Posted on June 16, 2026June 16, 2026 by Dale Phillips Two-Step Cutaway Bending Two-Step Cutaway Bending by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #78, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Bending a venetian cutaway with a particularly tight horn presents a challenge. At Huss & Dalton we tried several times to alter our Fox side bender to reliably create tight cutaways, but with very little success. The add-on bending unit usually seen on benders worked well for blunt cutaways, but when the radii got small, the bender crapped out. OK, this admittedly depended on the type of wood involved. Indian rosewood is so accommodating that we often got away with completing the whole job on the Fox bender. Mahogany wasn’t quite as obliging but is cheap enough that an occasional broken side is no reason for tears. Koa was the driving force behind our search for a better system. It was frequently requested by the discriminating fingerstylists who seem to be the guitarists who want cutaway guitars in fancy varieties of wood. Killer sets of koa are also very expensive and become more so every time they are ordered. Other curly woods are just as hard to bend, but a broken piece of fancy walnut (just to pick a species) isn’t the heartbreaker that shattered koa is. The H&D model MJC was our particular bugaboo. Other builders use tighter cutaways, but the MJC was plenty tight enough to drive Jeff (Huss) and Mark (Dalton) close to distraction. There were frequent war councils among shop members about how to conquer the problem, but most of the ideas and all the tool making fell to Mark. The problem wasn’t bending the horn itself. The spring-steel slats of the bending sandwich supported the wood as it went around the horn enough to prevent breakage. It was the inside bend of the cutaway that caused all the problems. The slats simply couldn’t be pulled tight enough during bending to support the wood. There’s no need to elaborate on the failures. Eventually a bending machine was made dedicated to the MJC (Photo 1). Various methods of bending the wood around the cutaway shoe were tried to no avail. The solution turned out to be bending the wood in two stages. 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 16, 2026June 16, 2026 by Dale Phillips Bridge Shaping and Routing Jig Bridge Shaping and Routing Jig by Paul Woolson Originally published in American Lutherie #79, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Ah, the bridge. From my research, this extremely important, yet often overlooked, element of the guitar has had little written about it. Many builders I’ve talked to are so daunted by the task of making bridges that they simply buy them premade and stick them on. To me, this is an injustice to the overall design of the guitar, often making the bridge look like an afterthought. You might notice that I use a very nontraditional bridge shape (Photo 1). I’ve chosen a design that complements many different elements of the guitars I build. From headstock, to fingerboard extension, to bridge, I try to incorporate the same design elements. I prefer to make all of my bridges from ebony. However, the following information can be used for almost any shape or wood choice, including standard winged bridges. The scallops of the winged bridge would have to be created in another step which could be easily done on a table saw, or by some other method. 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 16, 2026June 16, 2026 by Dale Phillips An Enhancement to the Outside Mold An Enhancement to the Outside Mold by R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #79, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 The outside mold is a useful tool for side bending. If the side slat is bent to roughly the ultimate shape of the side and then clamped into the mold while still hot and damp, the slat will conform to the shape of the mold while it cools and dries. This works pretty well for the following reason. If you make a bend in wood, as it cools and dries it tends to revert to its original shape. This springback phenomenon causes all manner of grief with some approaches to side bending, but it can be used to advantage when using a mold. Sides can generally be over bent slightly and then clamped into the mold, where they will relax into the shape of the mold as they cool and dry. So for the most part, when using an outside mold you can just bend the wood to only the roughest approximation of the final shape and let the mold and springback take care of the rest. This technique works great for all of the areas where the mold is on the outside of the curve, but doesn’t work at all where the mold is on the inside of the curve, such as at the waist bends in an outside mold. That’s because springback makes the bent sides pull away from the mold at the waist as the wood cools and dries. 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 11, 2026June 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Making Patterns for an Access Panel Making Patterns for an Access Panel by Lloyd Marsden Originally published in American Lutherie #80, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 The article by Larry Mills and Chris Jenkins on access panels (Al#76, pg 52) was a valuable explanation. I was beginning a new series of guitars and decided to try the system on one that will receive electronics. After thinking about Mills and Jenkins’ method for some time, I wanted to alter two aspects. The first was the initial patterns for the door and its opening. Not being the greatest at fitting things by bandsaw and sanding, I wanted to find a way to make the patterns so they would automatically fit together. The second was a picky desire to keep the side material continuous. I wanted the door to be veneered with the side material and be replaced so that the grain would remain continuous. 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, 2026June 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips It Worked for Me: Flattening a Plank It Worked for Me: Flattening a Plank by Steve Kennel Originally published in American Lutherie #144, 2021 I’m a pathological user of salvage. It can burn up a lot of time, but I’m way past feeling OK about another tree dying for my sins. Plus, I’m cheap. This piece of mystery wood (Photo 1) had been stashed in the rafters of an old chicken house for at least eighty years by the time it found me. It was chicken-house filthy, warped, twisted, and cupped. But as it passed by on its way to the burn pile I was sure that I could see something worthwhile hiding in there. 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.
