Posted on June 30, 2024September 17, 2024 by Dale Phillips The Great White Sitka The Great White Sitka by Jeffrey R. Elliott Originally published in American Lutherie #32, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 In February 1992 friend and fellow luthier John Sullivan and I drove from Portland, Oregon to Elma, Washington to pay a hands-on visit to Steve McMinn’s Pacific Rim Tonewoods, Inc. (The business has since relocated in Bellingham, Washington.) We went for the experience. Steve suggested we bring some rugged clothing and a camera. We discovered why when we arrived to the incredible sight of a gigantic Sitka log 26' long by 11' across at the larger end. A great white whale came to mind. The photos tell the story. For the next couple days, my body reminded me I’d had a real workout. But it felt good because it reminded me of what a great time we had and how fortunate we were to have a hand in turning this huge spruce log into top wood. Steve’s whole operation is very well thought out, very organized, and a pleasant place to work. He’s obviously committed to producing high quality instrument woods and nothing is wasted. This experience also gave me an appreciation for how much work goes into producing one top and why “ideal” tops are so rare. ◆ 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. Members also receive 3 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 13, 2024January 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Solving the Maple Problem Solving the Maple Problem by Rolfe Gerhardt Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly 6, #2, 1978 Finding a good and consistent supplier of find fiddleback (or of other kinds) of maple has been one of the greatest problems in my mandolin building. The solution to the problem was the country’s best gunstock suppliers — Kenneth E. Thompson of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. I used to buy the prohibitively expensive imported violin wood for backs, but even the most expensive pieces just did not seem right to me in terms of character or figure. And finding pieces large enough to make necks out of was something altogether else. I started buying maple muzzleloading gunstock blanks, the “tiger-striped” ones as they call them. They were good wood; they had to be for these custom guns, and they had to be dried just right for a gunstock where warp is as critical as in a musical instrument. I started checking the sources of these gunstocks, and after several months worked my way back to Ken. That was four years ago, and one heck of a lot of wood ago. 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 June 13, 2024January 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Kiaat and Tambotie Kiaat and Tambotie by Ron Bushman Originally published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 During a trip to South Africa in 2002, I was fortunate to spend some time with Rodney Stedall, president of the Guild of South African Luthiers. Rodney gave generously of his time and took me to a local lumber dealer where we climbed atop huge stacks of indigenous woods. I selected several planks of kiaat and tambotie which he helped me prepare to carry back to California. 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. Members also receive 3 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 13, 2024January 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Kiaat Kiaat by Rodney Stedall Originally published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 Kiaat (Pterocarpus angiolensisis) is found in south-central Africa. It is from the same family as padauk (Pterocarpus soyauxii) which is known to be a good tonewood with sound properties somewhere between Brazilian and Indian rosewood according to the LMI catalog. It does not have as intense a red coloring as padauk but varies in color from a pale uniform brown to having irregular reddish/orange streaks and occasional flame. It has a fairly large percentage of oatmeal-colored sapwood of an inferior quality. This is generally eliminated when building guitars. Grain can be quite variable, from wavy to straight. It has excellent drying properties and dry weight is about 640KG/M3. Its strength is generally about 30% lower than padauk. It cuts, sands, and bends easily. It is moderately porous and takes any finish or polish well. Kiaat is freely available in lumberyards in South Africa but it is very seldom quartersawn and of the necessary guitar back dimensions as is required for guitar making. Luthiers spend hours searching through piles of wood stock to find suitable size, grain, and cut. The sap of the kiaat tree has cultural and medicinal significance. The red sap is mixed with fat and used as red face paint in tribal rituals. It has been believed to have magical healing powers especially concerning blood disorders as well as other medicinal uses. ◆ Seeking lutherie wood in southern Africa. Camel thorn trees in Botswana. Both photos courtesy of Mervyn Davis. Crossing the Zambezi River.
Posted on June 13, 2024January 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Plywood Plywood Some Observations and a Report on the Use of Laminated Wood in Lutherie by R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #73, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Considering that most stringed instruments are made in factories by large companies, and that the instruments at the low-priced end of these companies’ product lines are sold in great quantity, and that these low-priced instruments are frequently constructed of laminated wood (i.e., plywood), it is not at all unreasonable to assume that most of the instruments made are probably constructed from plywood. Further, as plywood is a physically robust material, it may be reasonable to conclude that the majority of the stringed instruments extant are made of plywood. For some reason, plywood is associated only with cheap instruments, although there are some exceptions. A cursory review of the lutherie literature reveals not too much in the way of scientific experimentation that would change that association, but it does provide a number of interesting anecdotes and observations that may indicate that plywood could be a far more useful material for high-end instruments than generally thought. The very first issue of The Guild of American Luthiers Newsletter (Vol. 1 #1) contains a letter by R.E. Bruné describing the construction of classical guitar ribs made of rosewood/maple laminate, a construction which the author claims to increase volume. In his review of a harp kit in American Lutherie #69 (Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six), John Calkin compared the tone of two dissimilar harps, one with a solid top and the other with one of plywood, and found the plywood one to sound “bolder and a bit louder.” An interesting observation can be found in the bible of flattop guitar making, Cumpiano and Natelson’s Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology. They opine that lateral stiffness of a guitar top will greatly influence the tonal response of the instrument and state that superior lateral stiffness will allow the top to be worked thinner, thus reducing mass. Now, they’re not talking about plywood here per se. A top made of, say, three-ply spruce with the center ply oriented at 90° to the outside plies should be stiffer across the grain than a solid top of similar thickness. Kevin B. Reilly described small-bodied guitars he made using birch ply for the tops and backs in AL#61 (BRBAL6), and found these instruments to have considerable volume and sustain. 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.
