Posted on April 21, 2023May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Hurdy-Gurdy Letter: Hurdy-Gurdy by Wilfried Ulrich Originally published in American Lutherie #68, 2001 Dear Guild, Imagine a special magazine where famous and other pretty good hurdy-gurdy builders inform others to build better hurdy-gurdies. What would you think about a guy who got a parcel with a lot of scrap that makes you laugh when looking at the parts, but which are supposed to have the potential to become a guitar? But what the heck is a guitar? When he finished that monster, it had a beautiful big soundhole where you can hide your socks and underwear when traveling, and he showed it to his wife. “Look baby, that’s what they call a guitar! It makes noise when you scratch over the strings!” “Hah! Good one! What an awful long neck — you can wave that thing like a tennis racket. Why that strange corpus-form like an ‘8’? It cost eight bucks, eh?” Imagine! 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 April 21, 2023May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips A Special Guitar Neck Modification A Special Guitar Neck Modification by Ralph Bonte Originally published in American Lutherie #103, 2010 Last week I was able to make someone very happy. Christophe contacted me through my website, in pursuit of a luthier who could help him with his problem. Four years ago he had an accident while cleaning up the bushes surrounding his house. He was working with a wood chipper and wearing safety gloves. To make a long and painful story short, had he not worn the gloves he would have lost the tip of his left thumb. Due to the gloves, his thumb got caught in the motor of the chipper and was torn out of his hand, causing troubles for the muscles and tendons in his arm. Christophe used to be a recording artist playing the guitar. It took him four years of physical therapy to overcome and adapt to the new situation. In the past year, the urge to play the guitar again became overwhelming. However, he could no longer play a regular guitar since he lost the support of his left thumb. He tried a prosthesis, but that didn’t work. He found it too awkward. When I read his message, I immediately agreed to do the work, although I did not know how I was going to do it. 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 April 21, 2023May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Amplifying Flattop Bass Questions: Amplifying Flattop Bass by Harry Fleishman Originally published in American Lutherie #65, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Mark Brantley of Appleton, Minnesota asks: I recently ordered Tim Olsen’s plans for the Flattop Bass (GAL Plan #13). Do you have any advice on a good electric pickup for it? Harry Fleishman of Boulder, Colorado responds: It’s difficult to offer too much advice about amplifying your acoustic bass without more input about how loud you need to play, how high a fidelity to the instrument’s actual acoustic voice you want, and what your budget is; but here goes anyway. 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 November 1, 2022May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Little Dobro Little Dobro by John Calkin Published online by Guild of American Luthiers, November 2022 I bet that a lot of instrument makers don't know what their hourly wage is. I came with this idea for a resonator guitar with the idea of making a specific wage. The body, including the perforated ring that supports the resonator cone, was made of construction-grade plywood. The neck and fingerboard stock was sourced locally in bulk. The body hardware came from StewMac and the machines from Schaller. The textured paint required no work after it was sprayed from the can, though the necks were lacquered normally. The rosette was made of shark teeth that I got from my friend Cousin Al (who wasn't my cousin at all.) It was not difficult to price all the materials accurately. I timed myself as I made the first two of these guitars. I wanted to make $15 per hour, which was a good wage back then, and I probably made a little more after some practice. I sold them for $600 with no case. Everything was very business-like. Sometimes we forget that lutherie is a business and get lost in it without making enough money. ◆ All photos by John Calkin
Posted on October 31, 2022May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Decades of Banjo Decades of Banjo by Tom Morgan from his 1984 GAL Convention lecture Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly, Volume 12 ,#4, 1984 I would be a lot more comfortable today if I could have a gutiar and a five piece band, but I quickly discarded the idea of trying to set an hour’s lecture to music. I learned to love the sound of a good banjo not too long after the vintage years, and have had the privilege of examining a lot of good instruments. RB was the designation the Gibson company used for their five string or regular banjo, and TB means tenor banjo. Small numbers such as 2,3,4, and 5 were used, and just before the war early numbers like 7, 12, 18 and 75 came into use. The new models after World War II started with 100, 150 and 250, which was also their list price, and an 800 was added later. The Air Force sent me to Washington D.C. in 1955, where I met Callie Veach. Callie was originally from Arthur, West Virginia, and had several mountain traditions in his past such as hunting, making whiskey, riding horses, and making music. By the time we knew him, he worked at free lance carpentry, but kept a large number of musical instruments, which he modified, inlaid with Mother-of-Pearl and used to horse-trade with the local musicians. 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.
