2023
AL#150 p.65
Peter Tsiorba
▪ George Smith was one of that rare breed: A self-starter guitar maker before the American Lutherie Boom. Heres three fond remembrances by people who were glad to have known him well.
2023
AL#150 p.65
David Franzen
▪ George Smith was one of that rare breed: A self-starter guitar maker before the American Lutherie Boom. Heres three fond remembrances by people who were glad to have known him well.
2023
AL#150 p.5
Martin Moen
▪ An Australian retiree has made a cello, and intends to make more.
2023
AL#150 p.16
Mark French
▪ Richard R.E. Bruné was in the GALs very first cohort and was an author and convention presenter from the very beginning. Weve visited him a couple of times over the decades. His son Marshall was born into the business, and into the Guild. Together they run a large workshop and epicenter of classical guitar making, scholarship restoration, appreciation, and dealing.
2023
AL#150 p.60
Mike Doolin
▪ Doolin shows us how to make nice solid wood linings starting with veneer from the hardware store. They turn out great, and you have your choice of colors: light, or dark.
2023
AL#148 p.9
Kelly Reynolds
▪ Reader solicits opionions about the use of Lyptus, a typle of eucalyptus wood.
2023
AL#148 p.62
John Calkin
▪ The Lutherie Curmudgeon casts his eye on the lutherie scene, and speaks his truth. He’s kinda grumpy, but you know you love him.
2022
AL#146 p.6
Flip Scipio
▪ Ten years ago, Flip Scipio attended the last of the summer seminars given by José Romanillos at his base in Sigüenza, Spain. Now, after the recent passing of the Maestro, this review is both informative and poignant.
2022
AL#146 p.14
Max Mclaughlin
▪ Here’s a story that will sound familiar to a lot of us old farts of the Lutherie Boom generation for the decades-old echoes that it evokes. A bold young person wants to do unusual and arty things with guitars, and they find an older mentor in the crowded back room of a New York City guitar store. That takes you back, don’t it Gramps?
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.
2022
AL#145 p.46
C.F. Casey
▪ We sometimes hear of a luthier who enjoys the challenge of building an instrument from lumber-yard materials rather than from picked and approved tonewoods. but Casey goes one better when he makes two successful instruments from a single softwood two-by-four. And it had a knot in it, just for extra fun.
2022
AL#145 p.52
John Calkin
▪ Using simple, non-dedicated tooling, Calkin steps us through his straightforward, no-nonsense process of routing control cavities in solid guitar bodies.
2022
AL#145 p.70
John Calkin
▪ Calkin thinks about a few things that have changed since he started making guitars nearly 50 years ago. And some things that have not.
2021
AL#143 p.40
Leonardo Michelin-Salomon
▪ In AL#141 Leonardo showed us how he was building Romantic-era guitars at the craft school in Norway. This time he is taking a deep dive into building with local spruce. Although the trees are not big, the wood is very good. Mentions Gennaro Fabricatore, Johann Anton Stauffer, Josef Pagés, Coffee-Goguette.
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#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#142 p.40
Doug Hunt Mark French
▪ Two luthiers dare each other to make a useful guitar for a total investment of $75 each. One makes a flattop, the other a solid body. There are rules, and rules are meant to be broken.
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.38
Gerry Chicalo
▪ All the guitar soundboards ever made don’t add up to a toothpick in the vast lumberyard of the timber industry. A stray cedar log that washes onto a beach in British Columbia can be lutherie gold, and harvesting it can be a lot of nice fragrant outdoor fun.
2020
AL#139 p.58
Roger Bucknall
▪ Can people really hear the difference between different back-and-sides wood? Brittish guitar builder Roger Bucknall is in an excellent position to explore this question. He’s the founder (in 1973) and still head honcho of boutique brand Fylde Guitars. He made a set of identical guitars except for the wood choices, and….. Read the article to see what happened.
2020
AL#139 p.70
Tom Thiel
▪ They say to cut lutherie trees when the sap it down. But what does that really mean? Also, that old story about cutting the trees during the right phase of the moon might be more than a story.
2020
AL#140 p.56
Geoff Needham
▪ Bamboo is kinda like wood, right? Ever wonder if you could make a guitar out of it? Nowadays it comes in large panels of edge-laminated strips that are about the right thickness. The author made two nice classical guitars with bamboo sides and backs, and gives the material a big thumbs-up for workability, appearance, and sound. Mentions Miguel Rodriguez and Domingo Esteso.
2020
AL#139 p.2
Dean Coss John Calkin
▪ Does a solid body lap steel guitar need a truss rod? No. Plus a discussion of alernative woods and some appreciation of the virtues of quick-and-dirty lutherie.
2020
AL#139 p.38
Sjaak Elmendorp
▪ Holland had a lutherie boom in the 1970s, too. Arie started out as a carpenter, but moved into lutherie after an injury. Today he makes steel string guitars and a variety of other instruments. Mentions Roger Siminoff, Irving Sloane, Arthur Overholzer, Cees van Loon, Vox Humana, preparing cow bone, humidity control.
2019
AL#137 p.69
john Calkin
▪ How come my Flying Vee uke did not sound great? Probly not enough air in it.
2019
AL#137 p.70
James Buckland
▪ Straightforward advice for getting the best result with simple hand planes.
2019
AL#138 p.6
Michael Bashkin
▪ Michael Bashkin’s lutherie cred is unimpeachable, and it turns out that he previously had a career in forestry, with years of experience in many places from the tropics, to the temperate zone, to the arctic. So he knows a lot about trees and about wood. How should we feel about using the earth’s dwindling supplies of fine traditional woods to make our wonderful, precious guitars? And will our clients give us less of their wonderful, precious dollars if we don’t? Let’s ask Michael. This fascinating article is based on his 2017 GAL Convention lecture.
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.62
Greg Maxwell
▪ Australian luthier Trevor Gore is the co-author of the two-volume book Contemporary Acoustic Guitar, Design and Build. Gore teaches a three-day seminar in which he demonstates his very specific and number-based method of measuring and controlling the resonant frequecies of guitars. Maxwell attended one such seminar, held at Robbie O’Brien’s shop, and gives a brief overview.
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#135 p.69
Mark Hatcher
▪ What’s the deal with hardwood tops on steel string guitars?
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#134 p.52
Chris Herrod
▪ You’ll often read article in American Lutherie where scientists explain the sound of guitars in terms of resonant frequencies and onset transients. On the other hand, longtime wood merchant Chris Herrod is here to give the metaphoric pendulum a big old shove back to the right-brain tradition of using evocative adjectives like “dry,” “creamy,” and “poignant.” He also discusses psychoacoustics research and how confident we should be about our “ears.”
2018
AL#133 p.48
James Blilie
▪ We all have ideas about the stiffness of brace wood, probably based on a combination of intuition, hearsay, and informal flexing. Blilie aims to accumulate more quantitave data. Here he reports on his latest tests. He also describes his methodology and the reasoning behind it. This is Blilie’s third article on this topic.
2017
AL#131 p.53
James Blilie
▪ Unless you are really messing it up, the glue line is stronger than the wood. And here’s more numbers to prove it. Blilie uses real lab gear and standard statistical analysis to drive the lesson home.
2017
AL#131 p.69
Tom Thiel
▪ Why does my dimensioned neck stock keep twisting?
2017
AL#130 p.68
Robert Ruck
▪ Is ipe a good guitar wood?
2017
AL#131 p.3
Samuele Carcagno Chris Plack
▪ A study at Lancaster University seeks luthiers to help with a scientific study of the impact of wood choice on the percieved sound of acoustic guitars.
2017
AL#129 p.68
Mark Dalton Andy Powers John Calkin
▪ Torrified wood has been baked at similar temperatures as baking potatoes, usually in a reduced-oxygen atmosphere. Seems to make the wood lighter in weight, darker in color, and stiffer across the grain.
2017
AL#129 p.68
John Calkin R.M. Mottola
▪ There is no company offering a torrifying service, but maybe you can do something similar in a home oven. I said maybe. Don’t blame the GAL if you make a stinking mess. Or worse.
2017
AL#129 p.6
Cyndy Burton Linda Manzer
▪ The prolific maker of high-end flattop and archtop guitars talks about her mentors Jean Larrivee and Jimmy D’Aquisto, the lutherie biz, her collaborations with guitarist Pat Metheny, and a recent project in cooperation with other Canadian luthiers. Also mentions Paul Simon.
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.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.
2016
AL#128 p.22
Pat Megowan Jeff Lee Manthos
▪ People come to lutherie on many different paths. Some of us were nerdy model-making kids, or spoiled lefty college dropouts. Or maybe the garage band was our gateway into the opium den of guitar making. On the other hand, Jeff Manthos was a helicopter aircrewman and rescue swimmer in the Vietnam era. Then, unexpectedly, he went to the Violinmaking School of America in Salt Lake City. He has made a career of it, first in other shops and now on his own.
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.
2016
AL#128 p.58
James Blilie
▪ We all have ideas about the stiffness of brace wood, probably based on a combination of intuition, hearsay, and informal flexing. Blilie aims to accumulate more quantitave data. Here he reports on his latest tests. He also describes his methodology and the reasoning behind it. This is Blilie’s second article on this topic. The earlier one is in AL128. A third article appears in AL133.
2016
AL#128 p.8
Alan Perlman
▪ Perlman runs though a restoration job on a Torres guitar, replacing a side and copying fancy purflings. Then he builds a replica of a Stahl Style 6 flattop. So when you are copying a century-old American guitar, how far do you go in the name of authenticity? Do you match the faded tones of the purfling, or use the nice bright colors that the Larson Brothers liked? Do you let the glue blobs roam free like they did, or get all tidy like a nervous modern maker? From his 2014 convention lecture.
2007
AL#92 p.54 read this article
Bruce Creps
▪ Creps’ business is dealing wood to luthiers. He gives advice on dealing with the mills that process your log, how to store and dry the planks, and (in AL #91) how to resaw it into useful instrument wood. Perhaps most interesting is the number of ills that can befall wood, both as a tree and while curing. Laying out boards for the prettiest sets and the greatest yield is also covered. With 18 photos and a drawing.
2007
AL#91 p.14
C.F. Martin IV
▪ The author is the current chief of the venerable family business. He provides a candid look at Martin Guitar company history as well as a short examination of alternative wood varieties. Highly entertaining, with 5 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2007
AL#91 p.40 read this article
Bruce Creps
▪ Just about everything you’ll need to know about setting up a bandsaw for resawing and getting the most yield from your lumber. The emphasis is on the Hitachi CB75F resaw, but much of the info will translate to other bandsaws. Included is a good side bar on resharpening bandsaw blades. With 10 photos and 6 drawings.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2007
AL#90 p.8
David Hurd
▪ Hurd believes that the fastest way to great instruments is science, and it’s hard to argue with such a rational man. His jigs measure the deflection of top plates while under tension, and once he carves the top and braces to the numbers he wants he’s done. Period. Sort of makes intuition obsolete. This could also be math heavy if he didn’t offer an Internet spread sheet to ease the pain. With 7 photos and 7 figures/charts.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2007
AL#90 p.46
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#90 p.51
Rodney Stedall
▪ With all the wood varieties in the world it’s criminal that so few are accepted in lutherie. Have a look at kiaat, a wood used by South African luthiers. With 2 photos.
2007
AL#90 p.51
Ron Bushman
▪ Another look at two varieties of wood used by South African luthiers. With 2 photos.
2007
AL#90 p.52
James Condino
▪ Condino’s mandolin is made from recycled materials, mostly Douglas fir and katalox. It is unique and beautiful, and the story behind it is pretty cool, too. With 7 photos.
2007
AL#90 p.54 read this article
Bruce Harvie
▪ Specialty woodcutters must be the hardest working people in lutherie, but they also seem to have the most fun. Not just a woodcutter, Harvie is also a treasure hunter supplying luthiers in the trade with wooden jewels. This story is great fun. With 16 photos.
2005
AL#84 p.64 BRB7 p.479
John Calkin
▪ Spruce and pine for guitar and mandolin tops VS maple.
2005
AL#83 p.10 BRB7 p.362
Jonathon Peterson Pierre-Yves Fuchs
▪ Fuchs went through cabinet making school and violin making school on his way to becoming a gold medal bow maker. He is traditional and opinionated, and will make you believe that there might be cosmic influences involved in making an excellent bow. Intuition, that is. Tradition, experience, and a good feeling about your work in progress. Science guys may pull their hair out, but most of us would rather have good intuition than a good grounding in physics. With 3 photos.
2005
AL#83 p.14 BRB7 p.358
Michael Finnerty Bradley Clark
▪ Cole Clark Guitars is an Australian company specializing in computer designed and manufactured flattop and electric guitars. Rather than use CNC machines to duplicate old guitar styles of construction they have modified their designs to suit the potentials of the machinery, which in the end reduces expensive hand labor by as much as half. A sidebar mentions the lutherie uses of 3 Aussie wood varieties. With 10 photos.
2005
AL#81 p.26 BRB7 p.286 read this article
Cyndy Burton Kevin La Due
▪ A high school teacher coaches entire classes through guitar making. Think kids can’t do it? You’ll be surprised. Some well-made and easy-to-use jigs make the process faster and friendlier, and the use of local wood makes it affordable. Pretty inspirational, and with 21 photos.
2005
AL#81 p.40 BRB7 p.302 read this article
Ralph Charles
▪ Man! How come red spruce is so expensive? And how come we can’t find a red spruce top as pretty as a piece of Sitka? Friends, if you look at enough old guitars you’ll realize that Adirondack spruce tops were rarely tight-grained, perfectly straight, and perfectly quartered all at the same time. The big stands of Eastern spruce may have been harvested 60 years ago, but forester Charles is here to say that the trees never grew with luthiers in mind. Man has had a random hand in growing red spruces for generations, and so have beavers. Conditions in the woods can change rapidly. It’s wild out there! To amateur naturalists this is exciting stuff. With 5 photos and a chart.
2005
AL#81 p.63 BRB7 p.415
John Calkin
▪ The thick soundboard requirement in hammered dulcimer construction.
2004
AL#78 p.20 BRB7 p.192
Cyndy Burton Lester DeVoe
▪ A maker of flamenco guitars discusses guitarists and instruments. A good interview can be as inspiring as a good how-to, and this is a good interview. Mentions Santos Hernandez, Sabicas, Paco de Lucia.
2004
AL#78 p.46 BRB7 p.200
John Calkin Jeffrey Yong
▪ Yong hails from Malaysia, a country not often associated with fine lutherie. Nevertheless, he makes a lot of instruments that look very contemporary and tasty, and he has access to varieties of wood that would make many of us very envious. With 10 photos.
2003
AL#76 p.16 BRB7 p.116
Mike Doolin John Greven
▪ This wonderful interview has the kind of depth that only happens when friends talk. It takes familiarity to know what to ask and how to answer. Humor permeates this discussion of alternative woods, business ploys, the Internet, and in general living the life of a successful luthier. Greven has been in the business as long as anyone and is generous with his advice and experience. With 22 photos.
This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.
2003
AL#76p.65 BRB7 p.491
Alain Bieber
▪ A method for matching the curl when making 4-piece curly maple backs.
2004
AL#77 p.8 BRB7 p.142
Jonathon Peterson Sue Mooers Ray Mooers
▪ This is a wonderful story of how a couple began a basement lutherie business and ended up employing 36 people in the creation of fine harps and hammered dulcimers. Everybody in the lutherie trades should be this nice and interesting (and the wonder of it is that so many are!). With 37 photos, including a bunch of the harp assembly shop.
2004
AL#77 p.28 BRB7 p.160 read this article
Stephen Frith
▪ Frith travels to Austria to mill spruce with Tobias Braun, and suggests that other luthiers might like to treat themselves to such a holiday. See the world, spend time in the outdoors, and collect some European spruce at a remarkable price! With 9 photos of sawmill mayhem to whet your appetite.
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#74 p.36 BRB7 p.62
R.M. Mottola
▪ A tight-fisted and humorous look at buying select tools, wood, and strings without draining your bank account. With 4 photos and a drawing.
2003
AL#74 p.61 BRB7 p.17 read this article
Alan Ollivant
▪ Quartersawing and drying six large maple rounds that are 45″ long and 3′ in diameter.
2003
AL#73 p.57 BRB7 p.20
R.M. Mottola
▪ Does plywood have a place in the luthier’s bag of tricks? The author thinks it may, and gives us some examples to think about. With 2 photos.
2003
AL#73 p.65 BRB7 p.13
John Calkin
▪ Bending bubinga and other woods.
2003
AL#73 p.65 BRB7 p.27 read this article
Ted Megas
▪ Thin, small cracks on the ebony tailpiece of a new custom made archtop.
2003
AL#73 p.46 BRB7 p.18
Steve Regimbal
▪ Take a quick look at three adventurous instruments by archtop builder Ted Berringer. They are a 12-string octave guitar, a 5-string mandolin, and a 6-string archtop made entirely of spruce. With 12 photos.
2003
AL#73 p.50 BRB7 p.24
Nathan Stinnette George Wunderlich
▪ Wunderlich builds minstrel banjos, recreations of banjos made before the various factories turned them into standardized items that standardized the way we all think about the banjo. With 6 photos.