Twenty-year GAL member Robbie OBrien was born in Germany to American parents, and grew up in Atlanta. He became interested in the guitar as a young medical student in Brazil. Now hes been teaching lutherie for over thirty years.
▪ bio current as of 2025
2025
AL#155 p.60
Robbie O’Brien
▪ Heres Part Three of the three-part series, in which veteran lutherie teacher OBrien follows the construction of an instrument in deep detail. Everything moves right along on an intense and carefully developed schedule; a student starts with a box of wood, and strings up a nice classical guitar only six days later. Part Two was in AL#154. Part One was in AL#153.
2025
AL#154 p.42
Robbie O’Brien
▪ Heres Part Two of a three-part series, in which veteran lutherie teacher OBrien follows the construction of an instrument in deep detail. Everything moves right along on an intense and carefully developed schedule; a student starts with a box of wood, and strings up a nice classical guitar only six days later.
2024
AL#153 p.40
Robbie O’Brien
▪ Heres Part One of a three-part series, in which veteran lutherie teacher OBrien follows the construction of an instrument in deep detail. Everything moves right along on an intense and carefully developed schedule; a student starts with a box of wood and strings up a nice classical guitar only six days later.
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.
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.
2016
AL#126 p.48
Robbie O’Brien Antonio Tessarin
▪ Robbie O’Brien keeps up a friendly lutherie competition with his old mentor Antonio Tessarin. Robbie is in Colorado and Antonio is in Brazil, but that’s no prob these days, what with the smartphones and the Interwebs and all that. In this article Antonio shows Robbie how he fixed a nasty smash on the edge of one of his own classical guitars. Sweet! What will Robbie do to one-up that?
2015
AL#124 p.38
Robbie O’Brien
▪ Robbie O’Brien gets around. Among his many lutherie related projects, he recently went to Spain to film an instructional video on making a flamenco guitar. He met up with some great folks over there and brought home lots of great lutherie info. Warning: This article contains brief mentions of food, dance, song, architecture, passion, history, beauty, and cultural richness. There’s a big, wonderful world out there.
2014
AL#117 p.40
Brian Yarosh Robbie O’Brien
▪ Luthier and teacher Robbie O’Brien on his career, from his stints as a chiropractor, jeweler, and acupuncturist, to his initial exposure to the guitar during his extended stay in Brazil, to his instruction from Antonio Tessarin and his teaching work in Colorado.
2013
AL#116 p.28 read this article
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.