Classical Guitar. He has a master’s degree in electrical engineering, worked at AT&T Bell Labs designing hardware, and completed the two-year fine woodworking program with James Krenov.

▪ bio current as of 2014

Alain Bieber

Fourteen-year GAL member Alain Bieber was born in Paris and worked on large transportation projects in Europe as a civil engineer for forty years. He worked on a PhD in Berkeley, California for three years in spite of musical (and other) distractions. A lifelong committed and ungifted guitar player, he started lutherie in 1996 at his retirement, as a consolation. He says that it works.

▪ bio current as of 2013

Don P. Boivin

Don Boivin is a member of the GAL and of the New England Luthiers. A carpenter by trade, a musician by tenacity, and a stringed-instrument repairman by default, his lifelong love of wood has finally brought him to the onerous, yet thoroughly rewarding, pursuit of lutherie.

▪ bio current as of 2013

Andy Birko

Eight-year GAL member Andy Birko started making instruments as a hobby back in the mid-’90s, but when neither electrical engineering for the auto industry nor medical equipment sales really panned out, he turned his high-tech CNC hobby into a full-time business. Now Andy is the owner/operator of Birkonium LLC which manufactures many items for luthiers such as necks, inlay, and tools.

▪ bio current as of 2019

Brent Benfield

Thirty-one-year GAL member Brent Benfield has been making wooden boxes to play music since 1972, if you count loudspeakers. Too much school and highly educated parents are part of the recipe. Millwright, cabinet builder, painter, solder tech, model builder, audiophile, orchardist, luthier. Built a rifle, a canoe, a bicycle, golf clubs, his shop, a car. You’d think he could find a real job.

▪ bio current as of 2023

Tobias Berg

-20230718

Twelve-year Guild member Tobias Berg built his first guitar in the same year that he joined the GAL. A year later he left his native country of Sweden to study classical guitar making in Canada, England, and the USA, finally settling in Germany. When he is not building guitars, he enjoys a walk in the woods with his wife and tending his Bonsai trees outside the workshop.

▪ bio current as of 2006

Ted Beringer

Read Ted Beringer’s memoriam

Twenty-five-year member and retired electrician Ted Beringer saw a Fender being played in 1950, decided he could build that, and kept doing it. In 1982 Johnny Smith came to Billings, and his music inspired Ted to build archtops. He also builds flattops, nylon strings, and mandolins, all with an unconventional flair.

▪ bio current as of 2003

Thomas Bazzolo

Thomas B Bazzolo

Thomas Bazzolo began building classical guitars in 1983. Tom’s teacher the late Frank Haselbacher who is known for his “Augustine” guitars. After Haselbacher’s death, Tom inherited many of his clients. Tom built and repaired classical guitars in Connecticut for many years until relocating to Sullivan, Maine. He has retired from guitarmaking and now is a casual bladesmith.

▪ bio current as of 2017

Bill Beadie

Four-year GAL member Bill Beadie spends most of his days figuring out how to make it safe to breathe the air in industrial settings. On the side, he studies guitar making with John Greven, “the best guitar maker ever.”

▪ bio current as of 2005

Allan Beardsell

Beardsell Guitars

Ten-year GAL member Allan Beardsell is a former student of Sergei DeJonge. He wasted his teens and twenties as a musician, and turned to guitar making as a way to get guitars cheap. Realizing his mistake, he started selling them to support the habit. He’s the provincial fencing champ in men’s épée, and plays in a kick-ass rock band, the DeadBeatles.

▪ bio current as of 2007

Reg Beardsley

Reg Beardsley took degrees in English and geology and then spent his career as a geophysicist in the oil industry. Devoid of any musical talent, it has taken him 45 years to reach the point of being able to improvise freely on guitar over a limited range of styles. He still has not built one, but has repaired a few and has several awaiting attention. In part the delays are caused by having far too many interests, a 5000 volume technical library, and a vast array of tools for working wood, metal, and electronics. His MS thesis was written on the nepheline syenite in Pulaski county Arkansas called pulaskite.

▪ bio current as of 2017

Charles Beare

John & Arthur Beare

After training in Mittenwald and New York, Charles Beare returned to London to work for, and later run the family violin business, J&A Beare Ltd. Charles has become one of the world’s foremost violin experts. He recently attended the Violin Society of America’s 32nd Annual Convention in Portland, Oregon to lecture and to serve as a judge at their 16th International Competition. It was his fourth time serving as a VSA competition judge.

▪ bio current as of 2005

Ed Beaver

Ed Beaver Instruments

Ed Beaver attended Guitar Research and Design in 1980, learning from George Morris and Charles Fox. He recently attended a refresher course with George Morris at Vermont Instruments in Post Mills, Vermont. He has since opened Ed Beaver Guitars where he is developing a line of instruments designed for the working musician. He has been a Guild member on and off since 1980.

▪ bio current as of 2003

Larry Baeder

Larry Baeder has been a studio musician and recording artist for almost three decades. He has played guitar for artists as diverse as Carly Simon, Bo Diddley, The Temptations, Chuck Jackson, Ben E. King, Isaac Hayes, Jay McShann, Henry Butler, Jane Sibery, and The Staple Singers. Larry resides in New York City.

▪ bio current as of 2003

Roman Barnas

North Bennet St. School

Roman Barnas is the Head Instructor of the Violin Department at the North Bennet Street School, Boston. He was born in Zakopane, Poland and entered the Secondary School of Fine Arts in Zakopane at the age of 14, when he first began making violins. He went on to the Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznan, Poland, where he studied music and violinmaking for five more years. Roman came to the U.S. in 1996 to work at Psariano’s Violins in Troy, Michigan. He studied violin making in with Boyd Poulsen and violin restoration with Hans Nebel. He plays violin, accordian and double bass.

▪ bio current as of 2007

Don Barnes

Don Barnes

Sam is a husband, father, and teacher who enjoys refactoring complex concepts into tangible analogies and actionable tasks. When not herding cats in the professional world or training budding project managers in academia, Sam enjoys football (soccer for the Yanks), cycling with his wife, and playing music with his kids. He has played guitar for over 30 years and while he has designed a bass guitar for his eldest son, and maintains lofty luthieristic aspirations, he has never actually constructed a guitar (he secretly hopes that his writings will inspire donations to his burgeoning workshop).

▪ bio current as of 2022

Samuel Barnes

New Guild member Sam Barnes is a husband, father, and teacher who enjoys refactoring complex concepts into tangible analogies and actionable tasks. When not herding cats in the professional world or training budding project managers in academia, Sam enjoys football (soccer for the Yanks), cycling with his wife, and playing music with his kids. He has designed a bass guitar for his eldest son, and maintains lofty luthieristic aspirations, but has never actually constructed a guitar. He secretly hopes that his writings will inspire donations to his burgeoning workshop.

▪ bio current as of 2022

Sean Barry

When 19-year GAL member Sean Barry was 12 he was offered the choice of learning to play bluegrass banjo and guitar or becoming a herpetologist to study snakes and lizards. Since both involved scales, he saw little difference between them and he pursued them both with equal fervor. He spent ten of the next fifty-four years as a professional road musician and much of the rest as a professional herpetologist, not to mention as a bus driver and diesel mechanic for his traveling band. Along the way he developed an interest in the way wooden instruments were made and repaired and he has pursued lutherie tenaciously since the late 1960s. His lutherie focus is the F-5 mandolin but he also builds flat top guitars and even the occasional solid body electric. He hopes to write more for American Lutherie, especially during the winter when the snakes are hibernating.

▪ bio current as of 2016

Pete Barthell

Seven-year GAL member Pete Barthell trained as a mechanical engineer at Michigan State, Northwestern, and University of Michigan, then spent forty-one years in electrical manufacturing. He built his first guitar in 1976. It flew apart. He’s now working on classical #140 in the rural wilds of the Olympic Peninsula.

▪ bio current as of 2003

John C. Bartlett

John Bartlett retired from the U.S. Navy in 1984, then retired from public accounting in 2010. He started playing guitar back in the Jurassic Period (1960 or thereabout) but didn’t become interested in guitar construction until around 1989. A luthier friend suggested he try building one. Since then, he’s built around forty guitars, an F-style mandolin, and four banjos. “I’ll keep doing it until I get it right,” he says.

▪ bio current as of 2013

Kevin Aram

Aram Guitars

Nineteen-year GAL member, GAL Convention lecturer, and AL contributor Kevin Aram lives and works with his wife Alison in lovely rural North Devon. His fine traditional classical guitars find homes all over the globe. For fun he enjoys building cigar-box guitars, putting Telecaster necks on old tins, and making music with his friends.

▪ bio current as of 2024

Mike Ashley

Twelve-year GAL member Mike Ashley, exercising his Purdue pharmacy degree, “dealt drugs” to work his way through seminary, whereupon he awoke to find himself commissioned an Air Force chaplain for a twenty-six-year stint. Very early on, a Mississippi luthier evangelized him. Since the 1969 first instrument baptism, he’s balanced lutherie and other callings, recently retiring as Episcopal-Lutheran campus minister at Ball State University.

▪ bio current as of 2011

Andrew Atkinson

First-time American Lutherie author Andrew Atkinson is doing postgraduate work at London Guildhall University to recreate an authentic Elizabethan luthier’s workshop. This gives him a legitimate reason to poke around in old breweries.

▪ bio current as of 2002

Pierre Audinet

Sixteen-year GAL member Pierre Audinet believes his love for wood is hereditary, passed down from centuries of woodworking ancestors. In his day job he travels to places as varied as Vietnam, Brazil, Yemen, and Djibouti to convince governments that investing in renewable energy is probably a good idea. He has been steadily building less than one classical guitar a year in Washington, DC, practicing lutherie skills acquired with masters in Sigüenza, Paris, Granada, and Firenze. He now pretends to be an enlightened amateur.

▪ bio current as of 2014

Andy Avera

After almost thirty years of making music, Andy Avera has developed a deep appreciation for the fine art of lutherie. A technical systems engineer by day, most of Andy’s nights and weekends are filled raising kids and playing music with his wife Audrey, a florist by trade.

▪ bio current as of 2008

Juan Oscar Azaret

Azaret Guitars

Twenty-one-year GAL member Juan Oscar Azaret is a native of Cuba who immigrated to the USA in the early ’60s. He holds degrees in electrical engineering and worked for over three decades for Bell Labs (and subsequent spin-offs and acquisitions). He has built and played classical guitars and is now a professional luthier and part-time teacher of electrical engineering. He serves on the board of the Boston Classical Guitar Society.

▪ bio current as of 2019

Andrea Andalo

Andrea Andalò is a guitarist, clarinetist, and surgeon who made a plywood balalaika at age eight with, as he says, “disgusting results.” After years of making furniture for family and friends, he “realized that a table did not sound well” and so returned to lutherie. He has made classic and steel string guitars and a true balalaika, and current projects include two lutes.

▪ bio current as of 1999

Jay Anderson

JWA Guitars

Fifteen-year GAL member Jay Anderson met his mentor Jim Olson in 2003 and subsequently built ten instruments that closely followed tradition in form, finish, and wood choice. He then made a conscious hard-left turn and began building instruments that are distinctly nontraditional, especially in their visual aspect. He hopes they will inspire the music of players and the imagination of collectors.

▪ bio current as of 2018

Robert Anderson

Robert Anderson had to wait until he was retired before he could take on banjo work as a profession, an all too common story among luthiers. His skills at wood carving and inlay are known around the world. He lives in the glorious hills of North Carolina.

▪ bio current as of 2021

Nicolo Alessi

Alessi Tuning Machines

Nicolò Alessi is a guitarist, lutenist, and retired industrial designer who lives along beautiful Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy. Nicolo’s innovative tuning machines, which he makes in both historical copies and modern designs, are known for their precise workmanship and hand engraving. He is very proud of his region, his work, and his family.

▪ bio current as of 2010

Dan Alexander

Dan Alexander Audio

Three-year GAL member Dan Alexander has spent the last three years learning to build guitars in his bathroom. In his spare time, he’s a dealer in professional recording gear and musical instruments, a published author, and has written songs for Eddie Money, Greg Kihn, and others. He spends an inordinate amount of time reading old issues of American Lutherie.

▪ bio current as of 2023

Effects of Grain Orientation on Brace Deflection

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.

Toothed Planes and Scraper Planes

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.

Recent Research: Short Summaries of Recent Scientific Research Articles from Savart Journal

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.

Product Reviews: Aqua Coat Clear Wood Grain Filler

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.

Questions: Nut Mounting

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?

Traditional Lutherie Techniques for Violin and Guitar Making

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.

Seven String Surgery

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.

How to Prepare Bone

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.

Proposed Standard Glue Strength Testing Method

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.

Wood Stiffness: An Analysis of a Substantial Sample of Woods of Interest to Guitar Makers

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.

Secrets of Santos

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.

A Simple Modification to Reduce Frequency Errors in Guitars

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.

The Bandola Llanera (and Its Cousins) New World Descendents with Old World Roots

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.

Quick Heel-Crack Fix

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?

Questions: Hide glue in hot, humid climates

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.

Questions: Chocolaty Tone

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.

Thoughts on Larrivee’s Symmetrical Bracing

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.

Herringbone Trim and Shell Purfling

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.

Tres Hermanas- Same DNA, Different Personalities

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.

Recent Research: Short Summaries of Recent Scientific Research Articles from Savart Journal

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.

Questions: Threaded Inserts in #101 Mottola Article

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.

Birth of the Tenor Lap Steel

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.

The Creation of the American X Braced Guitar: A British Perspective

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.

Holy Grail Guitar Show, Batman! (European Guitar Builders Take Berlin)

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.

Multiscale Fretboards and Fingerboards: The Long and Short of It

2014
AL#119 p.50               
Harry Fleishman                                                                                           

▪ Multiscale fretboards have been around for centuries. Harry Fleishman has been around for decades. In that time he has built a lot of different permutations of the idea. Here he gives us some thoughts on how to do it accurately, elegantly, and efficiently.

The Business of Doing Business

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.

Making Matching Templates

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.

Building the Tanbour

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.

GAL Instrument Plan #69: Tanbour

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.

Multiscale Peg Head Scarf Joint

2014
AL#118 p.60               
Harry Fleishman                                                                                           

▪ So you are making a neck with a multiscale fretboard. The nut will be at an angle, not the normal perpendicular. How do you deal with that fact when grafting the peghead? Harry shows you a simple and elegant method of cutting a compound angle that matches the nut.

2014 GAL Convention/Exhibition

2014
AL#119 p.34               
Staff                                                                                           

▪ Another wonderfully successful GAL Convention, packed with information, music, and camaraderie has now passed into the record books. You will be seeing many major articles drawn from its lectures and workshops over the next few years. In the mean time, take a look at a few photos of the fun we had.

Construction Methods of Early Spanish Guitarreros

2014
AL#118 p.38               
James Westbrook                                                                                           

▪ So the “Spanish method” is to build a guitar face-down and put the back on last, right? Well, maybe not. Some older Spanish guitars appear to have had the tops put on last, based on clues like glue drips and the fitting of back braces. Also, tiny filled holes indicate that they may have been nailed into molds during construction.

Selecting Guitar Wood Based On Material Properties Part 1

2014
AL#118 p.55               
Trevor Gore                                                                                           

▪ How do you pick wood for a guitar? If you stood up and shouted “Science!” this is the article for you. Also see Part 2 in AL #119.

Lutherie Curmudgeon

2014
AL#117 p.65               
John Calkin                                                                                           

▪ Calkin ponders the phenomenon of how-to-book authors leaving out their most vital information. This may be due to the assumption of the knowledge of basic information often taken for granted.

The Mariachi Humpback

2013
AL#116 p.56               
C.F. Casey                                                                                           

▪ Building two related instruments which form the rhythmic foundation of the Mariachi band: the Vihuela and the Guitarron.

What To Do When Your Head Falls Off: Instrument Repair Tips and Techniques

2013
AL#115 p.48               
Brian Michael   Alex Glasser                                                                                       

▪ Brian and Alex discuss details of various repair jobs, including split pegheads, a severed uke head, and guitar soundboard cracks. From their 2011 GAL convention lecture.

Letter to the Editor: Wood Files

2013
AL#116 p.4               
Earl Bushey                                                                                           

▪ Praise for Todd Brotherton’s product review: 10″ Cabinetmaker’s rasp in AL#115 and exposure to similar tools in a Tokyo repair shop and other scenarios.

Beyond the Rule of 18: Intonation For the 21st Century

2013
AL#116 p.6               
Gary Magliari   Don MacRostie                                                                                       

▪ Compensating fretted instruments to play equally tempered scales using orthodox and unorthodox methods. From GAL 2011 convention lecture.

Lions and Tigers and Math, Oh My!

2013
AL#116 p.9               
Tom Harper                                                                                           

▪ Mathematical equations describing vibrating string activity to compliment Gary Magliari and Don MacRostie’s convention lecture, ‘Beyond the Rule of 18’.

Battling Shop Dust

2013
AL#116 p.28               
Robbie O’Brien                                                                                           

▪ Creative Solutions to an overlooked, yet pervasive danger in the lutherie shop: wood dust. Four fundamentals for dust collection in the shop setting.

The New England Luthiers OM Collaborative Build

2013
AL#116 p.34               
Don-P. Boivin                                                                                           

▪ New England Luthiers, an association of professionals and amateurs united by the common love of stringed instrument building, collaborate in a yearlong build project and public luthier showcase in Cambridge Massachusetts.

Recent Research: Short Summaries of Recent Scientific Research Articles from Savart Journal

2013
AL#114 p.62               
R.M. Mottola                                                                                           

▪ Short, not too technical summaries of selected research on violin arching curves, comparing violins to the human voice, and the initial behavior of nylon guitar strings.

Letter to the Editor: Advice on Damaged Instruments

2013
AL#115 p.3               
Steven Pine                                                                                           

▪ Advice regarding water damaged instruments and steps to handle, stabilize, dry, reduce warping, dealing with varnish, and maintaining historical evidence.

Hunting the Elusive Guitar Wolf

2013
AL#114 p.42               
Alan Carruth                                                                                           

▪ Carruth examines the guitar wolf, (a ‘bad’ note linked to some feature of the resonant structure of the instrument or strings) where it lurks, and how to deal with it in an organized fashion.

Making a Truly Flat Sanding Bar

2013
AL#113 p.62               
Mark French                                                                                           

▪ Precisely flat sanding bars are critical to the development of both science and manufacturing; thus the process of ‘lapping’ in necessary, as described by French.

A Summary of John Greven’s Voicing Method

2013
AL#114 p.10               
Mike Doolin                                                                                           

▪ Greven’s simple and direct methods for controlling the sound of his guitars are intuitive and experimental despite his roots in the scientific field.

It Worked for Me: Breathing Air Systems

2012
AL#112 p.64               
Gary Hopkins                                                                                           

▪ Gary Hopkins sets up an inexpensive shop air system without air filters using knowledge gleaned from his time working as an engineer with the space shuttle program.

Lutherie Curmudgeon

2012
AL#112 p.67               
John Calkin                                                                                           

▪ Calkin defines ‘juice’ as interest, enthusiasm, dedication, and drive and how it applies to lutherie.

On the G.A.L.’s 40th Anniversary: How it All Began

2012
AL#111 p.48               
Deb Olsen                                                                                           

▪ Deb Olsen reflects on the humble beginnings of the Guild of American Luthiers, the non-profit group dedicated to sharing information in the field of string instrument building, featuring artifacts and reflections from the early days.

Production Techniques For the Custom Luthier

2012
AL#110 p.5               
Charles Fox                                                                                           

▪ America’s number one lutherie teacher discusses a series of processes to make guitar building relatively easy, efficient, accurate, and consistent in a production situation.

Steaming Hide Glue and Laminating Ribs

2012
AL#109 p.6               
James Ham                                                                                           

▪ Ham demonstrates his technique of activating hot hide glue with steam to glue top and back plates to ribs. From his 2011 GAL convention workshop.

Recent Research: Short Summaries of Recent Scientific Research Articles from Savart Journal

2012
AL#109 p.64               
R.M. Mottola                                                                                           

▪ Short, not too technical summaries of topics including violin bowing direction, violin arching profiles, optimizing guitar vibration mode, and damping in wound guitar strings.

Inside the Elderly Repair Shop

2011
AL#108 p.30               
Roger-Alan Skipper   Joe Konkoly                                                                                       

▪ Konkoly describes his job as repair shop manager, supervising 8 repairmen and 3 on setup inside the Elderly repair shop.

Lutherie: Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow

2011
AL#107 p.12               
R.E. Brune                                                                                           

▪ R.E. Brune, founder of a lutherie family dynasty now in it’s third generation, traces modern lutherie to it’s earliest roots in what is modern day Bavaria Germany. From his 2011 GAL convention lecture.

Cheap Machines: Drill Press

2011
AL#107 p.56      ALA2 p.66         
John Calkin                                                                                           

▪ The drill press is an indispensable tool in the lutherie shop, despite the advent of dedicated machines which have replaced some of it’s chores.

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

It Worked for Me: Portable Buffing Setup

2011
AL#107 p.67      ALA2 p.70         
Mark Roberts                                                                                           

▪ Bolting various jigs and benders to various work surfaces, including a new buffing setup.

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

Lutherie Curmudgeon

2011
AL#106 p.69               
John Calkin                                                                                           

▪ Calkin illustrates life lessons with the Colin Hay song, ‘Waiting For My Real Life To Begin’.

Summers In Siguenza With Jose

2011
AL#106 p.31      ALA5 p.93         
Monica Esparza                                                                                           

▪ Esparza gives a glimpse of the intense experience of attending two week summer seminars in Spain under lutherie legend Jose Romanillos in 4 different years.

The Binding Frame

2011
AL#106 p.54      ALA2 p.62         
R.M. Mottola                                                                                           

▪ A new method for clamping the binding of a guitar into its recess while the glue dries, involving an MDF frame and rubber wedges.

Letter to the Editor: endangered species act

2011
AL#106 p.4               
Chuck Erickson                                                                                           

▪ Fish and Wildlife pays an unexpected visit to the Duke of Pearl, causing him to learn more than he ever wanted to know about the Lacey Act.

Questions: Fret spacing

2010
AL#104 p.69               
Jon Sevy                                                                                           

▪ The relationship between the familiar 17.817 fret spacing constant and the 12th root of 2 is demonstrated.

About Alcohols Used As Solvents In French Polishing

2011
AL#105 p.38               
R.M. Mottola                                                                                           

▪ Mottola explains the water content, liquor taxes, sources, and denaturants of alcohols used as solvents in French polishing.

Questions: Lacey act amendment

2010
AL#103 p.68               read this article
Chuck Erickson   Anne Middleton   Michael Greenfield                                                                                   

▪ The effect of the Lacey Act on procuring raw materials needed to build musical instruments. Two FAQs on the Lacey Act can be found at www.eia-global.org/lacey and www.forestlegality.org.

Letter to the Editor: isotropic plate

2010
AL#104 p.7               
Jack-E. Johnston                                                                                           

▪ Information on differential equations for harmonic motion can be found at www.luthiersforum.com which features in-depth discussion, photos, and math equations.

Anodizing Aluminum

2010
AL#103 p.15               
Mike Doolin                                                                                           

▪ Anodizing aluminum using battery acid, a plastic tank, and aluminum rod, and an automotive battery charger.