Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Dale Phillips An Inexpensive Resophonic Guitar An Inexpensive Resophonic Guitar by Lee Herron Originally published in American Lutherie #132, 2017 I’ve become fascinated with slide guitars. My son-in-law is a great pedal-steel player, and we were talking several years ago about the Weissenborns. So I made a baritone version for him and one for myself. I’ve since made a resophonic guitar, slightly modifying plans from Beard Guitars and purchasing his cone, spider bridge, cover, tailpiece, and so on. All of these slide instruments turned out well with great traditional tone. When my granddaughter visited recently, she asked what my favorite song was, and we went to YouTube and pulled up the Paul Simon song The Boxer featuring Jerry Douglas on Dobro. Clearly I’m hooked on the sound. My two Weissenborns and the resophonic each had perhaps $300 worth of material over and above the cost of typical flattops I’ve made, and just about all of it in commercial/official resonator parts. As you’ll see, a few YouTube videos pointed me towards some creative scrounging and innovative thinking that let me reduce the $300 ticket to less than $20 for resonator parts and plywood. 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 June 23, 2026June 23, 2026 by Dale Phillips Soundboard Construction of Vinaccia Mandolins Around 1900 Soundboard Construction of Vinaccia Mandolins Around 1900 by Alfred Woll Originally published in American Lutherie #143, 2021 It is presumed that the Neapolitan mandolin was developed mainly by the Vinaccia family toward the middle of the 18th century. At that time, the instrument was strung with low tension gut and metal strings. Two high braces, one above and one below the soundhole, were strong enough to stabilize the soundboard which had, in addition, a distinct cant and a slight transverse arch. The cant and arch were important features of the soundboard to withstand the pressure exerted by the strings on the bridge. The very early Neapolitan mandolins had been rather small. The width of the soundboard was approximately 165mm at the cant. But in the following decades the size of the soundboards as well as the bodies increased. Another famous Neapolitan mandolin maker, Giovanni Battista Fabricatore, built mandolins with larger bowls. In 1793 he added a third brace between the bridge and the second brace. He also strengthened the soundboard with a longitudinal spruce reinforcement running along the center joint from the third brace over the cant to the tail block, and began using a fingerboard plate, which is a transverse spruce reinforcement on the underside of the soundboard in the area of the wooden frets. These four innovations — larger body, third brace, center reinforcement, and fingerboard plate — are used in Italian lutherie to this day. However, his improvement received little attention at the time, due to rapidly declining interest in the Neapolitan mandolin after 1800. 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 January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Chalk-fitting Guitar Braces Chalk-fitting Guitar Braces by Stephen Marchione from his 2017 GAL Convention workshop Originally published in American Lutherie #140, 2020 First, have a plan. Know what you’re making. It seems like an obvious thing, but sometimes people start a guitar without a good idea of what the brace layout will be. When I design a new model, I’ll often get a piece of aluminum flashing and lay out a bracing template. If you’re building an historical model, you can transfer the blueprint to a template of aluminum or plexiglas. This gives you a clear idea of what your braces are supposed to be doing, and it lets you be sure that the braces end up where they were designed to go. Photo 1 is a closeup of one of my bracing templates. I use the little holes to make pencil marks on the soundboard. On a classical guitar, a lot of builders push the big harmonic bars down into the solera, or dished workboard. But that can cause distortion of the top. Even on a Spanish guitar, I take the time to chalk-fit the brace. That gives a better structure with less stress. I highly recommend it. 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 October 10, 2025October 10, 2025 by Dale Phillips A Savart-Style Upright Bass A Savart-Style Upright Bass Constructing a Simple 34" Scale Upright Bass Suitable for Bass Guitarists by R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #80, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Regular experimentation on my part is directed toward the goal of producing the sound of the double bass from instruments that can be readily played by the bass guitarist. Many approaches are possible and the instrument described here is the result of one of these. The design process began with functional requirements for the bass. This list was pretty basic. The target group of musicians was bass guitarists, and this constrained the scale length and a number of the critical dimensions of the neck and fingerboard to be similar to those of bass guitars. The instrument had to be musically viable in all styles in which the double bass is played pizzicato. It had to be transportable too, an easy design goal given the standard for portability set by the unwieldy double bass. To that list I added one more requirement — that the prototype be relatively simple and cheap to build. The bass is just like any other instrument, only more so. Material cost is higher because there is more material. Construction time is greater because there is simply more to construct. The upshot is that a bass design experiment can consume a lot of time, effort, and money before the success or failure of the experiment is known. I wanted to keep both cost and effort down for the prototype. 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.
