Posted on July 8, 2022May 12, 2025 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Guy Rabut Meet the Maker: Guy Rabut by Tim Olsen Originally published in American Lutherie #32, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 On a recent trip to New York, I had the good fortune to visit Guy Rabut in his uptown Manhattan apartment above a small grocery store. We sat in his tiny shop, which was piled high with cardboard boxes in anticipation of Guy’s imminent move into a freshly renovated space in Carnegie Hall. He made the move in October, and now shares this classy address with two violin dealers, Charles Rudig and Fred Oster, and Michael Yeats, a bow maker. Artifacts of wide-ranging artistic sensitivities surrounded us, including Northwest coastal Indian carvings which Guy made during a summer seminar with renowned artist Bill Reed; his intriguing logo in which the proper curves of a violin appear in a cubist jumble; a glass case holding a few of his beautiful finished fiddles; and a pine mock-up of a banjo he plans to build someday. Guy Rabut is one of the Guild’s most faithful members. The May ’74 issue of the GAL Newsletter listed him as a new member, and he hasn’t missed a day since. He is also a member of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. 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 September 22, 2021May 6, 2025 by Dale Phillips The Paul Schuback Story The Paul Schuback Story from his 1986 GAL Convention lecture Originally published in American Lutherie #9, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Paul Schuback was born in Barbados in the West Indies in 1946 and moved to the United States at the age of nine months. Through his experiences and training, he lived in thirty-three different homes before the age of twenty. His interest in musical instruments began when he was quite young, when he took up the violin at the age of seven. At the age of nine he began playing the cello, joining a youth symphony orchestra in Utah at the age of fifteen. Then, before graduating high school, he began his career as a luthier with a three-year apprenticeship to master Rene Morizot, in Mirecourt, France. Following this, he specialized in violin making in Mittenwald, Germany. He then became a graduate in bow making at the Morizot Freres again in Mirecourt, France. He continued his studies by researching historical instruments in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. From 1968 to 1971 he worked as journeyman in the Peter Paul Prier violin shop in Salt Lake City, Utah, before moving to Portland, Oregon, where he established his own workshop and where he resides today. 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 August 13, 2021May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Activating Hide Glue with Steam Activating Hide Glue with Steam by James Ham Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 A technique of mine that has attracted considerable attention involves the use of fresh hide glue in assembling my basses. Rather than rush to clamp a joint before the glue gels (not an option on a large instrument) or try to work hot glue into a joint with a knife, I coat both surfaces to be joined with glue, and then allow it to dry before clamping. When the pieces are perfectly aligned, I reactivate the glue with a focused blast of steam from a handheld steamer. The idea developed over many years repairing instruments. One of the most common repairs I encountered was that of regluing an open seam. The normal method is to introduce hot water with a thin palette knife and move it around until the glue feels slippery, then add some fresh glue with the knife and clamp it. Sometimes you don’t even have to add fresh glue. New hide glue is perfectly compatible with old. If the seam is open for a long way, you need to put the clamps on before you do this, and loosen just a few at a time so you can get the knife in. 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 August 11, 2021May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips The Travielo The Travielo by Ernest Nussbaum Originally published in American Lutherie #5, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Cellists who want to travel with their instruments have a problem: on air trips they must purchase a seat for the cello or take the risk of having it damaged if checked into the baggage compartment, and in most cars it won’t fit into the trunk and thus takes up at least one passenger seat. In other words, it’s too big. For professional cellists traveling to a playing engagement, the purchase of a plane seat is a necessity which at least constitutes a deductible business expense. For symphony musicians on tour there is no problem at all because orchestras have provision for safe shipping of the larger instruments. But for the cellist who would like to practice during a vacation trip or play chamber music with friends at the other end, the expense and bother of taking the cello along often result in its getting left behind. 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 January 13, 2010May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Violin Making — Live! Watch Me Make a Cello, Step-by-Step by Henry Strobel Review: Violin Making — Live! Watch Me Make a Cello, Step-by-Step by Henry Strobel Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #58, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Video: Violin Making — Live! Video: Watch Me Make a Cello, Step-by-Step Henry Strobel, 1997 ISBN 0962067385 Henry Strobel has written a fleet of books about making violins, violas, and cellos, all of which build one upon the other. To use the cello book you should have first read the violin book, and so on. This video set uses the same idea, i.e., to use it to best advantage you must have the cello book, which needs the violin book for complete understanding, and so on, all in the house that Jack built. But if you buy the video set, Strobel will sell you the cello book for $10 instead of $30, which might remove some of the sting. And if you haven’t got a cello guru to run to as you tear into your first instrument, Strobel on tape may be the next best thing. The videos are not intensely detailed or perfectly complete. Almost no operation is carried through to completion on tape. But Strobel has the capacity to make cello creation seem wonderfully doable. The first three hours of tape whiz by with so little effort that even a casual viewer might decide to buy a whacking big gouge and a fistful of teeny planes. Carving the plates often seems like the scariest part of cello making, but Strobel makes it look like fun. 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.
