Posted on July 8, 2026July 8, 2026 by Dale Phillips It Worked for Me: Pre-bend Rosette Rings It Worked for Me: Pre-bend Rosette Rings by Dan Alexander Originally published in American Lutherie #144, 2021 I’ve been learning to build acoustic guitars for a couple of years. I’m getting there. One of the minor issues I’ve had is gluing purfling strips into routed channels around the soundhole without breaking the fragile little strips. Routing the channels is a piece of cake with this StewMac Dremel accessory, but when you have gloves on, and the channel is full of epoxy, getting the strips into the slots can be problematic. So, I made this jig to deal with it (Photo 1). I place the strips into the channels, which is easy when there are no gloves and no glue. Then I use my heat gun to heat the strips, and Bob’s your uncle. The strips come out of the jig prebent, and gluing them into the rosette is no problem! Best thing: I made the jig in fifteen minutes from a scrap of plywood. Cost: Zipski, baby! ◆ Photo 1. Photo by Dan Alexander.
Posted on June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 by Dale Phillips Review: Michael Bashkin Fretting Course from ObrienGuitars.com Review: Michael Bashkin Fretting Course from ObrienGuitars.com by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #144, 2021 Fretting Course with Michael Bashkin Video download ObrienGuitars.com, $134 Twenty-seven lessons, 4:21:49 run time Viewing Michael Bashkin’s video fretting course strongly reminded me that lutherie is a thinking person’s profession. No matter how we learn an operation, and even if we work in the darkest isolation, the work slowly begins to evolve in technique, first in our minds and then on the bench. The goals of lutherie — to produce and maintain the most playable, best sounding instruments — never change, but the ways we get there change all the time. It is difficult to imagine that a luthier might so slavishly follow a teacher that his methods never develop beyond his initial instruction. Michael Bashkin is certainly one of those thinking men, and this course is not a generic description of applying frets to a guitar neck that we’ve all been exposed to those over the years. It is an in-depth method of discovering problems in a guitar neck/fretboard and solving them in such a way that the frets are perfect once they are installed, no final fret dressing required — just polish and 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. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 18, 2026June 18, 2026 by Dale Phillips Steaming Hide Glue and Laminating Ribs Steaming Hide Glue and Laminating Ribs by James Ham from his 2011 GAL Convention workshop Originally published in American Lutherie #109, 2012 I make double basses, and I also do a lot of instrument restoration and repair. My glue of choice for both new work and restoration is hot hide glue. You guitar makers need to take your Titebond and throw it in that bin over there and learn to use hide glue. (laughter, applause) It will make your guitars better. Hot hide glue has a very short working time. I used to clamp the joint dry and without glue, then section-by-section I’d loosen the clamps and insert a little bit of glue. Then I thought, what if I put the glue on first and let it dry, then go along and add a little hot water? Not boiling water, but hotter than tap water — enough to resoften the glue. That worked, and I did many instruments that way, but it was still messy, and loosening the clamps could allow things to slip out of position. One day I went into a vacuum cleaner repair store and saw a steamer, and thought, “Hmmm. What could I do with that?” (laughs) And history was made. What I do now is to use that steamer to reactivate hide glue that was applied earlier to both surfaces and allowed to dry. 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 3, 2026June 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Big Shop-Made Dovetail Clamp Big Shop-Made Dovetail Clamp by Bob Gleason Originally published in American Lutherie #142, 2021 A friend sent me a link to a New York Times article on the Martin Guitar factory. It had a number of photos, one of which showed a worker fitting a dovetail with a unique clamp. It was a big wooden C-shaped frame with a large screw on the top. It only took a second for me to realize that such a clamp would be useful in my shop. All of my ukuleles and guitars have dovetail neck joints, and I’ve had a number of incidents over the years trying to clamp that joint. Cam clamps have a way of coming loose, as do sliding bar clamps. The clamp in the Times photo seemed like it was just the ticket for that task. 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 3, 2026June 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips It Worked for Me: Sawdust in Fretboard Slots It Worked for Me: Sawdust in Fretboard Slots by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #144, 2021 When I worked in the dusty machine room at Huss & Dalton, it would occasionally happen that the technician doing the fretting would show up, remove the trapdoor of the table-saw base, and dip a coffee can full of the sawdust. If the saw base had recently been cleaned, the tech became very disgruntled as he stalked away. It was very mysterious. H&D had always used superglue to secure the frets. The slots were widened with a Dremel tool to make the frets a press fit. Once the fretboard was nicely leveled and sanded, the sawdust was rubbed across the slots until they were firmly packed. A heavy coat of bowling-alley wax was then applied to the fretboard right over the filled slots. The sawdust filler was then blown out of the slots with compressed air, leaving the slots wax free. The frets were glued in a few at a time using clamps and special cauls, and any squeeze-out readily popped free of the waxed wood using a small chisel. When a refret was called for, the old frets were lifted out after a large soldering iron was used to liquefy the superglue, which either evaporated or soaked into the sides of the slots. There was never a trace of chipout. Any playing wear was sanded out of the wood and the fretting process repeated. Mystery solved. ◆
