Posted on April 7, 2022May 13, 2025 by Dale Phillips Violin Setups, Part One Violin Setups, Part One by Michael Darnton from his 1990 GAL Convention lecture Originally published in American Lutherie #35, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 See also, Violin Setups, Part Two by Michael Darnton Setups represent one of the most important aspects of violin work. They are the most changeable part of a violin and can make the difference between a customer liking or hating a violin. People who do setups for a living in large shops do a lot of them — countless numbers of bridges, pegs, posts, and nuts. If you’re making one or two or twenty instruments a year you’re not going to be doing many setups. For the people who do those things everyday, it’s a very specialized art and they have very rigorous standards. With that in mind I’m going to try to communicate to you some of those standards, along with some actual “how-to” hints. Tools A bench hook (Photo 1) is simply a piece of wood that has a strip nailed to the bottom on one end and a strip nailed to the top on the other end. It hooks over the front edge of the bench and gives a stop to work against. On the under side of my bench hook I’ve glued a piece of sandpaper (Photo 2). If a tiny, thin piece of wood needs to be planed thinner, I flip over the bench hook and use the sandpaper as a traction area. 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 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips Taking the Guitar Beyond Equal Temperament Taking the Guitar Beyond Equal Temperament by Don Musser Originally published in American Lutherie #30, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 If someone were to tell you that the simple C chord you just played on your perfectly intonated, handmade guitar was in fact significantly out of tune with itself, you might have a few doubts and perhaps some curiosity about just what he was talking about. If that person were Mark Rankin and he happened to have his little Martin set up with the just intonation, key-of-C fretboard, and you compared a C chord on that guitar to the C chord on your guitar, instead of doubts and curiosity you would have something else: the beginning of a revelation, a revelation not only about the guitar itself, but about the foundation of the music we play on it. Back in 1987, David Ouellette, a Eugene, Oregon musician for whom I had built several guitars in the early 1980s called and wanted a new, unconventional instrument built. It was to be a special guitar with magnetic interchangeable fretboards having staggered frets set up for alternative tunings of the scale steps within the octave. The standard guitar fretboard we all play on is based on the equal-tempered scale where the octave is divided into twelve equal half-step intervals. This equal division of the octave is good in that it allows modulation from key to key without intolerable dissonance. Its drawback, though, is that the scale intervals are tempered, i.e., harmonically inaccurate and slightly out of tune with one another. 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 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips Applications of the Silicone Heating Blanket in Violin Making Applications of the Silicone Heating Blanket in Violin Making by George Borun Originally published in American Lutherie #34, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 In American Lutherie #25, Mike Keller describes how he uses silicone heating blankets for bending guitar sides, and mentions an earlier article in Fine Woodworking. The potential of these devices for use in violin making became obvious to me, and with some experimentation and adaptation, I’ve developed specific applications for the violin maker. Silicone heater blankets, also called flexible heaters, are available from two sources, with a number of standard sizes in stock at each company: Watlow Electric of St. Louis, Missouri (www.watlow.com) and Benchmark Thermal of Grass Valley, California (www.benchmarkthermal.com). Watlow markets through distributors. They have a large selection of stock sizes up to 35" long. Benchmark has a smaller stock size selection, but their prices are considerably lower. They will make any size you wish, but that adds to the cost and delivery time. Stock maximum length is 20", but this is more than long enough for violins. In bending bass ribs, I use two 10" wide blankets for the longer pieces, and only one for the center bout. The best units are 4W/sq.", rather than the 2W models. This type will get up to 500°F in a couple of minutes. Product catalogs are available which list the various sizes. 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 April 7, 2021May 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips In Search of the Perfect Cone In Search of the Perfect Cone by Tim Earls Originally published in American Lutherie #30, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 I think I've got it. I have here an untested method of finding the exact, correct multiple radius for any given fingerboard using simple barnyard geometry and no computer. Danny Rauen and Tim Olsen wrote interesting articles on multiradiused, or conical, fretboards in American Lutherie #8. (See Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, p. 298.) Great stuff! Let’s talk about cones for a moment. A cone is a tapered cylinder extended up to a point. Or a tapered cylinder is a cone with its point lopped off, take your pick. You knew that. Bear with me. In a two-dimensional view, this looks like Fig. 1. The circular base of the cone is seen as a horizontal line, since you’re looking at its edge. The height of the cone, what I call “true length” is measured on the centerline from base to point. The side line of the cone I call “true distance.” The radius at any spot on this cone can be found by drawing a horizontal line from the centerline to the true distance line and measuring it. You probably knew that too. 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.
