Posted on July 1, 2024July 9, 2024 by Dale Phillips Letter: Price of Vintage Instruments Letter: Price of Vintage Instruments by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #61, 2000 Tim, Chris Foss isn’t the only one baffled by the cost of vintage instruments. I’ve wanted to believe right from the start that the vintage scene was a shuck created by a few knowledgeable dealers who spread their gospel from regular columns in the music rags. The truth, no doubt, is that any old thing you can point to is interesting to someone, and that once enough people show an interest that thing becomes collectible and the price shoots up. Some objects are life enhancing, and different people find different objects. Folks who collect old porcelain don’t eat off their collection. Antique chairs may never be allowed to perch a human. There are no doubt instrument collectors who never play their guitars. It’s not a shame, it’s just the way it is. 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, 2024July 9, 2024 by Dale Phillips Letter: Early Electric Bass Making Experiences Letter: Early Electric Bass Making Experiences by William G. Snavely Originally published in American Lutherie #69, 2002 Guild, About thirty years ago I walked into a shop in Berkeley. The fellow there made lutes. I told him I wanted to make an electric bass neck without a truss rod and was looking for fretwire. He asked me what the tension was on such a neck. Like I’d know. He showed me one of his lutes. They were nice, which is what I said. He didn’t seem to think that was enough, but I was young and thought that people valued honesty a lot more than they actually do. He didn’t really want to sell me any fretwire, but he finally said he would sell me some if I bought a pound. He wasn’t at all happy that I decided to accept his offer. I was in love with the bass, which I played at least six hours a day. I had a jazz bass that people said was very good, but it made my left hand numb and sounded crappy. I didn’t know it was soon to be a vintage instrument from the golden period. I thought it probably sounded so bad because the neck was so thin and hollow with a metal rod in it. Plus the saddles rested on little bitsy set screws. 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, 2024September 17, 2024 by Dale Phillips Aluminum Sonatas: A Brief History of Aluminum Stringed Instruments in the Last 120 Years Aluminum Sonatas: A Brief History of Aluminum Stringed Instruments in the Last 120 Years by James Condino Originally published in American Lutherie #89, 2007 Over the last two decades I have had the fortunate circumstances to be able to spend my winters in the shop building instruments and my summers outside playing in some of the world’s great rivers and mountain ranges. In preparation for my second 300-mile river trip through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, we made plans to include a five-piece band. I searched for a 3/4-sized standup bass that would resonate through the halls of Redwall Cavern and yet withstand the carnage of Lava Falls and the river’s other huge rapids. After a lot of searching, I discovered that during the early part of the 20th century, several different manufacturers found fame in pursuit of making incredible string instruments of aluminum, and then faded into obscurity. The Paris world trade show of 1855 unveiled the first public display of a pure aluminum ingot. Within a decade the means to cheaply extract the pure metal by electricity had resulted in wide availability of aluminum and generated great interest in its potential uses. 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, 2024September 17, 2024 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, 2024September 17, 2024 by Dale Phillips “Cricket”: A Reclaimed Salvage Recovery “Cricket”: A Reclaimed Salvage Recovery by James Condino Originally published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 A good friend of mine outside of Bend, Oregon has a wonderful old wood shop that has been in production since the 1940s, outliving several owners. The place is full of fantastic old machinery from the last hundred years. Big chrome badges with names like Walker Turner, Crescent, and Oliver are everywhere. Dusty billets and half logs of claro walnut, bigleaf maple, and figured myrtle, stacked decades ago, lie piled up in the back. Favored ebony and true Honduras mahogany boards are stashed in the ceiling rafters. The building itself has signs of constant evolution — false roofs, sealed-off rooms, and hidden treasures everywhere. Every few years, Doug calls me over to help knock out a wall or some similar project in the constant evolution of his floor plan. That is when I discover hidden gems from seventy years ago when Bend was a tiny little cowboy town that nobody had ever heard of. Old-growth Douglas fir trees covered the Cascades surrounding the high desert in such abundance that even your shop and garage were built from fine timbers: 30–40 even lines per inch, quartersawn, no runout, perfectly clear. After three quarters of a century seasoning in the arid climate, the stuff rings like a church bell when you tap it and splinters like fiberglass when you break it against the grain. 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.
