Posted on May 21, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Building a First Guitar Building a First Guitar by Harry Coleman Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume 6 #1, 1978 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1997 I’ve played guitar since 1961. I built knives around 1968, so I had an interest in working with my hands. This led naturally into an interest in guitar building. Early in 1975, I started buying all the books that were available on building and repair of guitars and any other stringed instruments. Guitar Player magazine had very little to offer, but it was something to read. I studied and memorized the books and articles for about six months before ever cutting the first piece of wood. I didn’t agree with one big thing that stood out in almost every book. They all said that a person should build his or her first guitar out of cheap materials so that when he screwed it up he would not have lost a lot of money on expensive wood. 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 March 2, 2020March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Quick Cuts: The 13-string Chiavi-Miolin Guitar Quick Cuts: The 13-string Chiavi-Miolin Guitar by Johannes Labusch Originally published in American Lutherie #83, 2005 The preconception of what a classical guitar has to look like may spring from our desire to find the definitive, the classic look and feel of what we cherish. The familiar visual signals give us a certain peace of mind, the reassuring feeling that something has found its final, perfect, and most satisfying shape. I had known Swiss luthier Ermanno Chiavi’s guitars to be firmly rooted in that straightforward philosophy. But constant improvement has been as much a mark of his development as a steady and firm belief in tradition. I own a Chiavi guitar built in 1996, and it is proof of his solid no-nonsense style. At the same time, it illustrates his keen curiosity and sense of experiment: The body is made from beautiful bird’s-eye maple, and the inlays around the soundhole represent a row of maple leaves. 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 January 6, 2020March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Bart Reiter Meet the Maker: Bart Reiter by Paul Hostetter previously published in American Lutherie #34, 1993 and Big Red Book of American, Volume Three, 2004 As a card-carrying guitar nut, guitar player, and luthier, I’ve always felt a bit like a turncoat because of my jaundiced view that our current vibrant lutherie world is somewhat top heavy with guitar nuts. It’s one reason I like the GAL so much: there are all these wild cards who have a very nonflattop agenda. I love it! But it seems that every time I go to a Guild convention someone I really want to meet doesn’t show up for some reason. It happened again last summer, though I knew I’d find dozens of other surprises amongst the corn fields and bomb threats ‘way over there in Vermillion. Among them were two of the very top figures in the world of banjo, Bart Reiter and Ron Chacey. Dan Erlewine issued me a blank cassette and commanded: “Go forth and interview!” Dutifully, and happily, I did. I’d always wanted to meet these guys anyway. Here’s the first one I talked to. 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 December 11, 2019March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Carleen Hutchins Meet the Maker: Carleen Hutchins by Alan Carruth previously published in American Lutherie #86, 2006 See also, The New Violin Family by Alan Carruth The Catgut Acoustical Society and the New Violin Family Association by Robert J. Spear I first met Carleen Hutchins at the 1979 GAL Convention in Boston. I’d heard a lot about her from my teacher and friend Tom Knatt, who had been working with her for years, but she exceeded all of my expectations. The following winter I began joining Tom for the monthly drive down to Montclair, New Jersey for what Carleen called “technical violin making” sessions. It’s hard to overestimate Carleen’s impact on the lutherie community. As one of the first women to gain a reputation as an instrument maker, she’s been an inspiration to a number of others who have been important in their own right. In helping to establish the Catgut Acoustical Society, she was one of the first people to initiate the sort of information sharing that the GAL carries on; a system that has contributed much to this “Golden Age” of lutherie. As a scientist, she was one of the pioneers in the study of musical instrument acoustics, and in editing the CAS Journal, she brought together, coordinated, and inspired the work of many others. There always seems to be more to find out about Carleen, so when Tim suggested that I do an interview, I accepted the assignment gladly. Thus it was that I drove over to her new home in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, in a snow storm, and sat down for an interesting chat. 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 13, 2019March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips H.L. Wild H.L. Wild by Paul Wyszkowski Originally published in American Lutherie #7, 1986 and The Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume 1, 2000 See also, “Out of the Basement” by Richard Bingham “A Scene from Dickens” by Steve Curtin H.L. Wild: A curiosity shop, a preserved bit of the past still alive in Manhattan. Not a museum display, not a movie set, but a place where the antiques on the shelves are for sale not as such, but as current merchandise. A real time trip. See it while it is still here. Buy some hundred-year-old veneer. Or pull together a guitar or a mandolin set from the stock of vintage woods and parts. Or you may find that this is the only place in the whole world which still has a supply of a particular fret-saw blade. Who knows what you may find here? Come on down! Betty Wild, who has recently celebrated her sixty-second birthday, is the third generation of the Wild dynasty. Her grandfather, William Wild, founded H.L. Wild (just “H.L. Wild,” no “Company”) at its present address in Manhattan in 1876. (Where the initials “H.L.” came from is not clear, but apparently at least part of the reason for choosing them was aesthetic: “H.L. Wild” fits the mouth nicely.) The original business manufactured and sold intricate wooden fretwork construction sets for models of buildings, churches, towers, and various decorative objects. Jigsaw puzzles were another major product. A copy of the 1876 catalog depicting the many different designs then available leans against the glass of a display case behind the counter. Betty shows it with obvious pride. 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.
