Eleven-year GAL member Greg Nelson took up building stringed instruments in the late ’90s after years of cabinet and furniture making, architectural millwork, and antique restoration. His passion is steel string guitars, but he is currently building a fiddle and working up the nerve to try a cello.
▪ bio current as of 2015
2018
AL#133 p.3
Greg Nelson
▪ The writer seeks the guitar that was built by John Natelson for the book Guitarmaking:Tradition and Technology.
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.
2015
AL#123 p.62
Greg Nelson
▪ Controlling the distance between the pin and the bit is the whole game when cutting circles with a router. Here’s a new way to do it that offers very fine control and no threads. Elegant!.
2015
AL#121 p.63
Greg Nelson
▪ Nelson gives a positive review to the Channel Scraper, a simple tool for shaping the edge of a violin plate.
2014
AL#117 p.67
Greg Nelson
▪ Alternative clamps using rare earth magnets for delicate brace repair jobs.
2013
AL#114 p.67
Greg Nelson
▪ A small jig that removes bits of tang when preparing a fret for a bound fretboard.
2012
AL#110 p.68
Greg Nelson
▪ A pantograph for dealing with small pieces of shell for inlay work which speeds up the process.
2010
AL#102 p.62 ALA2 p.46
Greg Nelson
▪ Making your own bearing of a custom size to create the perfectly sized binding or purfling ledge.