Posted on July 1, 2024May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Instrument Resurrection Stories Letter: Instrument Resurrection Stories by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #96, 2008 Hello Tim and Everyone in GAL Land — I’ve been receiving some interesting e-mails lately having to do with the instrument resurrection stories I wrote. They’re not so much about the repair issues, but about work ethics and dealing with customers, as well as the stresses of overwork and handling burnout. Anyone busy enough to feel overworked at this point in time should only feel grateful. During the fifteen years I ran my own shop in New Jersey I serviced most of a county and four music stores and drew customers from both the NYC and Philly metropolitan areas, but forty hours of work in a week was a rarity. I had good uses for the down time, but more work would have been nice. 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 July 1, 2024May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Thicknessing Router Article in AL#101 – Surfacing Bit Letter: Thicknessing Router Article in AL#101 - Surfacing Bit by John Park Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 Tim, Since the thicknessing router article (AL#101, p. 58) was written, a friend has tried using a 1" surfacing bit. It has blades on the bottom, much like an auger, which seems to have the trait of lifting the wood. I think it has a propeller action that creates a suction problem. In my opinion, using a cutter like that defeats the purpose. A straight bit cuts the end grain and so can disregard runout and figure. There will always be a slight suction due to the velocity of the air over the top surface being higher than the air under the wood. This is Bernoulli’s Principle which is what gives wings lift. I use a 3/4" straight bit and I’ve yet to encounter enough lift to make a significant error at a dimension of about 2MM or .080". Using this device to give less thickness than that could cause problems because the span from the hold-down remains fixed while the stiffness drops as the cube of the thickness. In other words, making veneer would not be practical. 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 July 1, 2024May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: John Calkin Article in AL#99 on Spanish Neck Style Letter: John Calkin Article in AL#99 on Spanish Neck Style by David Freeman Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 Hello Tim — After reading John Calkin’s article in AL#99, I would like to add to the discussion of neck rake. It is true that building in the Spanish integral-neck style allows everything to be attached flat. The top is held flat, more to get the sides on at 90° than to get the neck rake proper. As soon as the body is off the form, the top rises in a curve, depending on the bracing style and relative humidity. These deviations will affect final neck set. The full-size side-view drawing John discusses is a valuable exercise to determine angles to aim for in neck rake. The variable of top arch is the most difficult to determine. In the Spanish style, I will allow 1/16"–1/8" for top arch. This varies with top graduation and brace straightness or taper on the glue edge. Both will add to top arch. I also keep my relative humidity between 40%–50% when assembling the body. I try to dry the top to 25%–30% humidity when I am bracing them. This allows the top to swell considerably and have a lot of shrink before it cracks in dry conditions. 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 30, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Construction of the Colombian Tiple Construction of the Colombian Tiple by Anamaria Paredes Garcia and R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #90, 2007, Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 American Lutherie #82 featured an article and plan for the Colombian tiple by Bogotá luthier Alberto Paredes. This is a companion article to that one, featuring a detailed description of how the tiple is constructed in Sr. Paredes’ shop. The design of the tiple is heavily influenced by that of the classical guitar, but as it was not directly descended from the classical, this instrument has unique characteristics. With its multiple courses of steel strings, the construction of the tiple has to be able to withstand much higher static string tension than a classical guitar. The top is cut from bookmatched spruce, nominally 3MM thick. The two halves are generally cut out on the bandsaw at the same time, as shown in Photo 1. The center seam edges are jointed, first on the jointer (Photo 2). Following machine jointing the top halves are finished up on the shooting board using a hand plane. Note that the halves are simply pressed by hand to hold them down on the board during shooting (Photo 3). Glue is applied to the center seam surfaces (Photo 4) which are then clamped using simple cauls to a flat, waxed gluing board (Photo 5). Once the glue is dry the squeeze-out is stripped off the back side of the top. 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. Members also receive 3 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 30, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Grading on the Curves Grading on the Curves: Fitting Bars and Bridges on Archtop Guitars by Steve Andersen from his 2006 GAL Convention workshop Originally published in American Lutherie #91, 2007 The first thing I’ll show you today is how I fit tone bars to the top. Then I’ll talk about fitting the base of a bridge to a top, first with this router jig that indexes off the top and gets me really close to the final shape, then moving on to the final fitting. I brought some extra materials if anyone wants to try hand-fitting an ebony bridge or a tone bar. I use the term tone bar, because I think of braces as being structural. If you built a flattop guitar without braces, it would just fold up. An archtop could be built without braces and it would hold up fine. The archtop’s bars are not so much for structure, so I call them tone bars. One thing that helps me in the fitting process is that my arching is very consistent from guitar to guitar. The arching templates for my guitars started out based on a D’Angelico New Yorker, and have evolved over the years to what I’m using today. So while I have several body sizes, they have similarities based on what I’ve found works well for my sound. 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. Members also receive 3 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
