Posted on June 30, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips The MacRostie Mandolin Deflection Jig The MacRostie Mandolin Deflection Jig by Don MacRostie from his 2004 GAL Convention workshop Originally published in American Lutherie #94, 2008 The mandolin world is small enough that if you’re even thinking about building one, you probably already know who Don MacRostie is. Don is an inventor, and he’s done more for Stewart-MacDonald than we will ever hear about. He’s been making Red Diamond mandolins for two decades now. At the 2004 GAL Convention Don discussed one of his research tools and told us how he applies it to his construction process to make the sound of his finished instruments more consistent and predictable. — John Calkin At the GAL Convention in 2001, Charles Fox floated the idea of teaching a mandolin building class at his American School of Lutherie. As a result, I taught a two week class, building A-style mandolins from scratch. The only thing we started with was thickly precarved oversize tops and backs. Everything else we made totally from scratch. It was a great experience. Peggy Stuart, a student in the class, documented the experience in a series of American Lutherie articles (AL#75–AL#79). Tim Olsen asked me to demonstrate and explain the plate-deflection machine we used in the class at this convention, so that’s why we’re all here. 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 13, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Solving the Maple Problem Solving the Maple Problem by Rolfe Gerhardt Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly 6, #2, 1978 Finding a good and consistent supplier of find fiddleback (or of other kinds) of maple has been one of the greatest problems in my mandolin building. The solution to the problem was the country’s best gunstock suppliers — Kenneth E. Thompson of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. I used to buy the prohibitively expensive imported violin wood for backs, but even the most expensive pieces just did not seem right to me in terms of character or figure. And finding pieces large enough to make necks out of was something altogether else. I started buying maple muzzleloading gunstock blanks, the “tiger-striped” ones as they call them. They were good wood; they had to be for these custom guns, and they had to be dried just right for a gunstock where warp is as critical as in a musical instrument. I started checking the sources of these gunstocks, and after several months worked my way back to Ken. That was four years ago, and one heck of a lot of wood ago. 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 6, 2024May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Where to Get Mandola Plans Questions: Where to Get Mandola Plans by Don MacRostie and Jim Hoover Originally published in American Lutherie #77, 2004 Don MacRostie of Athens (aka Stew-Mac), Ohio responds to Thierry, Bernus Turner, and other's questions regarding where to get a mandola plan. Although I don't know of a plan for a carved-top mandola, the following figures taken from a signed ``Loar'' mandola and a teen's H-1 serial# 75585 should be helpful in proportioning your own from a plan like the F-5 plan from Stew-Mac or GAL Plan #26. Archings on these two instruments were very much like the companion mandolins, and plate thicknesses were essentially the same as for the mandolin. The H-1 had two transverse braces on the top, with the rear brace under the bridge. The Loar was tone-bar braced. The one slightly unusual point on the Loar mandola is that the peghead and the body scrolls were not scaled up with the rest of the instrument. They were basically the same size and shape as those details on the mandolin. The book, The Mandolin Manual: The Art, Craft, and Science of the Mandolin and Mandola by John Troughton is available from Elderly Instruments (www.elderly.com/books/items/542-62.htm). Also, AL#51, Questions column gives some useful information and dimensions. Several websites offer plans for flattop mandolas, though I have not actually seen them: www.touchstonetonewoods.co.uk/ttwp2.html secure.mimf.com/order.htm www.art-robb.co.uk/plans.html Jim Hoover of New Holland, PA adds: The book Making Stringed Instruments — A Workshop Guide, by George Buchanan (Sterling Publishing) has a clean, scale drawing of a flat-top mandola as well as drawings of six other instruments, including violin, viola, cello, mandolin, and classical and archtop guitars with step-by-step do’s and don’ts.
Posted on December 28, 2020May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Cutting Michigan Maple Cutting Michigan Maple by Elon Howe Originally published in American Lutherie #37, 1994 In 1983, I had the guts to try to repair my dad’s old fiddle. I reglued it, sanded it, sprayed on a varnish — it looked great. I was later advised that I had spoiled the fiddle by doing the wrong things. Later on, I bought a fiddle kit. It had the wood, a machine cut scroll, four ounces of varnish, and a half-pound of glue. About six months later I turned out my first fiddle and of course it sounded great. Dan Erlewine, who ran a shop north of us at that time, had to admit that it looked pretty fair. He later admitted he was afraid to see what I might turn out because he knew he would have to be honest. He seemed to be relieved that it didn’t look like a shoe box. At first, information was hard to come by. Finally, we found an address for Hammond Ashley. He recommended a book called The Techniques of Violin Making by Harry Wake. I got to meet Harry at the Arizona Violin Makers’ Association Competition in Tucson — he even bought some willow wood from me. 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 19, 2010September 11, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Choosing Top Wood Questions: Choosing Top Wood by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Jerry Tekell of Italy, Texas asks: As a person somewhat new to instrument building I’d like to ask: Why do most builders use spruce or pine for guitar and mandolin tops? Why not maple, for example? I’d love to use maple on the top as well as the back of my mandolins, but I wonder how it would sound. John Calkin, GAL Contributing Editor, responds: Softwoods (conifers) are traditional for instrument tops, which also makes them what customers expect to see. Don’t neglect the importance of this. There are real-world reasons, though, as well. A wood needs to be strong enough to withstand the forces of string tension and compression (if you are talking about an archtop mandolin) and also light enough to be set in motion effectively by string vibration. Quartersawn softwoods seem to fit the bill better than the wood from deciduous trees. I tend to think of softwoods as fluffy, since they have a lot of air trapped in their structures. Hardwoods like hard maple are more like a metal (in my mind, not in reality) since they are very dense. 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.
