Posted on June 11, 2026June 11, 2026 by Dale Phillips Building an Adjustable Bridge Building an Adjustable Bridge by Thomas C. DeVeau Originally published in American Lutherie #81, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 In my part-time business of making citterns and one-of-a-kind instruments, I find that the adjustable bridges in most catalogs don’t meet my specifications, so I make my own. Now I control the size, shape, and string spacing, and can use woods that match the woods that I use in my instruments. The following describes how I make the bridge design I came up with. For this bridge I use thumbwheel-and-post sets obtained from Stewart-MacDonald, part #3960, and their fretwire, part #148. Start with a piece of 3/4˝-thick stock. Place the outside strings on the instrument and measure the space between them at the bridge position (Photo 1). Add 2˝ and cut a block to this length. Find the center of this length and extend centerlines around the block. On each side of the centerline, mark half the outside string width to establish the outside string positions. Draw lines 1/4˝ outside these string-position marks to establish the positions of the thumbwheel posts. 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 22, 2026April 22, 2026 by Dale Phillips Simple Jigs for Making a Pyramid Bridge Simple Jigs for Making a Pyramid Bridge by John C. Bartlett Originally published in American Lutherie #114, 2013 After many years building guitars and mandolins, I had the occasion to build a left-handed guitar for my daughter. She very much liked the pyramid bridge on my personal instrument, a 12-fret 000 slot-head patterned after the 1930s Martins, and asked that I use one on her guitar. That, in fact, was the only pyramid bridge I had ever used on a guitar in over twenty years of building, and I purchased it from Stewart-MacDonald. I’d already decided to use pyramid bridges on my traditional 12-fret instruments going forward when she requested one for her guitar. Although I’d never actually made one, I thought it would be cost effective to make my own. I knew it would be a challenge, so I did considerable research on the subject. I didn’t find much. One Internet posting called for hand carving, and another showed jigs and techniques for shaper tables and table saws. I don’t have a table saw or a shaper table, so I practiced hand carving methods. The results were OK but not really satisfactory, and it was very time consuming. I’d gone through a number of plywood models before carving my first rosewood and ebony bridges when I decided that if I wanted a reduction in hand work and consistency in my results, I should use the tools I have to solve the problem. 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 February 20, 2026February 20, 2026 by Dale Phillips Torres Guitar Restoration Torres Guitar Restoration by R.E. Bruné Originally published in American Lutherie #33, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 In March of 1986 I received in my workshop an 11-string guitar by Antonio Torres made in Almeria in 1884, and numbered #71. This instrument being perhaps unique in the world today for Torres’ work, it was imperative that it be adequately documented and ideally, restored as close as possible to original playing condition. The owner was quite anxious to pursue this course also, with the ultimate goal of selling it on the open market. Surviving guitars by Torres are quite rare, being limited to fewer than seventy known instruments, and this example is perhaps the only 11-string example remaining, although Prat alludes to two others in his Diccionario under the listing for Torres. It is not clear whether he is referring to the same instrument owned by several different people or different instruments owned by different people. Although Torres numbered his instruments made from 1880 until he died in 1892, apparently there is no surviving record of the details of each instrument nor who the original owners were. (Editor’s Note: After this article was written, José Romanillos published his excellent book, Antonio de Torres, Guitar Maker — His Life and Work. In it he presents photos, drawings, and descriptions of another surviving Torres 11-string, #83. Author Bruné urges all to acquire and study this book.) 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 7, 2024May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Nuts and Bolts for Bridge Gluing Nuts and Bolts for Bridge Gluing by Tim Olsen Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #126, 1979 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 The holes of a pin-style bridge provide a golden opportunity to apply some very convincing clamping pressure. I use 3 10×32 1" round-head bolts with washers, wing nuts, and pieces of drilled shoe sole leather to temporarily bolt the bridge on while gluing. This not only exerts a strong pressure to the back edge of the bridge, but the bolts ensure an accurate alignment of the bridge. All that remains is to set a deep-throated cam clamp on each end of the bridge. The leather washers will take up any slop that the bridge might have. This is a natural for repair work as well as construction. ◆
Posted on June 30, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Grading on the Curves Grading on the Curves: Fitting Bars and Bridges on Archtop Guitars by Steve Andersen from his 2006 GAL Convention workshop Originally published in American Lutherie #91, 2007 The first thing I’ll show you today is how I fit tone bars to the top. Then I’ll talk about fitting the base of a bridge to a top, first with this router jig that indexes off the top and gets me really close to the final shape, then moving on to the final fitting. I brought some extra materials if anyone wants to try hand-fitting an ebony bridge or a tone bar. I use the term tone bar, because I think of braces as being structural. If you built a flattop guitar without braces, it would just fold up. An archtop could be built without braces and it would hold up fine. The archtop’s bars are not so much for structure, so I call them tone bars. One thing that helps me in the fitting process is that my arching is very consistent from guitar to guitar. The arching templates for my guitars started out based on a D’Angelico New Yorker, and have evolved over the years to what I’m using today. So while I have several body sizes, they have similarities based on what I’ve found works well for my sound. 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. Members also receive 3 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
