Posted on October 31, 2022May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Attic Strads, and Why What’s Worth Something Is Worth What It’s Worth Attic Strads, and Why What’s Worth Something Is Worth What It’s Worth by Michael Darnton Originally published in American Lutherie #25, 1991 and Big Red Book of American, Volume Three, 2004 One of the most common myths of violin fanciers is the existence of the attic Strad. The chances of finding a valuable violin at a garage sale are zip (or less). In recent years the number of Strads and Guarneris discovered in this world in this way can be counted on about three fingers, and they haven’t been found in attics in Kansas. Check out places like ancient European monasteries and the country homes of nobility if you want to increase your chances of finding something good. In spite of this, every large shop has several people a week coming in with a really bad violin they have been saving as a way to finance their retirement. In addition, hundreds of amateur collectors have instruments they believe are valuable Italians, which are “prevented from receiving their rightful recognition” by owners of the big shops who either “don’t want to admit that someone else has something good” or “don’t know what they’re talking about.” They are right; someone does not know what they are talking about. It isn’t the big shop owner. In the early part of this century and the end of the last, thousands of cheap factory violins were imported into this country from Germany and Czechoslovakia. Although some of these look and sound quite nice and are made of beautiful wood, they are still just factory fiddles. Since much of a violin’s value derives from factors other than the quality of the wood and the quantity of sandpaper used in its construction, like it or not those factors don’t mean much in assessing the value of an instrument. Certainly no one would appraise a painting based on the cost of the paint and the quality of the canvas, yet many amateur violin collectors use that type of criterion for evaluating their finds. 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 8, 2022May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Quickie Sander Fence Quickie Sander Fence by John Calkin Published online by Guild of American Luthiers, July 2022 Every lutherie shop has jigs hanging around. Often, lots of them. Every sort of stringed instrument is easier and faster to build using good jigs. If you decide that you'd like to build all of the instrument types commonly played in America you will accumulate a serious number of jigs. These days just about all of the most useful jigs can be purchased from a variety of dealers. They are very pretty and often better-made and more useful than a jig we would bother to make in our own shop. Well, prettier, anyhow. If you have entered lutherie in the last fifteen years you may have grown tired of old-timers complaining about this, as if making all of your own jigs was a right of passage that should never be skipped. "In my day we couldn't buy a guitar jig of any kind anywhere! We were lucky to find a book with pictures of guitars, let alone instructions to make them. Huff!" Well, sometimes we need a jig or fixture (what's the difference, anyhow?) that isn't instrument-specific, but machine-specific. I have vague memories of making a right-angle fence for my 6×48 belt sander. I still have the same sander, so when I rediscovered the jig---er, fixture---a few weeks ago I was glad to see it. But as soon as I turned my back, darn if it didn't go into hiding again. I have bumped around my little shop a number of times searching for it but to no avail. So, today I made a new one. I remember having to shim the old one to get it square. The new one came out dead on the money. I'll claim that forty years of experience was responsible for that, rather than blind luck. Old-farts in the game are entitled to that. Belt sanders vary enough in design that I won't bother listing any dimensions. I have included enough photos to suggest the jist of it. Anyway, you'll probably want the fence to be longer, or taller, or shaped like an animal for all I know. I sat it on a thin spacer to clear the belt, and it remained there nicely while I put on the clamps. Use the smallest clamps that will work in order not to bump them against the underside edge of the belt. Good luck. ◆ All photos by John Calkin.
Posted on July 8, 2022May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Our Great Spherical Friend, Part One Our Great Spherical Friend, Part One by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Originally published in American Lutherie #6, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Two by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Three by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Improving the Plywood Bass by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. We are referring to the cloud of gases, still largely beneficent, that surrounds our planet. This immense mass must be immensely and massively frustrated. Because, while it constantly tries to find a state of peaceful repose and equilibrium, it is just as constantly subjected to agitation by forces large and small. The earth whirls beneath it, the sun warms it on one side at a time, various objects in space tug at it, and innumerable minor annoyances are inflicted upon it by the residents of Earth. By far the worst of the minor offenders are the members of the human race, who should really be more grateful to their spherical friend. Instead, they have craftily discerned that the atmosphere that surrounds them is indeed indefatigable in its effort to reach an equilibrous state. With fiendish zeal they have invented devices for the sole purpose of agitating their friend. Some of these torture implements are known as “musical instruments” and are accorded a special reverence by those who create and use them (some of whom, however perversely, even banding together in special societies to promote these activities). 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 8, 2022May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Two Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Two by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Originally published in American Lutherie #7, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, Our Great Spherical Friend, Part One by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Three by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Improving the Plywood Bass by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Our intent, in the design of a musical instrument, should be to keep in mind this theoretical correspondence between the atmosphere and the instrument, and to realize it in as much detail as possible. The objective is the possibility of the highest degree of control of the final tone production, with a minimum amount of effort and anguish by the performer. Music differs from other atmospheric sounds. The tones are related to emotions and are arranged in such a way as to project a panoply of emotional changes and thereby tell a story or take the listener on a sort of emotional trip. The success of a musical instrument lies in the extent to which it can be made to facilitate this kind of expression. However, the instrument is first and foremost a physical device, and its expressive properties are supported by its acoustical properties, which are in turn supported by its structural properties. Because the instrument is in a state of tension, it must have a certain structural strength, adequate to give it a basis of firm tonality. 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 8, 2022May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Three Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Three by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Originally published in American Lutherie #9, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, Our Great Spherical Friend, Part One by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Our Great Spherical Friend, Part Two by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Improving the Plywood Bass by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Our great spherical friend, the Earth’s atmosphere, is the medium through which sound waves are transmitted from the source to whatever auditor may be present. The relative frequency of the waves, in the audible spectrum, is influenced by the physical characteristics of the sound source, for example, its size. A low-pitched sound may be most efficiently propagated by a relatively large surface area that can exert relatively small forces (per unit of area) onto a wide atmospheric front, which offers the correct amount of resistance to this kind of push. As the sounds go up in pitch, the source becomes smaller, faster-moving, and more forceful per unit of area. But there must always be some area of atmospheric contact. The physical energy that is put into a stringed musical instrument, whether by finger, plectrum, bow, or whatever, is not at that stage in the form that is needed to agitate the atmosphere in the desired musical way. It has to be converted to this form (or forms) by the intervening action and reaction of the instrument. For example, the stretching and releasing of a string by the act of plucking, does not in itself accomplish much in the way of compressions and rarefactions in the surrounding air. Feeble sounds may be detected by listening very closely to the event; but for us to have musically useful sounds, more vibrating surface area must contact the atmosphere. In our sophisticated violin-type instruments, the energy undergoes a rather complex series of conversions. 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.
