Posted on June 26, 2019May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Nine Electric Guitar Construction References Reviewed Nine Electric Guitar Construction References Reviewed by John Calkin previously published in American Lutherie #63, 2000 Electric guitars are interesting creatures. The noises they are capable of producing are so far removed from an acoustic guitar that a listener could convince him/herself that either something magical has happened to the instrument or something has gone dreadfully wrong in the world. Creating electric guitars often conjures up a frustrating paradox. The guitar body begins life as nothing more than a chunk of wood and ends up as little more than a chunk of wood, but assembling and shaping that chunk can present a challenge out of all proportion to what you end up with. Power planers and jointers are expensive. On the other hand, accomplishing the job with hand tools requires a serious investment in time needed to learn to sharpen, set up, and master the tools. Farming out the heavy work is possible, but often seems to dilute the lutherie experience (a belief, strangely enough, found most often in rank beginners who have neither money nor talent, and are often cursed with a stunted sense of the practical). To me the obvious answer was plywood, which makes a much better guitar than anyone would have you believe. The shape, cavities, and channels can all be established with routers and such before the body is glued up to thickness. It’s chief drawback is that it’s hard to finish nicely, but it will get you into guitar making with the least amount of outside help and expense. 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 24, 2019May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Three Short Articles by H.E. Huttig The Guitar & I by H.E. Huttig previously published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly 10 #2, 1982 See also, “Three Craftsmen” by H.E. Huttig “Woes of a Wood Merchant” by H.E. Huttig My introduction to the mystery and beauty of musical instruments took place in my grandmother’s hotel suite. Grandma had been to Europe, an experience reserved for a favored few in those days. Her suite in the old Hotel Lucerne was a cultural oasis in the otherwise arid surroundings of Kansas City, a town only recently emerged from frontier days and having a considerable preoccupation with cattle and lumbering. Her rooms were filled with bric-a-brac and antique furniture. In addition there was a grand piano and numerous small instruments including violins, mandolins and guitars. I was five years old at the time and my inquisitive fingers quickly found the strings of the instruments. I marveled at the sounds and appreciated the beauty of the polished rare woods. Later Grandma moved to Miami Beach and her guitar was damaged when a hurricane blew in the windows. The guitar was given to me all in ruins, and I managed to repair it. It is still in my possession. Years later I met Delfin Martinez and Ted McCully, both talented guitarists. Delfin had come from Key West and was familiar with all phases of Latin music. Though he plays guitar, his favorite instrument is the TRES, a three stringed Cuban folkloric instrument Ted was born in Russia and was adopted by Admiral McCully from the crowds of Russian orphans left homeless after World War I. 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 21, 2019May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Fabio’s Excellent Nicaraguan Adventure Fabio’s Excellent Nicaraguan Adventure by Mike Moger previously published in American Lutherie #93, 2008 Fabio Ragghianti walked into the open-air market on a hot day in Jalapa, Nicaragua, to buy some fruit. He had been in town for three days, and the food he was used to eating was back in his home town of Pietrasanta, in Tuscany. A boy looking about sixteen or seventeen helped him pick out some oranges and apples, and quickly asked him in Spanish, “How much does it cost to learn how to build a guitar?” Our classical guitar building class had started nine days earlier, in February 2007. My son, Abram, was with me, and together, the three of us were to teach five eager students the finer points of building good guitars. Men and boys, and a few ladies, had stopped by the open shop every day to see us work. A local TV reporter (the only one in town) interviewed us about what we were doing, and people asked how much it would cost to buy a good guitar. Guitars had been largely absent since Nicaragua had fought the Contra-Sandinista war. The town of Jalapa, Nicaragua is located in the northern mountains, just south of Honduras. It was hit hard in the war when the Contras stationed themselves in Honduras. Jalapa stood between them and the Nicaraguan capital, Managua. 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 20, 2019May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Guitar Swap! Guitar Swap! guitars and text by John Calkin and Steve Kinnaird previously published in American Lutherie #81, 2005 John Calkin: When I suggested to Texas luthier Steve Kinnaird that we build each other a guitar I had no specific agenda in mind. Though I spend my work weeks building acoustic guitar bodies for Huss & Dalton, I feel it’s important to build an occasional complete instrument just to keep in practice. Company policy prevented me from building flattops for sale but not from building for trade or gift. And frankly, I had enough nice guitars sitting around the house that I didn’t feel like building another for myself. Trading guitars with Steve sounded like fun. We were already good friends who trusted each other, and we knew each other’s work well enough to know that we were on equal footing as luthiers. Most of the fun for me was in not telling Steve what I wanted or expected in my guitar. He, too, decided that surprise would be the most delicious element of the swap. 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 20, 2019May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Searching for Blue Significance Searching for Blue Significance by John Calkin previously published in American Lutherie #56, 1998 I guess I heard about Scott Chinery’s collection of blue guitars at the same time as everyone else. The photo of a necklace of sky-colored archtops lounging on the grass appeared in magazines well outside the field of music. And my reaction was probably the same as everyone else’s — where does this guy get his money? I was glad Chinery had dumped so much bread into the lutherie community, but otherwise I didn’t see the point. So when the staid Smithsonian Institution decided to house the collection for awhile, I was amused and confounded. What was going on here? I knew two things for sure. First, as a connoisseur of vintage instruments and a collector of wide renown, Scott Chinery was a man to be reckoned with. In the early ’90s he made a short video (available from Stew-Mac) which skimmed off some of the creamier bits of his collection for the home viewer, and let’s just say that any one piece would make any musician’s day turn golden. If the above question about his money seems rude, you should know that Chinery is very up-front about the subject on video and freely talks about what he paid for certain pieces and what sort of tempting offers he has refused for his vintage groovies. My friend and guitar teacher, Mitch Block, played a party at Chinery’s New Jersey home and came back stupefied by the shear quantity of fine (not to mention important) guitars he saw there. 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.
