Posted on September 25, 2026September 25, 2026 by Dale Phillips The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Three by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #141, 2020 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 Four by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Five by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French With the rim, the soundboard, and the back complete, our first three subassemblies are ready to become a body. The body assembly process takes place on two slightly concave benchtop vacuum fixtures (Photo 1). Their hollow surfaces match the guitar plates’ spherical contours, a 30´ soundboard radius and a 12´ back radius. Vacuum holds each plate in place and in its correct spherical shape during that plate’s final fitting and marriage to the rim. Charles notes that: 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 Four The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Four by Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #142, 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 Five by Mark French The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French Early in this series we got the neck under way, then soon laid it aside to focus solely on creating the body. The body is now as complete as it can be without its neck, so from here on it’s all neck, all the time, until the neck is complete. To bring us up to date on the neck: We began with a 7/8˝×3˝×36˝ mahogany neck blank, 12˝ of which we chopped off to later be cut into four pieces and stacked beneath the arm as the heel block. 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 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.
