Posted on January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Partial Refrets Partial Refrets by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 Partial refrets are a somewhat different matter than a full refret. Full refrets are often done for reasons other than worn frets, such as a compression refret to take excess relief out of a neck with a nonoperative or nonadjustable truss rod, or to allow a fretboard hump at the body joint to be dressed out. Partial refrets are usually performed on an instrument that has been played exclusively on the first few frets. Those frets have been grooved by the strings to the point where the strings buzz on the seldom-used frets. Most of the time I like to replace a couple of the unmarred frets as well just to play it safe. Occasionally a fret in the middle of the fretboard gets damaged and must be replaced. The procedure for this is similar to a partial refret for worn frets. There are other reasons to perform a partial refret, such as installing taller frets by the nut to make a slightly back-bowed neck playable, but these considerations are not covered here. I used to dislike partial refrets and tried to talk the customer into a full refret. This insured that the same fretwire covered the entire fretboard and also put more money in my pocket. After a slight mental adjustment and some practice at partial refrets I have come to look forward to them. The money involved is less, but partial refrets are normally far less complicated than a full refret and take a predictable amount of time. 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 January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Electric Bass Design Consideration Electric Bass Design Consideration by Veronica Merryfield, David Minnieweather, and moderator/organizer Harry Fleishman from their 2008 GAL Convention panel discussion Originally published in American Lutherie #99, 2009 Harry Fleishman: We’re going to talk basses. Veronica Merryfield is here to talk about the transition from acoustic to electric upright. David Minnieweather is going to talk about bass design from a player’s standpoint, and I’m going talk about thinking in terms of design and making materials choices. So without further ado — do you want further ado? — here is Veronica. Veronica Merryfield: This is my twenty-fifth year of making instruments. I was doing analog synths in my early teens and I needed a bass for the sound I was after. I bought a cheap bass and it was rubbish. Right then, Ned Steinberger brought out this beautifully designed bass but I just couldn’t afford one, so I started building. I made a bass and played it for fifteen years, despite all its problems. Now I use it to show students that their stuff’s really not all that bad. 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 January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Chalk-fitting Guitar Braces Chalk-fitting Guitar Braces by Stephen Marchione from his 2017 GAL Convention workshop Originally published in American Lutherie #140, 2020 First, have a plan. Know what you’re making. It seems like an obvious thing, but sometimes people start a guitar without a good idea of what the brace layout will be. When I design a new model, I’ll often get a piece of aluminum flashing and lay out a bracing template. If you’re building an historical model, you can transfer the blueprint to a template of aluminum or plexiglas. This gives you a clear idea of what your braces are supposed to be doing, and it lets you be sure that the braces end up where they were designed to go. Photo 1 is a closeup of one of my bracing templates. I use the little holes to make pencil marks on the soundboard. On a classical guitar, a lot of builders push the big harmonic bars down into the solera, or dished workboard. But that can cause distortion of the top. Even on a Spanish guitar, I take the time to chalk-fit the brace. That gives a better structure with less stress. I highly recommend it. 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 January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Evolving the Dished Workboard Evolving the Dished Workboard by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #65, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Six, 2013 For my money, the dished workboard is one of the most important lutherie inventions ever, making it possible for even rookies to build guitars that are precisely and tightly put together. I’d like to suggest ways to make them more useful. First, though, let’s make it clear what the heck we’re talking about. Guitars were initially built with flat tops. Classical guitars (and not a few steel strings) were built on a flat workboard that more resembled a tabletop than a piece of movable gear, since it was the size of the entire instrument, neck included. The construction method using the Spanish foot required this size, since the neck became a structural part of the body. Mechanical joints such as the dovetail or bolts freed the luthier to build the body and neck as separate units, and the workboard was reduced to a laminated rectangle the size of the body, and was often dispensed with altogether when the body was built inside a mold. In 1975 David Russell Young published The Steel String Guitar, the first guitar construction book recommending domed tops. Young, however, made no mention of the dished workboard, but used more primitive methods to achieve the domed top. It wasn’t until the late ’80s that the spherically domed guitar top began to catch on. (Forgive me if I simply call them SDTs.) The easiest way to build SDTs was on top of a spherically dished workboard, which came on the market about that time. (Let’s not call them SDWs; I’ll explain why in a bit.) The merits of SDTs are not at all obvious to musicians, nor are all luthiers convinced that they are the way to go, but an important thing happened here. Guitar backs have always been arched, and fitting an arched back to a set of bent sides equipped with lining and end blocks has always been one of the bugaboos of lutherie. It’s not easy to do in a professional manner. But with one simple step, it became possible to fit perfectly arched braces to a perfectly arched back, and then to fit the entire assembly to perfectly shaped ribs. 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 January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Slotting Fretboards Slotting Fretboards by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #70, 2002 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Six, 2013 Many luthiers skip the tedious chore of slotting their own fretboards, and with good reason. Preslotted boards are readily available in most of the common scale lengths, and I’ve never used a prepared board that wasn’t accurately made. However, if you wish to escape the use of ebony or rosewood, or if a strange scale length is calling your name, you may have no choice but to slot your own fretboards. Accuracy and neatness are the attributes of a properly slotted board. Completing the job efficiently while keeping your temper under control requires a few basic tools. Be warned, however, that the frustration factor is harder to control than the necessary accuracy. Fretboard wood is usually the hardest and most abrasion resistant that can be found, and it doesn’t give in to slotting politely. It’s possible to buy your way out of this situation. It’s ironic that the cost of machine slotting is hardly more than a dedicated miter box, and can be a lot cheaper than a deluxe miter box. Assuming, that is, that you haven’t invested in a table saw just to cut fret slots. 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.
