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.
Posted on June 22, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Brazilian Guitar Makers Brazilian Guitarmakers by Roberto Gomes Originally published in American Lutherie #33, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 The guitar has been the main musical instrument in Brazil since it was brought by the Portuguese colonizers centuries ago. In those times, Baroque guitars were the most common string instruments. They had five courses of gut or wire strings. Since then it hasn’t changed much, as we can see in the “Brazilian viola” which is used for a kind of Brazilian country music called musica sertaneja (countryside music). The shape of the soundbox of this viola today resembles more a small classic guitar. Unfortunately there are very few records of those times, making it difficult to make a better study of those guitars and their makers. It’s known that most of the instruments were made in Portugal, Italy, and France. The first decade of this century brought three immigrant families from Italy: the Gianninis, the DiGiorgios, and the DelVecchios. These families were luthiers in their country of origin and later they founded the main Brazilian guitar factories which became the backbone of Brazilian-made guitars for nearly eighty years. They made mostly classic guitars and some violins, along with Brazilian violas. They also made mandolins, first with vaulted backs like lutes and later with flat backs, which are used to play choro music. 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 March 12, 2020May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips It’s a Kabosy It’s a Kabosy by Paul Hostetter Originally published in American Lutherie #35, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 Madagascar is a huge island about the size of Washington, Oregon, and California combined. Situated 180° around the earth in any direction from these three states, this single-language country lies in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa. I shall probably recount more about music from Madagascar than about construction details of this delightful little instrument for this simple reason: the kabosy’s musical raison d’être exceeds in interest the technical complexity of the instrument itself. Nonetheless, it’s worth a long look because, like most things Malagasy, there’s nothing quite like it anywhere else. Despite obvious superficial appearances, Malagasy culture is not particularly African at all, but is an extraordinary mélange of Polynesian, Southeast Asian, Arabic, African, and, more recently, European influences. (Madagascar was a French colony until 1972.) Like the legendary flora and fauna of that far-away island, Malagasy culture and music bear but a passing resemblance to culture elsewhere on the planet. Fortunately there are numerous recordings now available of just about every stripe of this remarkable musical culture. A discography follows. 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 23, 2019May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Intonation in the Real World Intonation in the Real World by Mike Doolin from his 2006 GAL Convention lecture previously published in American Lutherie #92, 2007 Getting guitars to play in tune has been a major topic of interest for many years, both for guitar players and guitar makers, and it has been a major source of frustration as well. During our current “Golden Age of Lutherie” the bar has been raised for standards of craft, playability, and tonal quality, as players have become more sophisticated in their expectations and builders have become better educated and more demanding of their own work. Expectations for accurate intonation have come along with all that: it’s no longer acceptable for a guitar to only play in tune for the first five frets, or in a few keys. Modern players are using the whole neck, exploring extended harmonies, and playing in ensembles with other instruments. They are looking for instruments that play in tune with themselves and with the rest of the musical world. It turns out that guitar intonation is a huge can of worms, because it is really two topics: ▶ What does it mean to be “in tune?” ▶ How do I make a guitar do that? 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 10, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Product Reviews: Dan Erlewine’s Don’t Fret video Product Reviews: Dan Erlewine's Don't Fret video by Harry Fleishman Originally published in American Lutherie #34, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 Dan Erlewine’s Don’t Fret video and specialized tools Stewart-MacDonald www.stewmac.com I will never forget my first fret job. It was a balmy spring evening; the jasmine were blooming. The year was 1964. We were alone in my bedroom, just me and my Strat. I was an anxious sixteen year old. She was a blonde, born in ’62. This was nine years before I saw a copy of Irving Sloane’s groundbreaking book on repair, so when I decided to fix a few badly worn frets I was on my own. The worst wear was on the 2nd string, 1st fret and the 1st string, 3rd fret; the rest were still pretty good. Out came the soldering gun! No, I wasn’t planning to carefully remove the offending frets for replacement; I was going to fill the grooves with solder! I heated up the frets and flowed a bit of solder on. After they cooled, I smoothed them over with the file on my nail clipper. They looked great and I felt heroic. That is the proper technique, isn’t it? Nearly thirty years later, I know better. I should have used a soldering iron, not a gun. The gun could have demagnetized the pickups! 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.
