Posted on July 31, 2019March 7, 2024 by S Mc Herr Helmholtz’ Tube Herr Helmholtz’ Tube by Mike Doolin previously published in American Lutherie #91, 2007 See also, “There’s a Hole in the Bucket” by Cyndy Burton “Sideways” by John Monteleone “Three Holes are Better than One” by Robert Ruck Design innovator Mike Doolin tried an interesting experiment. Mike’s guitars have the distinctive double-cutaway feature and they don’t lend themselves to a port up in the neck/cutaway region for reasons of underlying structure. So Mike put one in the lower bout and very unexpectedly found his Helmholtz resonance had raised something like a major third. He felt that compromised the responses of the guitar. His solution was to “tube it.” The side was ported before I assembled the guitar. After gluing the back on, I realized the change in the Helmholtz when I tapped on the guitar with the port open. It seemed obvious that a shift of a major third up was going to radically change the sound of the guitar, probably killing most of the bass response. I knew that ports in bass reflex speakers are often tubes, where the longer the tube the lower the resonant frequency. I also knew that the tube could be either inside or outside the box. So I initially held a roll of toilet paper against the port, letting the cardboard core of the roll form a tube that extended the port. That dropped the main air resonance back down, showing me that I was on the right track. Then I turned a tube of wood on my lathe to fit the hole and experimented with the length until the air resonance moved less than a half-step with the port closed or open. I recall the port being 1 1/4" in diameter and the tube being about 2 1/4" long, but that’s just from memory. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 15, 2019March 7, 2024 by sbharpist@gmail.com Woodchopper’s Ball Woodchopper’s Ball by Bruce Harvie from his 2004 GAL Convention Lecture previously published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 How many people are here because they are thinking about processing their own wood? I highly encourage it. It’s very satisfying to build instruments from wood that you’ve cut. You can get a spruce on a firewood permit. It’s a great feeling to be out in the forest. When the Guild was first starting out over thirty years ago, the word “tonewood” was not in common usage. Back then there were maybe only three or four suppliers. Now you can Google “tonewoods” and get a hundred suppliers. There’s still a lot to be explored in the world of tonewoods. Englemann spruce didn’t really come on the market until 1978, and Red spruce not until ’89 or so. I can think of four or five species that are virtually untapped in the world of tonewoods: Noble fir, California red fir, and true white fir are all great woods. In Europe, you have places like the Ukraine opening up right now. They have beautiful spruce. I’ve seen quite a bit of it. We have wood here at this convention from the Balkans. That’s nice to see. It’s amazing how much wood is here. It’s just great to see all the guitar tops and woods for sale. And don’t miss the auction. If you look at the woods that were used in guitars in the first part of the 20th century, you see some scuzzy looking wood. On some of the best-sounding prewar Martins, the tops are mismatched and the grain is running every which way. You see tons of runout because that wood was supplied in the form of lumber, not split billets. I see some wonderful-sounding old guitars that were built with wood that people would throw away nowadays. But a typical guitar store today has walls full of Breedloves or Martins with tops that were milled correctly, probably by Pacific Rim Tonewoods up in Concrete, Washington. They do an incredible job of milling guitar wood. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 1, 2019February 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Woodchopper’s Ball Woodchopper’s Ball by Bruce Harvie from his 2004 GAL Convention Lecture previously published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 How many people are here because they are thinking about processing their own wood? I highly encourage it. It’s very satisfying to build instruments from wood that you’ve cut. You can get a spruce on a firewood permit. It’s a great feeling to be out in the forest. When the Guild was first starting out over thirty years ago, the word “tonewood” was not in common usage. Back then there were maybe only three or four suppliers. Now you can Google “tonewoods” and get a hundred suppliers. There’s still a lot to be explored in the world of tonewoods. Englemann spruce didn’t really come on the market until 1978, and Red spruce not until ’89 or so. I can think of four or five species that are virtually untapped in the world of tonewoods: Noble fir, California red fir, and true white fir are all great woods. In Europe, you have places like the Ukraine opening up right now. They have beautiful spruce. I’ve seen quite a bit of it. We have wood here at this convention from the Balkans. That’s nice to see. It’s amazing how much wood is here. It’s just great to see all the guitar tops and woods for sale. And don’t miss the auction. If you look at the woods that were used in guitars in the first part of the 20th century, you see some scuzzy looking wood. On some of the best-sounding prewar Martins, the tops are mismatched and the grain is running every which way. You see tons of runout because that wood was supplied in the form of lumber, not split billets. I see some wonderful-sounding old guitars that were built with wood that people would throw away nowadays. But a typical guitar store today has walls full of Breedloves or Martins with tops that were milled correctly, probably by Pacific Rim Tonewoods up in Concrete, Washington. They do an incredible job of milling guitar wood. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 28, 2019March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips The Trio Romantico and the Requinto The Trio Romántico and the Requinto by C.F. Casey previously published in American Lutherie #89, 2007 Picture it: You’re sitting in an open-air courtyard, perhaps in Guadalajara, perhaps in San Juan, perhaps in Buenos Aires. Your surroundings are lit only by the candles on the tables and the stars above. The air is like a caress on your skin. Across from you sits someone you care about very much. Nearby, in the semi-darkness, a small group wanders from table to table. You hear voices in close harmony, singing in Spanish, singing of love. Two guitars throb in the rhythm of a bolero or a tango. And above, between, and around the words, a third guitar pours out cascades and arabesques of clear, shimmering notes. As the song ends and the group moves on, you gaze through the candle light, deep into the eyes of your companion, and say: “I’d love to get a closer look at that lead guitar; it’s got a really unique sound. Maybe I could get my inspection mirror inside it and get a look at the bracing.” We can’t help it: we’re luthiers. You were listening to the sound of a trio romántico, and the lead instrument was a requinto, a smaller version of the regular nylon-string guitar, tuned a perfect fourth higher (ADGCEA). Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also recieve 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 28, 2019March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips The Imperator The Imperator Revisiting the Lyra Guitar by Alain Bieber previously published in American Lutherie #88, 2006 The year 1806 is very special for my personal guitar addiction. As reported in a previous contribution (AL#80), 1806 is when Giovanni Battista Fabricatore of Naples produced the first guitar I know of with a fully adjustable neck. This lyra guitar (or lyre guitar), now in the Paris museum, might have inspired Stauffer and the whole Viennese School. I have no proof of that, but I remember that Stauffer started his career by replicating the Neapolitan master’s models. Legnani also played a role, as everyone knows. I have become a complete fan of adjustable necks. After a dozen guitars inspired by the Stauffer model, I am more and more attracted by this basic option. I no longer see the superiority of the fixed neck. To me it is less convenient and less stable across time, due to the difficulty of adjusting the action. To summarize, I admire G.B. Fabricatore as well as the Viennese luthiers who enhanced his pioneering efforts. For these reasons I decided I should celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of the 1806 Fabricatore by building a lyra guitar, with an adjustable neck, of course. I would also find out through this exercise if such instruments were really as bad as commonly said. The so-called neoclassical infatuation flooded the world at that time and produced the lyra guitar. This instrument is a reflection of the Greco-Roman craze which influenced all aspects of arts and crafts, including the lutherie world, as early as 1750. Without that context, the lyra guitar would have been either nonexistent or very different. The neoclassical movement emerged during the Enlightenment as a facet of the profound desire for change of the whole society. Among its foundations are the concomitant archeological findings of the Naples area. A real cult for the artistic accomplishments of the ancients resulted. From this basis, a new, more austere style of furniture with multiple links to the archeological images available appeared and seduced a society which was a bit fed up with the royal styles that preceded it. All artists and craftsmen where ready for a profound change. In a rather short time the Louis XVI style was born. This moment is still considered by many as the apex of European cabinet making. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
