Posted on January 13, 2025May 2, 2025 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Myles Gilmer Meet the Maker: Myles Gilmer by Todd Brotherton Originally published in American Lutherie #26, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 Would you give us some background on yourself? The wood business that I’m doing now is an offshoot of what I was doing in the ’70s. My education was in medical research, but there weren’t too many jobs in that area, so I built furniture accessories and sold them to galleries and stores across the country for a few years. I lived in equatorial Africa in the early to mid ’70s. I was working in the wood business in Ghana and Liberia as a jack-of-all-trades, doing vehicle maintenance, repairing machine saws, and doing some cutting and milling. I spent a lot of time hiking in the forest. The trees are incredible there. I have photographs of a native hut next to a tree that was 220' tall and 12'–14' in diameter. People often imagine an African forest as being a jungle but it’s more like what we see here in the Northwest; an old growth high canopy forest, very open inside with not much secondary growth on the floor, and quite dark to walk through. When I moved back to the USA, I quickly found that there weren’t great sources for the wood I was interested in. I had friends in Africa and started importing a little for my production line. We started importing more, and soon my competitors were interested in buying. I was still producing wood pieces, but getting tired of production woodwork. Over a two-year period I just switched from being a manufacturer to being a supplier. 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 8, 2024May 2, 2025 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Michael Darnton Meet the Maker: Michael Darnton by Jonathon Peterson Originally published in American Lutherie #27, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 How did your lutherie career get started? I started playing cello when I was in 6th grade and immediately got more interested in the instrument than I was in the playing. When I was about twelve years old I got some money for Christmas from my grandmother. The very next day I ran out and bought Heron-Allen’s Violin Making, As It Was and Is, which I had spotted at a local bookstore. I talked to my mother a couple of weeks ago and she told me that she took one look at the book and thought, “This is a waste of money! He’s never going to do anything with it. It’s much too complex.” But she was wrong. I really surprised her. It took awhile to get around to it, though. Five or six years later I bought a piece of wood and some tools. I started a violin, but I didn’t get very far. I just put the whole thing aside. 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.
Posted on July 7, 2024May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Making a Living as a Luthier Letter: Making a Living as a Luthier by Bob Benedetto Originally published in American Lutherie #3, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume One, 2000 Dear GAL Staff and Members, I have been a Guild member for about ten years and always felt it to be a very worthwhile organization. No doubt, it is the single most important thing that has ever happened to our fine craft. Guild members have, by means of the Quarterly, supplied me with invaluable information and continue to do so. I would like to touch upon a point that concerns us all: making a living as a luthier. It’s a subject we all like to discuss at times and, of course, must concern ourselves with. I have had the pleasure of meeting many makers, repairpeople, and restorers over the years. Some make money and some don’t. Why do some of us succeed while others fail? The reasons I have found to be both consistent and predictable. 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.
Posted on July 7, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Operation: Bootstraps Britain Operation: Bootstraps Britain by Theron McClure Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Newsletter Vol. 4, #2, 1976 The English luthiers are two years behind in filling their orders from customers. You cannot buy lutes, viols, etc., “off the hook” in London. A choice of harpsichords is limited. It is not the musical and playing public who caused this short supply of instruments in Britain. It was the luthiers themselves who created and developed the healthy market for instruments. But how? By playing. Makers of those early-type instruments which are so much easier to learn to play then are the symphonic type, built lutes and viols for themselves taught themselves to play them, and presented concerts which developed audiences and buyers for these musical products. American luthiers can do the same thing and have the same successes. How will a prospective buyer of an instrument know whether he wants you instrument if he doesn’t hear it demonstrated for him, and he himself can’t play? 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.
Posted on July 1, 2024May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Note to Future Repairers of His Instruments Letter: Note to Future Repairers of His Instruments by Bob Gleason Originally published in American Lutherie #101, 2010 Tim — For the past thirty-eight years I’ve been repairing stringed instruments and building a few along the way, too. Occasionally, I’ve run into difficult repair situations. Some natural, like the freak wind gust through the window that blew a Martin 000-41 body off my bench, which resulted in my introduction to doing abalone purfling work. Some man-made, like the first Taylor guitar that was brought to me for a neck reset. No one told me there was a bolt under that label on the neck block. I’d never seen a solid wood guitar with a bolt-on neck. I thought bolts were for banjos! I steamed away like mad on that neck until I managed to break the heel off and discovered the bolt. Any experienced repairperson has a few interesting stories to tell. Today things are getting worse, from a repair point of view. We have bolts, screws, epoxy, superglue, many kinds of white and yellow glues, gorilla glue, synthetic materials used throughout, water base finishes, quite a few concoctions of oil finishes, truss rods of all kinds, myriad electronics, woods from all parts of the planet, real shell, fake shell, semi-fake shell, photo finishes, stainless fretwire, laminated wood that looks like solid wood, instruments that are constructed with materials that were previously only found in the sink cut-out dumpster of the local cabinet shop, real bone, fake bone, and all sorts of other animal parts to name a few. Repair work is getting a little tougher these days! 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.
