The cover shows New York luthier Guy Rabut "holding the plane like a pencil." He carved a violin scroll for us at the 1995 GAL Convention.
Letter to the editor by Joe D. Franklin
Many builders maintain that a guitar top that varies in thickness offers better tone than a uniform top. Franklin offers technical reasons for why it is so.
The 1997 Healdsburg Guitar Festival by Jonathon Peterson
Though only 2 years old, the Healdsburg show has become culturally and commercially important, as well as a luthiers' information exchange. Peterson interviews organizers and luthiers who set up displays. The spread of photos is an even split of personalities and close-ups of interesting guitars.
Meet the Maker: Charles Fox by Fred Carlson
Fox has made an impact on the guitar community as an influential teacher and a designer of tools. Carlson attended Fox schools in the '70s and '90s, and in this interview he asks Fox to contrast his schools and predict the future of lutherie in America.
Crazy Like Charles Fox: Guitar Making Jigs for the 21st Century, Part 1 by John Calkin
The main thrust of Fox's American School of Lutherie lies in teaching lone guitarmakers to make better instruments through more accurate tooling and in helping them become more commercially viable by increasing their production. Calkin attended one of Charles' week-long Contemporary Guitar Making seminars and documented much of the hard info for American Lutherie readers. This segment concentrates on nearly 3 dozen jigs and fixtures that anyone can add to their lutherie arsenal, most of them adapted to power tools. Parts 2 & 3 (American Lutherie #53 & American Lutherie #54) to follow.
Scroll Carving by Guy Rabut
To non-fiddle people all violins look about the same. To the initiated, however, they are vastly different. Besides offering a thorough description of his scroll carving techniques, Rabut gives us a glimpse into the world of the violin in-crowd where an appreciation for subtlety is the stock-in-trade. Guy is a high-profile maker who has had the opportunity to examine many world-class violins.
Meet the Maker: R.E. Brune by Tim Olsen
Brune was an original founder of the Guild, has been a GAL convention lecturer, and an American Lutherie author. He's also a world renown maker, dealer, and collector of classical guitars. In this interview he offers some personal background as well as what he thinks it will take to stay afloat in the luthier world that's coming. His insider's view of high-buck instrument dealing is especially compelling.
The Restoration of Agustin Barrios' Francisco Simplicio by R.E. Brune
What does it take to restore an important instrument? Skill, research, and a solid feel and appreciation for the time during which the piece was made and played. Skip any of these factors and you could easily screw up an irreplaceable piece. Brune describes his approach to one guitar while at the same time demonstrating the qualities necessary to enter this field.
Meet the Maker: Augustino LoPrinzi by Jonathon Peterson
Augie LoPrinzi has made or overseen the construction of over 8000 guitars. He went from a one-man shop in the back of his barber shop to a factory that employed 30 people and made 80 flattops a month. Now back in a small-shop setting, his enthusiasm for the guitar is as high as ever. Come along for one of the wilder rides in the annals of lutherie.
Hangin' with Augie by John Calkin
Augie LoPrinzi has been an accessible luthier who taught or influenced dozens of people as they entered the business. Calkin "knew him when", back in the '70s at a time his small shop churned out 25 guitars a month. This is a different look at a man who was also a barber, pool hustler, amateur magician, wannabe classical guitarist, and a storyteller deluxe. Fun.
Violin Q&A by Michael Darnton
The soundpost of a cello can push the hard grain of the spruce right through the varnish. So how does one fix the problem? Is your varnish not as clear as you'd like? Damn! What's the best way to scale down a 4/4 violin to the smaller sizes? Darnton comes to the rescue again.
Product Reviews by Harry Fleishman
Ever thought to look in a fabric store for lutherie tools? I'll bet'cha that Harry beat you to it. He found a deal on aprons, some good layout tools for design work, and bias tape for tying on bindings. Then he opened a Woodcraft catalog and discovered clamps and a carbide burr cutter he couldn't live without. Just one more column demonstrating why the editorial staff has developed a fatherly concern for their toolman's life on the edge of lutherie.
Review: Tom Ribbecke's Archtop Building Course reviewed by Fred Casey
The reviewer came away from Ribbecke's seminar not only feeling that he now had the foundation needed to build archtops, but felt that his lutherie skills in general had been boosted by his experience.
Sources: Organizations and More by Cyndy Burton
A short listing a new books, videos and cyber-stuff, as well as a list of organizations and periodicals with a lutherie bias. Seems like no matter what instrument you want to build there are some official folks who want to help you. Hurrah!
It Worked for Me
Members contribute ideas about repairing caved-in tops on classical guitars, curing a buzzy National resonator guitar, and a variation on fret installation procedures.
Questions edited by Cyndy Burton
Readers answer questions about pore-filling with epoxy, the finish used on old Martins, info about Portuguese instruments, getting money for lutherie school, and books about making sitars and sarods.
This issue is no longer available individually. Its contents are
included in The Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Vol. 5.
