Web Extras
American Lutherie #88 - Winter 2006

Page 8 - Double-Top Guitars

by Randy Reynolds

Visit the website of author Randy Reynolds.

Page 16 - The Imperator, Revisiting the Lyra Guitar

by Alain Bieber

Visit Wilfried Ulrich's website. www.ulrich-instrumente.de/

Since this article, the author has made another similiar instrument and named it “Imperatrice.”

Here are two more short videos of the "Imperator" instrument.

Performing a piece by Ferdinando Carulli. Jean Dufieux is the player.

Performing a piece by Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz. Jean Dufieux is the player

Author Alain Beiber also recommends “The Volcano Lover” by Susan Sontag, an historical novel about the life of the man who was key in the neoclassical movement of the 1780s, Lord William Hamilton, Ambassador of the British Crown to the Kingdom of Naples. Hamilton is more famous as the husband of Admiral Lord Nelson's mistress.

Page 24 - The Universal Vacuum Island

by Charles Fox

Charles mentioned that his special extra-stiff lining system enables some of the vacuum techniques he uses.

Charles Fox’s website.

Source links from the article:

Grainger

McMaster-Carr

MSC Industrial Supply

American School of Lutherie

Page 34 - Meet the Maker: Benoît Meulle-Stef

by Jonathon Peterson

Here are five historic instruments from Ben’s collection. These are examples of what he calls contra guitars, after the general style of Scherzer.

Page 42 - A Method for Generating Rapid Prototypes of the Flattop Guitar

by R.M. Mottola

Author R.M. Mottola wrote this addendum to his article about making flattop guitar prototypes:
“In my article entitled A Method for Generating Rapid Prototypes of the Flattop Guitar and in the accompanying sidebar entitled Using High Pressure Laminates in Lutherie appearing in American Lutherie #88 (Winter 2006) I failed to mention that use of high pressure laminates in the construction of acoustic guitars is covered by United States patent #5,406,874, held by Jim Witchel, and that exclusive rights to the use of this patent have been granted to C.F. Martin & Company. I regret the omission and thank Mr. Witchel's agent for pointing this out to me.”

R.M. also wrote to update us on the project:
“The prototyping effort featured in the article was performed in an attempt to design an acoustic bass guitar with a tone more like that of the double bass than is typical of ABGs. Since the characteristic sound of the double bass is in large part due to a high degree of damping of the upper harmonics and since orchestral bass strings have a large amount of internal damping, most of the prototyping work involved fitting 1/4 size orchestral bass strings to an ABG. This required a different string anchoring mechanism to anchor the long strings, which in turn required a new bridge, which in turn required changes to the bracing of the top. The instrument that ultimately resulted from that experimentation is shown in the accompanying photos.”

Page 48 - Meet the Maker: José “Pepito” Reyes Zamora

by Fred Casey

Page 52 - A Different Way of Defining Body Shapes

by Mark French

Author Mark French is into all kinds of cool stuff. Visit his site at Perdue University.

Page 58 - Product Review

by John Mello

Visit the Luthiertool company website.

Page 64 - Lutherie Under Glass

by Ervin Somogyi

Page 68 - It Worked for Me

by Paul Hill and Marco Del Pozzo