Posted on July 7, 2024October 1, 2024 by Dale Phillips Questions: Mystery Guitar Questions: Mystery Guitar by James Buckland Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 Joël Dugot of Musée de la Musique in Paris, France asks: Our museum has received as a gift what seems to me to be an American guitar from the end of the 19th century. As there is no label nor any mark on it (except on the tuning machines: “G.EON”) my problem is to correctly identify this instrument. The body is made of nice quality Brazilian rosewood; the neck and V-jointed peghead are covered by a thick and hard black varnish. String length is 62CM, body widths are 28.8CM/17CM/21CM, and body depth is 8.5CM/7.5CM. James Buckland from Clinton, South Carolina replies: I’m a bit surprised to see this guitar in Paris. It looks like a mass produced “workshop” guitar, but is not in the French style, so I would rule out Mirecourt as its place of origin. To me it appears more Germanic and may have been built in Markneukirchen, Saxony, a town known for its music instrument production, much of which was for export. I’ve seen many similar instruments in the USA and Canada, and would date it middle or late 19th century, perhaps early 20th century. 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 July 1, 2024July 9, 2024 by Dale Phillips Questions: First Use of Metal Wire Strings Questions: First Use of Metal Wire Strings by James Buckland Originally published in American Lutherie #100, 2009 Neill Pickard asks: When were metal wire strings first used on a guitar? By what process were these strings produced, and who was the earliest manufacturer? The provenance of the earliest “steel string” guitar would also be of great interest. People have been putting wire strings on instruments since the time wire was readily available, but at some point there would have been a move to commercial string production which would have in turn made possible the appearance of a distinct steel string guitar. James Buckland from Clinton, South Carolina replies: It is probably not possible to say precisely who first strung a guitar with metal strings or when it happened. I do feel confident in saying that the practice was adopted from keyboard instruments such as the clavichord and harpsichord. Two early mandolin methods, the Michel Corrette method of 1772 and the Giovanni Fouchetti method of 1771, refer to the use of brass harpsichord strings on mandolins, although gut was still the most commonly used string material for mandolin family instruments. 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 May 5, 2021March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Rule of 18 vs Rule of 17.817 Rule of 18 vs Rule of 17.817 by James Buckland Published online by Guild of American Luthiers, May 2021 At the 2014 GAL Convention, I conducted a lecture/presentation entitled “Mythbusting the Rule of 18”. The intent was to explore, and possibly refute, some of the misconceptions concerning the Rule of 18. As conventional wisdom goes, the old rule of 18 was, at best, an approximation on how to calculate fret positions. In truth, it is a better formula than it’s generally given credit. Unlike many historical predecessors, such as Juan Bermudo’s approaches using Pythagorean ratios, the Rule of 18 is based on the concept of equal temperament, probably before the term existed in the vernacular. But, most importantly, Rule of 18 includes its own compensation factor in regard to the position of the bridge. Most commonly used today, is the square root of two, or 17.817, as the factor with which to divide string length. The result is believed by many to be more accurate based on the fact that it places the 12th fret at the exact midpoint of the vibrating string length. Since we all know that the 12th fret is the octave above the open string, it makes common sense that it should be in the exact middle of the vibrating string length. However, it is also well known that a guitar built this way will play out of tune, with intonation problems increasing the further one plays up the neck. The solution is to compensate by increasing the string length slightly, generally by moving the bridge position. But, by how much? Examine enough classical guitars fretted with a “650MM scale”, and you’ll find the actual vibrating string length is generally longer, by 2 to 4MM. There doesn’t seem to be much more than vague empirical evidence in just how much to use. In other words, a little bit of “Kentucky Windage” is considered good enough. (For you non-shooters, Kentucky Windage is the practice of adjusting your aim to compensate for wind, without the use of any mechanical features on the weapon.) To me, this is a seemingly strange attitude considering the derision generally cast upon the good old Rule of 18. Maybe “17.817” just sounds more precise than saying “18”? So, here’s a practical example of the similarity between the two approaches when bridge compensation is taken into account. I began by calculating a fret scale for a 565MM string length (as might be used for the terz guitar in GAL Instrument Plan 80) using the “Rule of 18”. The results are shown in Table 1. Then, I took the resulting value for the distance between the nut and 12th fret (280.446MM) and multiplied it by two. Next, the resulting value (560.892MM) was used to calculate a fret scale using the contemporary 17.817 factor. The calculations are shown in Table 2. Table 1 Table 2 Notice the outcome! Although the vibrating string lengths are different (560.892MM vs 565MM) the results for the fret placements are generally from about a tenth of a millimeter at the first fret, approaching one millimeter towards the higher frets. To put that into context, consider real world variabilities typically introduced during fretboard fabrication, from layout, to slot cutting, to fret dressing and crowning. Or, compare this to the guesstimate made by many luthiers when choosing bridge placement compensation. But, what about the issue of the difference in string lengths? Well, as stated above, most luthiers know that to satisfactorily use the 17.817 approach, one must add their own bridge compensation (hence the “Kentucky Windage” analogy). So, if you add 2-4MM bridge compensation to the 560.892MM string length, you can see that resulting vibrating string length gets pretty close to 565MM! But, there is another way of looking at the data that shows even more surprising results. The tables of values reflect the string length from the nut to the respective fret(s). What about the other length of the string, the vibrating string length from the fret to the bridge, the part of the string we actually hear? The greatest discrepancy between the two tables is found with the 24th fret. In the case of the Rule of 18, the distance from the 24th fret to the bridge is 143.312MM. In the case of the 17.817 factor, the distance is 140.221MM. Add 2MM compensation, and the value increases to 142.221MM. Add 3MM compensation, and the value increases to 143.221MM. Add 4MM compensation, and the value increases to 144.221MM. In other words, the discrepancy between fret placement values calculated with either the Rule of 18 or the Rule of 17.817 is less than the variables introduced through the subjective choice of bridge compensation which must be made when using the latter rule. When comparing the other fret values, the difference between the two table of calculations is even less. Does the use of the Rule of 18 vs 17.817 result in a significantly discernible difference, given other contributing factors? Maybe the old guys knew more than they’ve been given credit? ◆ Thanks to Nitin Arora for writing the fret calculating program “Eighteen Rules” found on his website. At the 2014 GAL Convention, author James Buckland also demonstrated the use of proportional dividers for marking fret positions. Set the big end of the dividers to the scale length. The little end now shows you the distance from the nut to the first fret. Re-set the long end to the distance form the first fret to the bridge. You are off and running. Ron Fernandez tries it. All photos by Tom Harper.
Posted on December 28, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips A Review of Three Old Lutherie Books A Review of Three Old Lutherie Books with an Emphasis on Their Guitar Sections by Jan Tulacek, Alain Bieber, and James Buckland Originally published in American Lutherie #104, 2010 As we undertake this overview of three 19th-century lutherie texts, we recognize that much older documents were circulating from late medieval times. Some, such as the manuscript of Henri Arnault de Zwolle written in Dijon in 1440, already contained good descriptions of instruments, but to our knowledge, none had the goal to become a comprehensive “how to” lutherie handbook. From the Baroque era there are the important musical treatises of Michael Praetorius (1620) in Germany and Marin Mersenne (1635/36) in France, with good descriptions of our Western European string instruments. We also have a few fascinating descriptions of particular aspects of lutherie such as the Antonio Bagatella violin booklet of 1782, or the lesser-known Pierre Trichet viol making manuscript of 1640. And while the encyclopedia format of the Enlightenment Period of the middle 18th century never allowed extensive coverage of the topic, the French Diderot and D’Alembert books had wonderful drawings and interesting lutherie information. But in the late 1820s and early 1830s, still considered by many as the apex of the classical guitar in written music, we see two real lutherie “how-to” books appear, describing all the steps in the fabrication of the guitar. The first writer was Wettengel in Germany, followed a few years later by Maugin in France. In spite of many imperfections, they give a good understanding of the methods used in the two main centers of lutherie at that time, i.e., Neukirchen (now Markneukirchen) in Saxony and Mirecourt in Lorraine. A third important how-to book, by Hasluck, was published in the United States in 1907, but was likely written in the last decade of the 19th century. It is a very important work since it represents the first attempt to write a “how-to” lutherie book in English. 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.
