Posted on July 15, 2026July 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips The $75 Guitar Challenge The $75 Guitar Challenge by Doug Hunt and Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #142, 2021 Mark: A couple years ago, I was walking around a big home store and started to wonder whether it would be possible to build a guitar only from things I could buy there. Obviously, they didn’t sell tuners, fretwire, or truss rods. However, I thought it might be possible if one had those three things. I decided that, given those parts, it might be possible to make a guitar with $75 to spend at the home store. Thinking it might be an interesting challenge, I suggested the idea to Doug Hunt. Doug and I have been guitar-making friends for years, having met as part of a project aiming to teach technical subjects to high school students through guitar making. (Check it out at guitarbuilding.org.) He was interested, though not looking for one more thing to do at the time. A while later, he suggested that a better idea would be to start with a budget of $75 that could be spent anywhere (he’s a big fan of eBay, as it happens). As long as the money could be spent anywhere, he thought that it might be possible to do the whole instrument for $75. Over some months of occasionally revisiting the idea, we did a little negotiating and settled on the following rules: 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 5, 2026June 5, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Robbie O’Brien Meet the Maker: Robbie O'Brien by Brian Yarosh Originally published in American Lutherie #117, 2014 I’ve known Robbie O’Brien for more than five years through the local Colorado lutherie community, having taken his classes at Red Rocks Community College, and through his more recent association with the Colorado School of Lutherie. I can attest to his love of teaching and spreading the knowledge of guitar building throughout Colorado and the world. It was my privilege to sit down with him at his shop in Parker and get to know him a little better. Let’s start with some history. Tell us a little about yourself. My folks were military and I was born in Nuremberg, Germany. I don’t have German citizenship and I don’t speak German. I was there for about a year and a half before moving back to the States. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where my father was a commercial pilot for Delta Airlines. 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 May 26, 2026May 26, 2026 by Dale Phillips Eight Days to a Dream Eight Days to a Dream by David Smith Originally published in American Lutherie #120, 2014 Forty years ago, just after graduating with a degree in music with studies in classical guitar and lute, I wanted to learn to build instruments. With the help of a local luthier, I built a lute, and then life intruded. I collected books and resources and made a couple of attempts at building, but each time I made a mistake or encountered something I didn’t understand, I’d stop. Nine years ago, following the Cumpiano book, I attempted an unserviced classical kit from LMI, and made it as far as the neck before I stopped. Four years ago, I tried an acoustic steel string kit in a class through a local woodworking tools store. The teacher, though, had only built one guitar, and had not put finish on it. The class increased my confidence, but I wasn’t happy with my results: no finish, poor intonation, and a neck joint that almost fit after three tries. During this entire time I read every copy of AL and every lutherie book I could find. If skills were acquired by reading, I’d be a master. 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 May 5, 2026May 5, 2026 by Dale Phillips Carl Samuels: Lutherie Before the Information Age Carl Samuels: Lutherie Before the Information Age or The Pilot, the Brain Surgeon, and the Pole-Vaulting Banker by Tom Harper Originally published in American Lutherie #116, 2013 Since the inception of the Roberto-Venn School, thousands of students have gotten their start in the lutherie world by following its well-thought-out curriculum under the guidance of experienced instructors. But what was John Roberts’ introduction like? More generally, how did the small club of DIY guitar builders get their start back in the days before there were instruction books, classes, or the Internet? GAL member Carl Samuels was one of those rare folks, and he related an interesting story that fills in some of the answers. His experience involved a broken $5 classical guitar from Nogales, Mexico, a job hunt, and the three freight-train boxcar loads of wood that John Roberts hauled back from Nicaragua. Samuels started playing violin at the age of five and was playing with the pit orchestra for Handels’ Messiah by the age of eight, a job he kept for the next seventeen years. He started college with a violin scholarship playing in the college symphony while studying biological psychology. His master’s degree research studied the behavioral effects of psychedelic drugs on animals and an attempt to isolate that portion of the drug molecule responsible for the behavioral effects. He later got a PhD studying the effects of selected drugs on the nervous system. 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 December 5, 2025June 8, 2026 by Dale Phillips Guitar Making as a Teaching Tool Guitar Making as a Teaching Tool by Debbie French and Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #144, 2021 Guitar making can be many things. To some it is a craft; to some it is a livelihood. And it’s also being used as a compelling teaching tool around the country. We are part of a project called STEM Guitar that is funded by the National Science Foundation, which provides faculty professional development to high-school and community-college faculty and students around the country, so they can, in turn, use guitar making to teach technical subjects. In educational lingo, these are STEM subjects — Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. We all know how important it is for students to learn at least the basics of STEM subjects. As luthiers, many of us routinely work with structural dynamics, acoustics, material properties, geometry, and computer-controlled machines. Modern guitar factories wouldn’t work without heavy investments of technology or without trained people. In 2009, industrial arts courses represented just 0.02% of credits taken nationally by high school students (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). However, when an updated report was released in 2013, industrial arts courses were not even included in the NCES reporting; such courses were replaced by engineering and design and manufacturing and technology courses were listed, which represent 0.7% and 0.6% of credits earned by high school students, respectively (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). The guitar program offers an engaging way of exposing students to industrial arts skills through STEM curriculum. 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.
