Posted on March 13, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Commercial Graphite Acoustic Guitars Commercial Graphite Acoustic Guitars by John A. Decker, Jr. Originally published in American Lutherie #31, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 Why would anyone want to build an acoustic guitar of graphite? The primary reason is that wooden acoustic guitars (particularly good ones) are fragile. They are especially prone to cracking, warping, and joint separation due to heat, humidity, and water. Graphite/epoxy technology — properly employed, which isn’t easy — can maintain the sound quality of a wooden guitar while completely removing its susceptibility to heat and moisture. During the past seven years Kuau Technology has been working with luthiers at the firm of Pimentel & Sons, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the development of acoustic guitar technology employing fiber-reinforced resins, particularly graphite/epoxy. Our approach has been to duplicate as closely as possible, panel by panel, the acoustic properties of fine wooden classical guitars, rather than attempt to reinvent the guitar de nova. This work has resulted in the development of the RainSong® Graphite Acoustic Guitars,* which we believe to be the first commercially available all-graphite acoustic guitars. 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 2, 2020May 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips Free Plate Tuning, Part Three: Guitars Free Plate Tuning, Part Three: Guitars by Alan Carruth Originally published in American Lutherie #30, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 See also, Free Plate Tuning, Part One: Theory by Alan Carruth Free Plate Tuning, Part Two: Violins by Alan Carruth The guitar is somewhat simpler acoustically than the violin, and perhaps more limited. As a result it has evolved into a number of more or less specialized forms to suit different musical uses. It is difficult to imagine a guitar that could “do it all” the way a good violin can. Rather, each guitar seems to have a “center,” a sound that is characteristic of it that suits it for a particular style or player. Good guitars do have a wide dynamic and timbral range, but they always retain their characteristic sound. As I see it, a good part of the art in this game is deciding where you want the “center” to be, or, alternatively, how to get the “center” you want out of a given shape or set of wood. And then you want to have a broad dynamic and expressive range, good balance, and clarity or resolution; the ability to distinguish things like inner lines. No amount of acoustic science is going to tell you what priority to put on the different characteristics of the sound, nor whether you have succeeded in the end. But if you know what you’re doing, an oscillator and a jar of glitter can help you get the sound you want. One of the main simplifying factors between the guitar and the violin is the lack of a soundpost in the guitar. This allows the top and the back to be more independent; in acoustic terms they are not so tightly coupled and can act out of phase. 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 2, 2020May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Quick Cuts: The 13-string Chiavi-Miolin Guitar Quick Cuts: The 13-string Chiavi-Miolin Guitar by Johannes Labusch Originally published in American Lutherie #83, 2005 The preconception of what a classical guitar has to look like may spring from our desire to find the definitive, the classic look and feel of what we cherish. The familiar visual signals give us a certain peace of mind, the reassuring feeling that something has found its final, perfect, and most satisfying shape. I had known Swiss luthier Ermanno Chiavi’s guitars to be firmly rooted in that straightforward philosophy. But constant improvement has been as much a mark of his development as a steady and firm belief in tradition. I own a Chiavi guitar built in 1996, and it is proof of his solid no-nonsense style. At the same time, it illustrates his keen curiosity and sense of experiment: The body is made from beautiful bird’s-eye maple, and the inlays around the soundhole represent a row of maple leaves. 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 2, 2020May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Gimme Back My Minutes Gimme Back My Minutes by Rick Turner previously published in American Lutherie #26, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 I’d like to share a couple of things with those in the repair business: how I handle the financial end of repair work, and what I’m trying to do to gain back some of the eight to ten hours a week I currently lose talking to customers. I do repair work for Westwood Music in Los Angeles, working as an independent contractor. I set my own hours, use my own tools, pay for my own worker’s compensation insurance, and establish the prices for the repair work. There is one other part-time repairman, David Neely, and he works the same way I do. Prices for repair work are set for each job either by direct quote from our price list or an estimate of time at $50 per hour. On big jobs or for building custom Strats from generic parts I drop the hourly to $45; I figure there’s less time wasted talking on bigger jobs. Our store sales people sometimes take in the work (the more of that the better), and they might make a ballpark estimate. We in the shop usually call the customer to give a closer price and/or suggest additional needed work. When the job is complete, I fill out a four-part sequentially-numbered store invoice which includes labor, retail-parts cost (at the net-to-musician price — we figure any applicable discounts), sales tax, and the invoice total. I keep a copy which I use to bill the store, and the second copy goes on a clipboard in sequential order. The instrument, along with the two remaining copies, is put in the front of the store in the “to be picked up” pile. When the customer picks up the instrument, he or she gets a copy, and the remaining copy is filed with the store’s daily receipts. 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.
