Posted on August 5, 2026August 5, 2026 by Dale Phillips It Worked for Me: Make a Vise from a Workmate It Worked for Me: Make a Vise from a Workmate by Steve Kennel Originally published in American Lutherie #142, 2021 Now, more than ever, I feel the need to get a grip. The Workmate is a brilliant piece of design, but the heart of the beast is that big flat and conveniently not-necessarily parallel vise/work surface. I was using mine for holding woodcut printing blocks while carving, and found the Workmate itself to be too low and too wobbly. I robbed the vise mechanism from it, welded a piece of angle steel to the underside of each adjuster (Photo 1), and ran screws through those new brackets to mount the vise hardware on a plywood base that could be clamped to my workbench (Photo 2). This made the thing tall enough and sturdy enough to be useful for me. I also made new and shorter plywood jaws, as I wanted the thing to take up as little room as possible. The whole unit now fits under a workbench with a bunch of workshop flotsam when not in use. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 15, 2026July 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips It Worked for Me: Magnetic Table Saw Jig for Narrow Ripping It Worked for Me: Magnetic Table Saw Jig for Narrow Ripping by Bob Gleason Originally published in American Lutherie #143, 2021 Here is a simple jig I use when I cut binding or kerfing strips (Photo 1). For this repetitive operation I needed an easy way to set up to cut the strips and also to add a zero throat to the saw. This will work on any table saw with a cast-iron table. It is simply a piece of cabinet-grade 3/4˝ plywood, cut to an appropriate size to fit your saw table, with six powerful magnets glued flush into the underside (Photo 2). Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on May 20, 2026May 26, 2026 by Dale Phillips Roped In Roped In by C.F. Casey Originally published in American Lutherie #100, 2009 Weissenborn-style steel guitars just look cool. That long, sinuous profile, with the side curving all the way to the headstock; the diagonals of the “rope”-style binding and rosette; the look of total absorption on the face of the player as he sits hunched over, staring down at his hands. (OK, so that last point isn’t strictly the guitar; but have you ever seen a steel player who didn’t look like he was totally lost in his own little world?) When I decided to build my first Weissenborn-style instrument, I figured I might as well go all the way and give it the rope binding and rosette that Weissenborn used on his high-end models. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information on making said binding and rosette. Neither the plans I got from Stew-Mac nor Rich Mermer’s article in AL#60 (“The Maalea Special,” also in BRBAL5) mentioned it. The only thing I was sure of was that with all those little short glue joints, bending was going to be very tricky. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on April 16, 2026April 16, 2026 by Dale Phillips It Worked for Me: Bound Fretboard It Worked for Me: Bound Fretboard by Greg Nelson Originally published in American Lutherie #114, 2013 Removing the last little bits of the tang when preparing a fret for a bound fretboard is not all that difficult to do by hand with a fine file, but here is a small jig that powers the operation and removes some of the drudgery. The pictures should prove self-explanatory. I use a Foredom tool, but the idea of the jig can easily be adapted to almost any rotary tool. Almost any bit capable of grinding the fret material will do. My jig is set up to use a diamond wheel. I must stress that this is simply for cleaning up what is left after clipping the bulk of the tang off. Even at that, and at low speed, the tang can get hot quickly. ◆ Both photos by Greg Nelson.
Posted on April 14, 2026April 14, 2026 by Dale Phillips It Worked for Me: Purfled Bindings It Worked for Me: Purfled Bindings by John Calkin Originally published in Ameican Lutherie #106, 2011 Some of these tips I discovered long ago, but I don’t think I ever wrote them down. Some are recent developments. They may seem obvious once you know them, but each one made a noticeable difference in the quality of my work. Huss & Dalton buys almost all its wooden binding stock from Michael Gurian. It comes prepurfled. The price is pretty good, but you have to buy a whole lay-up, which may entail as many as 100 pieces. As you might expect, Gurian makes up planks of binding stock and then saws out the individual strips. The black in a black/maple/black purfling is fiber. I assume that when the plank of binding/purfling is sawn into strips the purfling is down, and the saw blade leaves a bit of fiber burr on each corner that stands proud of the strip. If allowed to remain, the installed binding strip will sit on the burr, and if enough binding/purfling is scraped away when it is dressed to the sides, the burr is eliminated and a gap remains between the bottom black line of purfling and the rib. Finish won’t flow in there, so the gap has to be filled manually beforehand. It’s much easier to sand away the burr before binding proceeds. After the bent binding is rough-fitted to the guitar, I sand the bottom edge of the binding with an 80-grit sanding stick. The black fiber will turn to gray when sanded, and that color change is enough to tell you the job has been completed. Any more sanding will change the thickness of the bottom line, which is also to be avoided. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
