Posted on October 30, 2026October 30, 2026 by Dale Phillips The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part One The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part One by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #139, 2020 See also, A Guitar Is Born: Attending Charles Fox’s Hands-On Guitar Making Course by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Two by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Four by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French Charles Fox has been making guitars for about fifty years and, as a master luthier will, he has developed a personal approach to his craft. Building on a solid foundation of experimentation, he has developed a set of processes that let him complete tasks quickly, accurately, and repeatably, but with a deeper purpose. This is the first in a series of articles that describe Charles’ building method in detail. There are some good descriptions in print of how to make an acoustic guitar, so it may not be clear why we need another one. Books and extended articles are usually for beginning builders unfamiliar with making instruments, and describe basic processes for making good, traditional acoustic guitars. Some of these works are quite good and a few are iconic. However, this series of articles has a different purpose. It is intended for readers who have basic familiarity with acoustic guitars and guitar-making skills. 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 19, 2026October 30, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: C.F. Martin IV Meet the Maker: C.F. Martin IV from his 2005 talk at the National Music Museum Originally published in American Lutherie #91, 2007 As a young man, my great-great-great grandfather Christian Frederick Martin apprenticed with his father in my family’s furniture business. That’s what the Martins did back in the very early 1800s. Their little town of Markneukirchen was populated with instrument builders, many of whom came from Bohemia, what is today the Czech Republic. In one of those weird political-religious things, a town of instrument builders in Bohemia was invited to pick up and move over the mountain to resettle in Markneukirchen, which is in Saxony in eastern Germany. So there was a history in Markneukirchen of building musical instruments. The guitar was becoming more popular in northern Europe. For some reason, the young man that we now call C.F. Senior was inspired to take an interest in guitar building. This is all undocumented oral history, so we don’t really know what inspired him. I really would love to have been a fly on the wall: the family is sitting around the dinner table when he says to pop, “Oh, by the way, I don’t think I want to join the family furniture business. I want to build guitars.” 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 September 25, 2026September 25, 2026 by Dale Phillips A Guitar Is Born: Attending Charles Fox’s Guitar Making Course A Guitar Is Born: Attending Charles Fox’s Hands-On Guitar Making Course by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #136, 2019 See also, The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part One by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Two by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Four by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French Charles Fox started making guitars when I was four. Recently, at age fifty-four, I found myself a student in his acoustic guitar making class at the American School of Lutherie. I’ve been building guitars for a while, but am mostly self-taught, with no formal training before now. I eventually came to realize that I was stuck. I was building using skills I mostly acquired the hard way or from videos and books. My guitars were adequate, but to get better I needed to spend time building with an accomplished luthier. I talked with Charles to determine the class schedule and content which would fit my needs, and signed up for the two-week acoustic guitar class. 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 September 25, 2026September 25, 2026 by Dale Phillips The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Two The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Two by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #140, 2020 See also, A Guitar Is Born: Attending Charles Fox’s Hands-On Guitar Making Course by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part One by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Four by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French There are four major subassemblies in Charles’ guitar design. The separately completed rim, soundboard, and back are assembled to create the body, to which the completed neck is then fitted and attached. Given that the design process has highlighted and resolved all their relationships, they can each be considered individually, and created either serially, in any sequence, or simultaneously. Starting the Neck At first glance, Charles’ neck follows a fairly standard design, but it incorporates features that make it work better. One characteristic of Charles’ instruments is that many features and dimensions are shared across different body shapes (“Production Techniques for the Custom Luthier,” AL#110). One of these is the neck. Since most of Charles’ instruments share the same 25.5˝ scale, they can use the same 12-fret or 14-fret necks. The only visible difference is their heel depths, as shown in Photo 1. Even then, there are only two different depths. 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 September 25, 2026September 25, 2026 by Dale Phillips The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #141, 2020 See also, A Guitar Is Born: Attending Charles Fox’s Hands-On Guitar Making Course by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part One by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Two by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Four by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French With the rim, the soundboard, and the back complete, our first three subassemblies are ready to become a body. The body assembly process takes place on two slightly concave benchtop vacuum fixtures (Photo 1). Their hollow surfaces match the guitar plates’ spherical contours, a 30´ soundboard radius and a 12´ back radius. Vacuum holds each plate in place and in its correct spherical shape during that plate’s final fitting and marriage to the rim. Charles notes that: 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.
