American Lutherie #153 – Fall/Winter 2024 – Guild of American Luthiers

American Lutherie #153
Fall/Winter 2024

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On this issue’s cover we see an all-poplar guitar taking shape in the shop of Steve Kennel. It’s in the style of a Stella Jumbo.

Photo by Steve Kennel

Vacuum Laminating Sides, and Beyond

by James Condino

from his 2023 GAL Convention workshop

Condino has been a sought-after restorer of vintage American plywood bass viols for many years. He has recently developed practical and accessible vacuum-bag techniques for repairing delaminations in the plates, as well as fabricating those extra-large rib sections. Now he applies those same techniques to make laminated ribs for guitars and mandolins, and reports great success.

On this issue’s cover we see an all-poplar guitar taking shape in the shop of Steve Kennel. It’s in the style of a Stella Jumbo.

Photo by Steve Kennel

The back cover shows plywood bass viol plates being worked on in the shop of James Condino.

Photo by James Condino

Build a Classical Guitar in a Week: Days One and Two

by Robbie O’Brien

from his 2017 GAL Convention lecture

Here’s Part One of a three-part series, in which veteran lutherie teacher O’Brien 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.

Electric Guitar Making: Designing with Intention

by Barry Grzebik

from his 2023 GAL Convention lecture

There is a lot of design territory between a solidbody guitar and an electrified archtop guitar. Grzebik explores that spectrum in his work by controlling many factors including unsupported top area, enclosed air, body resonance, asymmetry, weight relief, and physical balance.

What We Do and Don’t Know About Guitar Making

by Mark French

from his 2023 GAL Convention talk

For decades now, various lovable eggheads have been prodding, bombarding, and tickling stringed instruments in their labs to produce arcane charts and tables, which they then explain with equations worthy of Oppenheimer. Some of us may have been waiting for them to calm down and tell us, in plain English, what they have figured out, and what they have not yet cracked. This article takes a serious swing at it.

GAL Instrument Plan #83: 1939 Martin 0-18 Guitar

by Tim Olsen

It’s just a good, detailed, accurate drawing of a golden-age Martin.

String and Plate Vibrations

by Carl Formoso

Formoso presents some basic experiments and tells us why things wiggle the way that they do. You know, a string couldn’t vibrate if it didn’t push back. Let that be a lesson to us all.

Quasi-Copy Stella

by Steve Kennel

Kennel is a sculptor who usually uses salvaged wood to make his guitars. But for this one, he splurged on some new poplar planks from the home improvement center. He ended up with a nice, simple guitar with a blues-era vibe at a low cost.

Aging the Look of Budget Tuning Machines

by Aaron Cash

Here’s how to mess up a perfectly good set of tuners without messing them up. It’s funny, but this process of distressing part of a new instrument to fit a certain received aesthetic is pretty much what fiddle makers have been doing for a couple centuries and getting paid handsomely for it. I guess we’re on the right track now.

The Archtop Guitar: Perspectives on the Present and Future

by Steve Grimes, Ted Megas, Tom Ribbecke, with moderator Jeff Elliott

from their 2008 GAL Convention panel discussion

Here’s a great example of the many hundreds of excellent and timeless articles we published in our black-and-white era. This one is from fifteen years ago, and we print it here in color for the first time. These three makers are firmly rooted in archtop guitar tradition, but they all are experimenting and innovating.

Resurrecting the Family Guitar

by John Calkin

Calkin wanted to help get a funky antique guitar back into service without breaking the bank for his client. It’s all about balance. You can respect the cool factor of the stenciled ornamentation without getting all precious about it. This is an encore presentation; we first ran it eighteen years ago, but it’s printed here in color for the first time.

In Memoriam: Harry Fleishman

by Michael Bashkin, Fred Carlson, Fabio Ragghianti, and January Williams

We’re sure gonna miss good ol’ Harry Fleishman. Luthier, designer, teacher, mentor, raconteur, author, Convention presenter, inventor, and so much more.

It Worked For Me

by C.F. Casey, Dan Alexander, and Steve Kennel

Don’t toss out inexpensive modern scissors, remake them into knives and chisels. Some hints on how to get things right without measuring. Hand-carving a guitar neck? Mount it to a beam with an octagonal cross section to increase your vise angle options.