Posted on January 10, 2010May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Taku Sakashta In Memoriam: Taku Sakashta December 11, 1966 – February 11, 2010 by Tom Ribbecke Originally published in American Lutherie #101, 2010 Besides making world-class guitars, Taku Sakashta was part of our local community of artists. In the blink of an eye he is gone, at the hands of a brutal career criminal. Nothing prepared us for the loss of our friend like this. It can really test one’s faith. He is survived by his wife Kazuko. As she worked with Taku, she now is bereft of an income as well as a husband. Taku came to America and achieved the respect and admiration of his peers. As my former apprentice Isao Abe said about the Japanese culture, “The highest nail is hammered down first.” But here, Taku was an unstoppable lutherie force. He developed his own aesthetic and created extraordinary designs. As Rick Turner pointed out, Taku achieved his dream. Losing him is not easy. When an artist of his stature dies, so do the many guitars he certainly would have left to the world had he lived. Taku would come to visit without warning. I would turn around and he would be standing in my shop in his apron, usually with one of his students or an assistant in tow. I used to tell him he looked like my grandfather Hideo (who later became Henry) and he would laugh. He would round up the Japanese apprentices from Ervin’s and my shop, and take them camping, or out for beers. He was really caring for this group of men, and was always there for them. Photo by Jonathon Peterson. So there we sat in the front row at Taku’s memorial service at the request of his family: Larry Robinson, Steve Klein, Ervin Somogyi, Rick Turner, and myself, with our 200 years of collective instrument making experience. I was honored to be in the company of these outstanding people, who all share the same love of the art and the craft of lutherie. My apprentices call us the “old Gs” of guitar making. It felt like we were burying one of our children. The family did not want the media there. It was a small and lovely service, half in English and half in Japanese, honoring his life. Tuck and Patty performed, and we were treated to slides of Taku as a wild young man and as a little boy. This was the story of his life outside of guitars. Taku was a remarkable, brilliant, unstoppable, unflagging force for lutherie. But I will always remember him as a better person.
Posted on January 10, 2010May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Use Any Wood You Like Letter: Use Any Wood You Like by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #25, 1991 Dear Tim, In 1981 I bought a new Alvarez-Yari 6-string, with laminated rosewood back and solid spruce top. Lots of guitars sound as good, but hardly any sound better. Lots of guitars are as playable, but very few play nicer. I’ve worked on or played dozens of high end, exquisitely made guitars and a bunch of vintage pieces, and not one has ever blown me away. Early in my career I helped do sound at a local folk benefit. Lots of fine talent turned out, sporting a number of classy guitars. But a low-end mahogany Yamaha blew them all away, no contest. 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 10, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Don’t Replace Bridge Plate Letter: Don't Replace Bridge Plate by John Higgins Originally published in American Lutherie #41, 1995 Greetings to All- As usual, the last issue of the quarterly was filled with loads of good stuff, with useful information available in all the articles. However, I must take exception to the premise of Bryan Galloup’s reason for replacing the bridgeplate on the 1962 D-28. He states he replaced it because “the balls on the string ends have worn all the way through (the plate) and into the top.” Had the top “bellied up” behind the bridge or sunk toward the soundhole, I would say such a repair would be warranted. Since only the ball ends are involved, I feel the better option is to install a piece of quartersawn maple, cut 0.100" thick by 5/8"×2 3/4", onto the existing plate with some yellow glue. When redrilled and slotted, it seats the ball ends properly, as well as pulling the winding back into the pin hole and off the saddle. The small amount of wood added doesn’t seem to affect the tone adversely, but helps due to the windings being off the saddle. Martin recommends this method when only ball-end wear is a factor, and I’ve found it to be very effective. 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 10, 2010May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Guitar Dimensions and Harmonics Letter: Guitar Dimensions and Harmonics by Joe D. Franklin Originally published in American Lutherie #66, 2001 GAL Members, The resonant chamber or soundbox on a guitar is the greater half of its tonal success. If the air enclosed in this box can resonate naturally at some harmonic of the speed of sound, then you have a winner. This is the only part of the guitar that is capable of maintaining polyphony at a level amplitude or volume throughout any given song. Two designs from the past have met these standards, the 1864 Torres and the 1935 Hauser/Torres, and later the 1943 Hauser that used an inversion on the concept of where the fundamental bass might reside. 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 10, 2010May 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips Product Reviews: Acoustech Dynamic Field Pickup Product Reviews: Acoustech Dynamic Field Pickup by Harry Fleishman Originally published in American Lutherie #29, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 Acoustech Dynamic Field Pickup Acoustech Orangeburg, NY My first attempt at guitar amplification was an early ’60s DeArmond pickup on my f-hole Gibson acoustic. It attached with little difficulty or damage and sounded great to me at the time. That was 1962 and my expectations were not terribly high. I plugged straight into a portable Wollensak tape recorder and used it as an amp until I got a used Gibson Falcon as a Christmas gift. A few years later, I installed a roundhole DeArmond in my Gibson J-45. Again, it sounded pretty good, all things considered. But all the things I considered didn’t amount to much. What choices did I really have, after all? Those little contact mikes, which stuck on the face of a guitar, weren’t very good; I learned that soon enough. And the good-sounding microphones were expensive, unwieldy, and restricting. Like many guitarists, I wanted the freedom of movement that a pickup could give. When the first piezo transducer came out, I stuck one on and boogied. By that time, however, I was more sophisticated, more discerning, more caught up in the folk boom, and wanting a pickup that sounded like an acoustic guitar, only louder. The first I tried was the Barcus-Berry. Not too bad if you didn’t mind sounding like you were inside a bucket. The similar piezos weren’t much better. The Hot Dot sounded great to me when it came out. Like many technological improvements, its refinements masked its shortcomings for a while. I probably installed a hundred of them while continuing my search for a better sounding, easier installing pickup for myself and the customers I was attracting to my repair and building business. 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.
