Graham McDonald Stringed Instruments
Graham McDonald is a mandolin, Irish bouzouki, and ukulele builder who has published three books on instrument making and one on mandolin history. He has been a member of the GAL for thirty-two years. Despite living on the other side of the globe, he has attended four (maybe five) GAL Conventions and been a presenter at two of them.
▪ bio current as of 2023
2023
AL#149 p.64
Graham McDonald
▪ Fourteen years ago, McDonald wrote up a survey of the steel string guitar making books that were available at that time. More books have appeared since then, so hes back with an update. Look up the earlier article in our Premium Online Content.
2022
AL#146 p.70
Graham McDonald
▪ Make a simple jig to get double duty from a strip of ivoroid binding material.
2019
AL#138 p.56
Graham McDonald
▪ Rope binding uses contrasting wooden lozenges around the outer edge of a guitar, such that when they are rounded over, the binging seems to be twisted like a rope. The effect was popular in the early 20th century on ukuleles and Hawaiian guitars. The author takes us throught the process of slicing and dicing to produce the binding strips.
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#130 p.65
Graham McDonald
▪ Modern thoughts on the good old zero fret.
2016
AL#127 p.65
Graham McDonald
▪ Take a photo of a ruler under the strings to duplicate nut spacing.
2014
AL#120 p.71
Graham McDonald
▪ Generalizing the tonal differences among the top woods, redwood, western red cedar, port oxford cedar, and the spruces.
2013
AL#113 p.54
Graham McDonald
▪ Gerard Gilet, Jim Williams, and Graham McDonald each built acoustic basses simultaneously in Sydney, Australia using the limited information that was readily available in the late 1980s.
2012
AL#110 p.32
Graham McDonald
▪ Rare information on building Norwegian Hardanger sympathetic string fiddles and their soundholes.
2010
AL#104 p.48
Graham McDonald
▪ McDonald traces the evolution of the mandolin soundboard to it’s roots in the mandolino 250 years ago. From his 2008 GAL convention workshop.
2009
AL#98 p.58 read this article
Graham McDonald
▪ The author rounds up a collection of acoustic guitar making manuals currently available to help us separate the wheat from the chaff. The serious student will no doubt end up with several of these books, but McDonald will help you decide which ones to buy first. Includes jacket photos of all the books discussed.
2009
AL#97 p.42
John Calkin Graham McDonald
▪ Aussie McDonald has built many sorts of instruments, though he has come to specialize in mandolins and bouzoukis and has written a pair of books about their construction. He has also contributed a number of articles to American Lutherie over the years. It becomes apparent that like is different in Australia. We should all take a field trip there. With 8 photos.
2006
AL#85 p.8
Graham McDonald
▪ McDonald’s forte has become the oversized mandolin called the Irish Bouzouki. Here he unloads a ton of information about building them with flattops and carved tops with several forms of neck attachment and scale lengths, including pin bridge and tailpiece models. Zowie! With 25 photos and 5 drawings.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1998
AL#54 p.26 BRB5 p.198
Graham McDonald
▪ Advice about building an Irish instrument with a Greek name from an Australian in an American magazine. You could get jet lag just thinking about it. McDonald covers the construction of the entire instrument (his neck joint is really slick) but the focal point is his top construction. He steams thick flat plates in the oven and bends them into an arch until they set. After joining there is a minimum of carving yet to be done. All this is in the name of saving time and timber. With 9 photos and a pair of drawings.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
1985
AL#2 p.42 BRB1 p.78
Graham McDonald
▪ McDonald gives formulae and graphs to determine appropriate steel string gauges for nonstandard scale lengths.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.