Posted on March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Half-and-Half Tops Half-and-Half Tops by Harry Fleishman Originally published in Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1997 About five years ago I made a significant change in the way I make my guitars. For twenty years, or so, I had used Sitka spruce exclusively for both classical and steel-string instruments. I had good supply of nice wood and had become accustomed to the tone of the guitars I made with it. After reading several articles about makers using cedar and even redwood for their tops, with their glowing reports of quick response and interesting tone, I decided to try and experiment of my own. I built two instruments as identical as I could, using the same rosewood for the sides and back, as well as bracewood and neck material, respectively, from the same boards. When the guitars were strung and played in a bit, it was instantly noticeable that the redwood guitar had a warmer, more intimate, darker tone that was both inviting and extremely pleasing. The spruce, by contrast was sharper, brighter, and more clear in its upper partials, and had better projection. It lacked the warmth, but excelled in volume. Each guitar was missing what the other possessed. 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 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Ralph Novak Meet the Maker: Ralph Novak by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #70, 2002 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Six, 2013 There aren’t a lot of questions in this interview. Ralph’s mind is organized. I made the appointment to interview him during the 2001 GAL Convention, and when the appointed time rolled around his story poured out almost as if he were reading it — an interviewer’s dream. I’ll bet he’s always been that way. We should all be so lucky. The interview was later updated to late April 2002. How were you introduced to music and lutherie? I started with piano lessons in the third grade, and started playing guitar when I was fourteen. By the time I was fifteen I began modifying and customizing my guitars. My dad was helpful in that. He didn’t know anything about instruments, but he was an excellent woodworker, and even when I was a child he made his shop available to me. He’d show me his projects, maybe let me sand something, and answer any questions I came up with about the shop and the work. The shop was never locked up. I’d go down there and do stuff. 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 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Wade Lowe Meet the Maker: Wade Lowe by Kent Everett Originally published in American Lutherie #118, 2014 Yahoo! Today I am going to the center of the known universe. You will find it on a leafy, quiet street in Decatur, Georgia. Wade Lowe, the purveyor of The Atelier awaits, sporting a big smile as always. Your shop always reminds me of the “find the hidden picture” game we used to play as kids. When you stop and look, all kinds of magical things emerge from the background. It has taken me only forty-six years and eleven months to get my shop in such beautiful shape! (laughs) What happened to start you along this life as a craftsman? How far back can we go? We lived in Hartwell, South Carolina, across the street from a lumber mill. When I was five years old, a big black man who worked there took a favor to me. He would nail scraps of lumber together to make cars and trucks and airplanes, and that fascinated me to no end. When I was about six, I somehow got hold of a pocket knife, and my folks let me keep it. My big brother Charlie and I would spit on the curb stone and sharpen my knife in the spit. I carved little race cars out of the insides of corn stalks, where the pith is soft, almost like balsa. Daddy set me up with a little workshop space in our garage, and I would always ask for tools and stuff at Christmas. 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 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part One Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part One by Trevor Gore Originally published in American Lutherie #118, 2014 see also, Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part Two by Trevor Gore In 1993, Bob Benedetto built an archtop guitar from construction-grade knotty pine with a back of weather-checked maple. In 1995, Bob Taylor used top wood cut from a 2×4 (“pine, fir, or hemlock”) and back wood from an oak pallet salvaged from a dumpster to build a guitar. Roger Bucknall (Fylde Guitars) routinely uses top wood of Oregon pine from distillery washback vessels and back and side wood salvaged from oak whisky casks for his “single malt” guitars. C.F. Martin & Company builds guitars with backs and sides made from high-pressure laminates with composite fretboards, materials of a type more commonly found surfacing kitchen workbenches. On its website, Martin claims that its wood-topped HPL guitars have the “sound of a highly collectible Martin,” presumably invoking comparisons to red spruce/rosewood instruments. The claims made by these makers for the sound of such instruments make the point that building a good guitar depends more on the skill of the luthier than on the quality of the materials that are used. In 1862, the great Antonio de Torres proved his point by building a guitar with papier-mâché back and sides so, as one legend goes, to demonstrate the primacy of the soundboard in guitar construction. I, too, have built a guitar using reclaimed wood from a building renovation. It had a five-piece radiata pine top and meranti back and sides. It sounds better than the majority of guitars that you can buy in a main-street store. 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 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part Two Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part Two by Trevor Gore Originally published in American Lutherie #119, 2014 see also, Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part One by Trevor Gore Braces in a guitar serve two main purposes: to limit the soundboard’s deflection due to the bending moment applied by the static string loads, and to control how the soundboard subdivides into separate vibrating areas. How the second matter is handled is arbitrary, depending on the acoustical preferences of the builder, but the first matter is nonnegotiable if the instrument is to survive the applied string loads. So our concern here is principally with the first matter. Spruce has been the wood of choice for guitar braces for over a hundred years and a relatively simple analysis will demonstrate why this is the case. To illustrate the point, a possible alternative wood, in this case western red cedar, has been chosen for comparative purposes. The significant material properties are tabulated below (Table 1), these values being for specific samples that I tested. 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.
