Posted on September 25, 2026September 25, 2026 by Dale Phillips The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #143, 2022 See also, A Guitar Is Born: Attending Charles Fox’s Hands-On Guitar Making Course by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part One by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Two by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Four by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French The fretboard is the final part needed to complete the neck, our final guitar subassembly. The fretboard is important to both the instrument’s playability and its harmonic accuracy. Its dimensional, geometric, and other specifications represent thoughtful design decisions by its maker. The fretboard is fashioned from a fretboard “blank,” a hardwood billet sufficiently oversize to yield the intended fretboard, typically of rosewood or ebony. Charles’ production sequence should be familiar to anyone who has made a fretboard from scratch, regardless of the specific methods they’ve employed: 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. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on September 25, 2026September 25, 2026 by Dale Phillips The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #144, 2021 See also, A Guitar Is Born: Attending Charles Fox’s Hands-On Guitar Making Course by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part One by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Two by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Four by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five by Mark French The completed neck is attached to the body with four bolts, whose geometry is shown in Fig. 1. There are two bolts side by side under the overhanging part of the fretboard. Only one dotted line shows there. 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. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on September 24, 2026September 30, 2026 by Dale Phillips Charles Fox’s Superglue Binding Method Charles Fox’s Superglue Binding Method by Tom Harper Originally published in American Lutherie #76, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 My first binding effort was done using basic tools and materials — a gramil, chisel, yellow glue, and masking tape. I sweated bullets carving out those channels! Then came the gluing: wet sticks going everywhere but in the channel, tape sticking to gluey fingers and then peeling off and making a mess of fragile purfling strips. Somehow it worked out. Since that first experience, I’ve gotten enough control over the task that it’s an orderly process these days. However, I still have a little foreboding when I start binding an instrument. Based on the amount of discussion about binding methods that I’ve encountered, I think this may be true for others as well. When I saw that Charles Fox was offering a course at American School of Lutherie (ASL) about his binding methods, I jumped at the chance to attend. I had taken some other courses from Charles and had seen some of his earlier methods demonstrated. I knew that Charles would have about as foolproof a setup as anyone and that his methods would be easy to incorporate into my own shop. 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. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on September 23, 2026October 2, 2026 by Dale Phillips Plywood Bass Restoration, Part One Plywood Bass Restoration, Part One from his 2011 GAL Convention workshop by James Condino Originally published in American Lutherie #109, 2012 See also, Plywood Bass Restoration, Part Two by James Condino There were five different bass shops in Portland, where I used to live. Nobody came to me looking for help with a bass. About five years ago I moved to Asheville, North Carolina. Asheville, like most towns, has a million guitar players and lots of builders, but you have to drive 150 miles in any direction to find someone else who works on an upright bass — especially someone who plays. Within about ten months, just hiding in my dusty little shop with no advertising, I was the bass guy in North Carolina. A lot of people ask why I want to work on those old plywood things that take up so much space. Just nine days working on basses allows me to do whatever I want for the rest of the month; then I can go back to making funny-looking green mandolins and prototype stuff. From a customer standpoint, bass players are the most gentle, mild-mannered, low-maintenance people I work with. They usually don’t ask for help until the action’s so high they physically can’t play it. After dealing with mandolin buyers, who will blow a gasket if it’s off .001˝ on the first fret, it’s like being on vacation. 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. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on September 23, 2026October 2, 2026 by Dale Phillips Plywood Bass Restoration, Part Two Plywood Bass Restoration, Part Two from his 2011 GAL Convention workshop by James Condino Originally published in American Lutherie #110, 2012 See also, Plywood Bass Restoration, Part One by James Condino Anyone who works on old plywood basses is probably familiar with Chuck Traeger’s book, The Setup and Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound. It’s the bible for plywood repair and I reviewed it in AL#84. It’s about 300 pages; $75 at Amazon. I spend more than that for one string. I recommend that you buy it from Henry Strobel. He’s in Aumsville, Oregon, outside of Salem. He’s written most of the violin books that we have, and he has a publishing company. One of my students liked my copy more than I did, so I don’t have one for the show. The book really gets beyond simple things like replacing the bass bar, into jobs like mode matching the differences between the fingerboard and the tailpiece. Chuck was the first guy to publish information about these breast patches on the soundboard; they make quite a difference in the response of a Kay. His new book is basically an addendum. I think he wanted to get the information out rather than wait for the next printing. It’s fairly common to use some sort of graft material when you’re working on braces. The plies are weak, and it often happens that when the bass takes a hit, the bass bar sticks to the wood but the plies delaminate. I picked up the idea of a big graft from Chuck’s book. He uses linen, and that’s a popular material. Some people like natural parchment or goatskin, and drumheads are good too. You can buy them really thin (some almost too thin to sell), and for ten bucks you can get a big patch that works well. I ran out of material, so I went down to an old-school sewing shop in North Carolina. I took my little boy with me, and as soon as we walked in the door, all the old ladies with big hats were on us, petting his head and stuff. I told them what I wanted to do, and they put their heads together and found the best stuff in the shop for the job: it’s the substrate you use for needlepoint. Do you know what I mean by needlepoint? A big hoop and frame, and you load this material into it and you cross-stitch in and out? 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. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
