Posted on January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Partial Refrets Partial Refrets by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 Partial refrets are a somewhat different matter than a full refret. Full refrets are often done for reasons other than worn frets, such as a compression refret to take excess relief out of a neck with a nonoperative or nonadjustable truss rod, or to allow a fretboard hump at the body joint to be dressed out. Partial refrets are usually performed on an instrument that has been played exclusively on the first few frets. Those frets have been grooved by the strings to the point where the strings buzz on the seldom-used frets. Most of the time I like to replace a couple of the unmarred frets as well just to play it safe. Occasionally a fret in the middle of the fretboard gets damaged and must be replaced. The procedure for this is similar to a partial refret for worn frets. There are other reasons to perform a partial refret, such as installing taller frets by the nut to make a slightly back-bowed neck playable, but these considerations are not covered here. I used to dislike partial refrets and tried to talk the customer into a full refret. This insured that the same fretwire covered the entire fretboard and also put more money in my pocket. After a slight mental adjustment and some practice at partial refrets I have come to look forward to them. The money involved is less, but partial refrets are normally far less complicated than a full refret and take a predictable amount of time. 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.
Posted on January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips A Flattop Mandolin Resurrection A Flattop Mandolin Resurrection by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #86, 2006 I don't see a lot of mandolins in my repair shop. There aren’t nearly as many out there as there are guitars, and they don’t seem to suffer the same affects of time and abuse as guitars, perhaps just because it is easier to put them up and out of the way. Archtop mandolins are especially strong and seem to live forever despite cracked plates and loose joinery. Flattop mandolins are a different matter. The combination of a flat top and a lot of down tension on the bridge is a recipe for failure. This particular mandolin, an Alrite Army-Navy style by Gibson, came to the Huss & Dalton shop. H&D only repairs H&Ds, but they kindly shuffle other repairs to me. The Alrite, a WWI-era instrument, had a cracked and caved top and some separation of the back. A rectangle of thin plywood about the size of a business card had been wedged between the top and the back just behind the soundhole to help support the top. The action was playable and the instrument tuned to pitch. It sounded OK but was quiet. Other than the mentioned defects, it was in pretty fair shape. A nice mosaic purfling ran around the top, and the rosette matched the purfling. I felt that the mandolin was a candidate for restoration. The only problem was that I didn’t want to do it. I put a quick repair estimate on it of $400–$450, which probably matched the value of the instrument. I sent it back downstairs with the recommendation that it be left alone. I never met the owner. 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 October 10, 2025October 10, 2025 by Dale Phillips Finishing Techniques for Hiding Repair Work Finishing Techniques for Hiding Repair Work by Dan Erlewine from his 1992 GAL Convention lecture Originally published in American Lutherie #36, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 I grew up looking at the record jackets of my parents’ folk music — Burl Ives, Marais & Miranda (Joseph Marais played a 00-28 herringbone), Josh White with his 00-45. When the Kingston Trio hit around ’59, and I saw those Martins, I just had to have one. I went down to a pawn shop on Michigan Avenue in Detroit and got a Domino, if anyone remembers those. Marc Silber can tell you who made them. I took it home and stripped off the paint so it looked like a Martin and the rest has been a lot of fun. Here are some tricks I learned after I applied for my first job as a luthier at Herb David’s Guitar Studio in 1962. (There’s more on Herb David in American Lutherie #26; more on Dan’s career in AL#25.) I was seventeen and out of high school. I had been hacking stuff in my dad’s workshop, but I wanted to learn more so I’d go over to Herb’s and hang around. I worked at McDonald’s, and I’d take him big bags of free cheeseburgers that I had made myself. They were triple-deckers, which they didn’t make then. One day Herb showed me a Gibson SJ with rosewood back and sides (now I realize just how rare that guitar was!). It had a big fist-sized hole punched through it. Herb said, “Fix this, kid.” 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.
Posted on June 3, 2025June 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Resurrecting the Family Banjo Resurrecting the Family Banjo by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Though the title says banjo, this could as easily be about any stringed instrument. We’ve all seen them, the family “heirloom” that some relative has decided deserves to be played again, perhaps because they think it will be cheaper than buying a comparable new one, but more likely for some sentimental reason. The number of such beaters you actually get to work on may vary with your locality. Sentimentality didn’t count for much in New Jersey, and I had a collection of junky guitars that had been abandoned once the concerned relative learned what the cost of resurrection would be. Virginians, on the other hand, seem to put more stock in sentimentality and I’ve had the chance to rebuild several instruments that probably weren’t worth the fee I charged. Though this is about restoring an instrument to playability, please understand that we’re not talking about restoration as a vintage specialist would understand it. That sort of restoration often requires specialized knowledge and may demand a lot of research as well as the exchange of hefty sums of cash. It’s not much fun, either, unless you suffer a certain type of personality. In fact, some of what you and your customer may decide to do may interfere with future restoration, so it pays to have some idea of what’s collectable and what’s not. 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.
Posted on March 1, 2025May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Mending a Bomber Mending a Bomber by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #89, 2007 It’s probably inevitable that repairpeople develop an affinity for certain instruments, and the reasons aren’t always rational. I like Gibson B-25 guitars. One such was the best sounding Gibson guitar I’ve ever encountered, and the model is loaded with factory funk. The B-25 Mitchell has always been one of my favorite World War II airplanes, which predisposed me to like a guitar with the same model number. Not rational, but there you have it. When a new customer dropped a smashed up B-25 in my lap — the guitar, not the bomber — I was prepared to make him two promises. First, for $200 I could make it as good an instrument as it ever was. Second, it wouldn’t be pretty. The guitar top had been punched behind the pickguard, creating a wicked crack that traveled across the guitar in front of the bridge, then cut back under the bridge and out the back side. A leg of the X brace had been torn loose in the process. The bridge plate was creased through the pin holes creating a nasty hump in the spruce that I couldn’t push down. But most of the big crack could be forced into place with finger pressure and the edges mated nicely. I didn’t think the job would be that big a deal. I could have suggested refinishing the top to hide the scar, but the process would have erased most of the weird factory charm of the guitar. I was also pretty sure that the $500 tag would have scared off the customer. For about $700 the instrument could have been retopped, essentially restoring it to factory newness. As it turned out, the man had bought the broken guitar for $55 and was leery of putting even $200 into it. His companion urged him to go for it, and I pointed out that he’d have a difficult time finding as good a guitar as he’d end up with for anything like $255, so he consented to the repair. Sometimes getting a job you want to do requires a bit of polite arm twisting. 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.
