Posted on January 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: El Tiple Puertorrqueño: Historia, Manual y Método by José Reyes-Zamora Review: El Tiple Puertorrqueño: Historia, Manual y Método by José Reyes-Zamora Reviewed by Fred Casey Originally published in American Lutherie #81, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 El Tiple Puertorriqueño: Historia, Manual y Método José Reyes-Zamora ISBN: 0-942347-55-2 Ediciones Puerto, Inc., 211pp., 2002 www.edicionespuerto.com The tiple. Oh, yeah, that’s that South American instrument, like a guitar but triple-strung. I remember repairing one that had a soundbox made from an armadillo shell, like a charango. Then there was the adaptation that Martin came up with, putting tiple-type stringing onto a ukulele (see article and plan by Jorge Gonzalez in AL #39, BRBAL4). And one time I came across an old bowl-back mandolin that had twelve strings, arranged tiple-fashion. Yeah... the tiple. Forget all that. 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: The Setup and Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound by Chuck Traeger Review: The Setup and Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound by Chuck Traeger Reviewed by James Condino Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 The Setup and Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound Chuck Traeger with David Brownell and William Merchant Henry Strobel ISBN 1-892210-06-1 www.henrystrobel.com Every once in a while a book comes along in a particular field that sets a new standard for future titles to strive for. Chuck Traeger’s The Setup and Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound is one of those gems. As a regular gigging double-bass player and luthier, I have been waiting for this text since I first picked up the instrument. Failed neck joints, broken scrolls, huge moisture cracks, and the general wear and tear of dragging around a very fragile refrigerator-sized item are part of daily life for the bass player and repairman. Chuck Traeger, who is referred to as “the Mercedes-Benz of (bass) repairmen” by his longtime friend and customer Ron Carter, didn’t come upon this overnight. He made his first professional jazz recordings in 1945 and played the double bass for over twenty years prior to becoming a repairman who specializes in the bass. His customer base and writing cover both the jazz and classical sides of the instrument. Chuck is a trained civil engineer from Columbia University. As such, his approach is that “there is a reason for everything. I want people to think in a different way about... the instrument, its repair, and setup.” To him it is a specialized art. 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar by Martin Koch Review: Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar by Martin Koch Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #83, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar Martin Koch ISBN: 3-901314-09-1 118 pp., 2004 Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar Martin Koch CD-ROM, 75 minutes www.stewmac.com Martin Koch (www.BuildYourGuitar.com) devolves the process of lap-steel creation to make it accessible to the most unsophisticated readers. At the same time he hints at the small added details that make construction more difficult but add a touch of elegance to an otherwise Plain Jane instrument. Two lap-steel designs are illustrated in this book/CD set. The first is literally a plank with lines for frets, a thick maple board just wider than the untapered fretboard. The nut end is scooped out to create a headstock. The nut itself is a length of aluminum angle stock. The “frets” are inlaid bits of maple veneer. The only guitarish hardware involved is a Les Paul Jr. bridge, the machine heads, a single-coil pickup, a volume pot, and an output jack. Another piece of angle stock might have been used for the bridge, but the LP Jr. item smacks more of a musical instrument and was a good choice. Construction was accomplished entirely with a few hand tools. A bit of decorative trim was added by making a control cover and pickup ring from the same wood as the fingerboard. The guitar was finished in Danish oil. There’s an understated innocence to this instrument that I admire. It would be fun to show up at a jam with it and rock out just as hard as the guys with “real” instruments. It would be a very in-their-face statement. 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Building an Acoustic Guitar by Dan Erlewine and Todd Sams Review: Building an Acoustic Guitar by Dan Erlewine and Todd Sams Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Building an Acoustic Guitar Dan Erlewine and Todd Sams Stewart-MacDonald, VHS, 71 minutes, 2002 www.stew-mac.com The title of this video is a bit misleading. It’s about building an acoustic guitar from a Stew-Mac kit, and if you are a first-time scratch builder with no kit experience, it will leave you in the dark in so many ways that you will be helpless. The kit comes complete with bent and contoured sides, joined plates, shaped braces, a 90% (or more) shaped neck, a slotted and radiused fingerboard, and a top routed for rosette rings. No mention is made of how to complete any of the pre-performed tasks, and that’s a lot of stuff to leave out. If they had only added the word kit to the end of the title, I wouldn’t have a complaint in the world about this video. You can’t knock people for not doing what they didn’t set out to do. The focus of this tape is on building a satisfying kit guitar with the fewest specialized tools and the least confusion. A portable drill and a laminate trimmer are just about the only power tools used. A few cam clamps and a bunch of large spool clamps are the only hand tools used that aren’t likely to be found in any home tool kit. A few shop tips are included — trade secrets, as Dan Erlewine would call them — but other than that, there is no extraneous information included. If you don’t need to know it, it isn’t there. It’s not a matter of holding back information, but a matter of preventing a clutter of information from causing confusion. I enjoy trivia, but this isn’t the place for it. 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 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Build a Steel String Guitar with Robert O’Brien by Robert O’Brien Review: Build a Steel String Guitar with Robert O’Brien by Robert O’Brien Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Build a Steel String Guitar with Robert O’Brien Robert O’Brien Apprentice Publishing, DVD, 2005 www.obrienguitars.com or LMI This DVD will henceforth be included with LMI steel string guitar kits. Because I have some criticisms of it, I’d like to make a couple things clear at the start. I’ve built and reviewed kits from several companies, and I believe that for the first-time builder they are the way to go. I’m especially fond of kits that include joined plates, installed rosettes, bent sides, and a slotted fretboard. A shaped neck is also OK, but an adventurous first-timer can deal with shaping a neck. My point is that no matter how accomplished an individual is as a woodworker, it can’t be accepted that lutherie is a natural next step. It’s just too different. A good kit can smooth the stormy seas that arise when one faces the creation of their first guitar. I’m a believer. I’m also a believer in video instruction. It pains me to say so, but I believe that books have had their day. Live interactive instruction is best. Video/film is next. Books are a distant third. If you suspect that a terminal failure of the power grid will resurrect the importance of books, I surrender to your paranoia (you are obviously a fan of Lucifer’s Hammer by Niven and Pournelle). Barring a natural catastrophe of global scale, electronic instruction is here to stay and I salute it. 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.
