Posted on June 1, 2020May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Birth of the Packaxe Birth of the Packaxe by Francis Kosheleff Previously published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume 9 #2, 1981, updated 1994 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 The Need. Several years ago after reading an article in Guitar Player about the hassles of traveling with a guitar and remembering my own camping trips in Europe and the United States, it dawned on me that the answer was a folding guitar. That night I went to work on that idea with pencil and paper, slept over it, dreamt about it, and the next morning started work in the shop. The following Saturday I went to the flea market and bought several cheap, broken acoustic guitars to experiment with. Later on that month I started the actual construction of the first folding guitar and named it the Packaxe. The name Packaxe is now trademarked. The idea of a hinged neck on a guitar is not new. It must have occurred to many luthiers before me, yet I had never seen a folding guitar, nor read or heard of one. Knowledgeable people usually told me that such an instrument could not possibly work for a hundred reasons. I went ahead anyway building several types of guitars with folding necks, and sure enough, there were problems, lots of them. But for an inventor, this is a challenge to be enjoyed. 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 May 21, 2020May 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips The Portuguese Guitarra: A Modern Cittern The Portuguese Guitarra: A Modern Cittern by Ronald Louis Fernández Originally published in American Lutherie #27, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 In Portugal, the word guitarra refers to a present-day cittern similar in appearance to and directly derived from the 18th-century English guitar. This instrument, typically accompanied by a Spanish-type guitar called viola or violão in Portuguese, is used in performing musical variations and in accompanying the fado, an urban Portuguese song form. Consequently, it is also known in Portuguese as the guitarra de fado. While these instruments are not abundant in North America, luthiers do encounter them here, especially where Portuguese fishermen have come ashore or emigrants have settled — New Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts; the Hawaiian Islands; Providence, Rhode Island; San Diego, San Jose, Tulare, Visalia, Artesia, and Chino, California; Newark, New Jersey; Seattle, Washington; Montreal, Quebec; Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario; Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Vancouver, British Columbia. 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 November 19, 2019May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips What You Should Know About The Hardanger Fiddle What You Should Know About The Hardanger Fiddle by David Golber Previously published in American Lutherie #36, 1993 and The Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 Someone has walked into your shop with yet another weird instrument. This time, it’s sort of like a violin, but it has a whole lot of pegs, the top is carved funny, it has pearl and bone inlay, and it’s decorated with flowery drawings. He says his grandfather brought it from Norway in 1890, and he wants you to put it in playing condition. Well, it’s a Hardanger fiddle (hardingfele in Norwegian). The instrument originated in the area around the Hardanger fjord, whence its name. It is distinctly Norwegian; in fact, it is played in only about a quarter of Norway, the western and south-central areas. The oldest instrument found has a date of 1651. The musical tradition is still very much alive, and continues unbroken up to the present. Beginning in about 1850, there was an absolutely enormous emigration from Norway to America — something like a third of the population. Those who played fiddle of course brought their fiddles with them. In addition there were tours by professional players who performed for their emigrated countrymen and then returned to Norway. But the instrument and the music died out in America. The children of the immigrants rarely learned to play, and father’s fiddle lay in its case in the attic, or was hung on the wall like an icon of a lost era. Now there is something like a revival here in America, not only among the descendants of the immigrants, but also among those not of Norwegian ancestry who have discovered the 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 January 14, 2010May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar by Martin Koch Review: Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar by Martin Koch Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #83, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar Martin Koch ISBN: 3-901314-09-1 118 pp., 2004 Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar Martin Koch CD-ROM, 75 minutes www.stewmac.com Martin Koch (www.BuildYourGuitar.com) devolves the process of lap-steel creation to make it accessible to the most unsophisticated readers. At the same time he hints at the small added details that make construction more difficult but add a touch of elegance to an otherwise Plain Jane instrument. Two lap-steel designs are illustrated in this book/CD set. The first is literally a plank with lines for frets, a thick maple board just wider than the untapered fretboard. The nut end is scooped out to create a headstock. The nut itself is a length of aluminum angle stock. The “frets” are inlaid bits of maple veneer. The only guitarish hardware involved is a Les Paul Jr. bridge, the machine heads, a single-coil pickup, a volume pot, and an output jack. Another piece of angle stock might have been used for the bridge, but the LP Jr. item smacks more of a musical instrument and was a good choice. Construction was accomplished entirely with a few hand tools. A bit of decorative trim was added by making a control cover and pickup ring from the same wood as the fingerboard. The guitar was finished in Danish oil. There’s an understated innocence to this instrument that I admire. It would be fun to show up at a jam with it and rock out just as hard as the guys with “real” instruments. It would be a very in-their-face statement. 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 12, 2010May 30, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: From Harp Guitars to the New Hawaiian Family: Chris J. Knutsen, History and Development of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar by George T. Noe and Daniel L. Most Review: From Harp Guitars to the New Hawaiian Family: Chris J. Knutsen, History and Development of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar by George T. Noe and Daniel L. Most Reviewed by Jonathon Peterson Originally published in American Lutherie #62, 2000 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 From Harp Guitars to the New Hawaiian Family: Chris J. Knutsen, History and Development of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar George T. Noe and Daniel L. Most Noe Enterprises, 1999 ISBN 978-0967483306 The first time I ever saw a harp guitar, I was smitten. It was made by a man named Chris Knutsen in the early 1900s in my hometown, Tacoma, Washington. I was so infatuated and curious that, when I began branching out from guitar repair into guitar-building-and-repair journalism, I did some research and wrote a couple of articles about harp guitars (American Lutherie #29 and #34; and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three). At the time I was doing that research, I was still very active as a repairman, and one day a guy walks into my shop with a Viennese-looking harp guitar with six sub-bass strings. His name was Dan Most, and he shared my fascination. In fact, he had the bug worse than I did. The culmination of his interest is this book, which he co-wrote with George Noe. These guys did their homework. Dan has told me that their basic approach was to disregard conventional attitudes and rumors about these instruments and their maker, and look for hard evidence so that they could reach their own conclusions. Their investigation took more than six years. In the book’s preface the authors write, “We have spent countless hours in libraries, museums, the National Archives, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and visiting all of the addresses known to us as Knutsen’s. We have immersed ourselves in immigration records, census records, city directories, books, magazines, and newspapers. As we progressed, each new clue resulted in facts falling into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, permitting us to reconstruct the events of Knutsen’s life in the 20th century.” George Noe’s background is as a patent attorney, so researching public records for evidence of the history of design development is right up his alley. Dan is a luthier and collector of Knutsen instruments, with lots of experience in their repair and restoration. 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.
