Posted on January 11, 2010May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Shoptalk 5 by Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Review: Shoptalk 5 by Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #59, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Video: Shoptalk 5 Todd Sams, Don MacRostie, Dan Erlewine Stewart-MacDonald At the ’99 Merlefest in North Carolina I had the good fortune to find myself manning a booth next to Stew-Mac. It was a pleasure to meet Todd Sams and get to know Jay Hostetler better. It was also astonishing to hear so many self-proclaimed luthiers confess that they had never heard of Stewart-MacDonald. Where do these luthiers buy their tools? My guess is that they aren’t buying them at all, that what they can’t find at Ace Hardware or cobble together in the shop they are doing without; that they don’t even know about the tools that could make their work better and their lives easier. 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 10, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Product Reviews: Dan Erlewine’s Don’t Fret video Product Reviews: Dan Erlewine's Don't Fret video by Harry Fleishman Originally published in American Lutherie #34, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 Dan Erlewine’s Don’t Fret video and specialized tools Stewart-MacDonald www.stewmac.com I will never forget my first fret job. It was a balmy spring evening; the jasmine were blooming. The year was 1964. We were alone in my bedroom, just me and my Strat. I was an anxious sixteen year old. She was a blonde, born in ’62. This was nine years before I saw a copy of Irving Sloane’s groundbreaking book on repair, so when I decided to fix a few badly worn frets I was on my own. The worst wear was on the 2nd string, 1st fret and the 1st string, 3rd fret; the rest were still pretty good. Out came the soldering gun! No, I wasn’t planning to carefully remove the offending frets for replacement; I was going to fill the grooves with solder! I heated up the frets and flowed a bit of solder on. After they cooled, I smoothed them over with the file on my nail clipper. They looked great and I felt heroic. That is the proper technique, isn’t it? Nearly thirty years later, I know better. I should have used a soldering iron, not a gun. The gun could have demagnetized the pickups! 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 10, 2010May 30, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Zero Fret Advantage Questions: Zero Fret Advantage by Steve Klein Originally published in American Lutherie #61, 2000 Greg Pacetti of Fairbanks, Alaska asks: Can you tell what the advantage is in having a zero fret at the top like on the Klein and Selmer guitars instead of a regular nut? Steve Klein of Sonoma, California responds: I feel the zero fret is the only way to have an open string and fretted string sound the same. I’ve found two other things I like about this arrangement: 1. By using a slightly higher fretwire for my zero fret, I can easily set the string height over the first fret for all the strings at once by filing the top of the zero fret down; 2. This also affects intonation by moving the string termination point forward. There are other articles that explain in more detail the reasons one might want to do that.
