Posted on January 10, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Osage Orange Letter: Osage Orange by Rion Dudley Originally published in American Lutherie #36, 1993 Dear GAL, I’d like to express my appreciation to all who have contributed to the GAL over the years. I especially want Rick Turner and Harry Fleishman to know that their knowledge, opinions, and ideas have been a great help to my lutherie work. The recent publication of the information on alternative lutherie woods has inspired me to share my own experience. A number of years ago (longer than I wish to remember), Ted Davis wrote an article about his experience using Osage orange for a small-bodied Martin-style guitar. I read that article with great interest, and purchased some Osage orange that was nearly quartered from Gilmer Woods. The wood sat around my shop and collected dust for quite awhile. 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 10, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Crystals in Wood Cells Letter: Crystals in Wood Cells by Bill Moran Originally published in American Lutherie #35, 1993 Dear Tim, In American Lutherie #33, Nicholas Von Robison has sent a signal, maybe unknowingly, that there are scientific activities related with lutherie that are not well known or yet fully appreciated as part of quality instrument assessment. I am referring to the growth of crystals in the wood parenchyma cells. Concern over acid rain also leads me to openly ask, what are the effects of acid rain on the crystal development and their performance, and who is doing the studies, if any? I hope this letter will catch the attention of the Wood Chemists and the true wood anatomists amongst the membership and that they also will respond to my questions. Mr. Von Robison appears to be well informed on wood chemistry and I hope he will publish related data or suggest sources for the details he has on these subjects. Microphotographs of wood samples taken under the electron microscope has shown that crystals are present, and separate spectrum analysis have been made of their mineral content. Information is sparse but I believe important since I am referring to the crystals in spruce and maple woods, although I do have reports describing the crystals in a number of other woods. This study includes unique measurement instrument construction, computer programs, resources, and time. I will be pleased to correspond with anyone pursuing study related to material in this letter.
Posted on January 9, 2010May 26, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Engelmann Spruce Letter: Engelmann Spruce by Jan E. Callister Previously published in American Lutherie #53, 1998 Dear Tim: Just a few comments on Don Musser’s interesting article, “Rocky Mountain Tonewood Alternatives” in AL#51. Years ago when I was cutting Engelmann spruce and trying to market it for soundboards, I often found large logs of Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens) in the yards of logging mills. These trees were called “swamp” spruce by the local loggers since the trees apparently grow in high meadows with an abundance of water. I found the annual rings to be much too wide for guitar soundboards. I have since been told that this may not be a problem for luthiers who build cello or bass viol. Don Musser probably has a much better chance of finding ideal blue spruce in Colorado where blue spruce is much more abundant than in Utah. 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 6, 2010May 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Identifying Wood: Accurate Results With Simple Tools by R. Bruce Hoadley Review: Identifying Wood: Accurate Results With Simple Tools by R. Bruce Hoadley Reviewed by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in American Lutherie #29, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 Identifying Wood: Accurate Results With Simple Tools R. Bruce Hoadley Taunton Press, 1991. 224 pp. ISBN 0-942391-04-7 Can’t tell the difference between... uh... spruce and Shineola? Hope that batch of Picea excelsa you paid a small fortune for really isn’t Pinus attenuata or something similar? In times past, wood identification has been the weak spot in most luthier’s knowledge simply because the ID methods available have not been user-friendly. Dr. Hoadley has made a valiant effort to remedy this problem and I think has succeeded very well in his hybrid approach to wood identification. Of the old methods, one approach involves trying to match an unknown wood with a photograph or a veneer sample. The futility of this approach is obvious unless you are a rank amateur trying to determine whether a sample is walnut or zebrawood. The other method, usually presented in texts for professionals, involves a thorough understanding of wood structure, formation, chemistry, and so on. The ID process is accomplished by the use of dichotomous keys — this type of key presenting a series of choices, each choice involving only two possibilities. While this method can be highly accurate if you know your wood stuff, making a wrong choice or misinterpretation anywhere during the keying process can throw you wildly off the track. 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 3, 2010May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Out of the Basement Out of the Basement by Richard Bingham Originally published in American Lutherie #7, 1986 and The Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume 1, 2000 See also, “H.L. Wild” by Paul Wyszkowski “A Scene from Dickens” by Steve Curtin About five years ago, when I was in the middle of my second C.F. Martin guitar “kit,” (thanks to Dick Boak, who saw me through this madness and was very generous in fitting it out), a good friend of mine who moves houses and buildings for a living presented me with one of his “finds.” It was a cardboard carton with variously-sized pieces of wood; bookmatched slabs of spruce and maple, very rough and indifferent looking pieces of ebony, a few sticks of bass wood, and a rather gaudy rosette glued to a piece of tag-board. The materials were noted on a slip of yellow paper printed by a spirit-duplicator and checked off in pencil, and dated May 12, 1964. The label told that the contents were from “H.L. Wild, New York City.” Apparently the “kit” was too much for the party who requested 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.
