Posted on July 15, 2025July 15, 2025 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Duane Heilman Meet the Maker: Duane Heilman by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #71, 2002 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Duane Heilman is a quirky luthier. Though he serves his community in the apple-growing country of eastern Washington doing typical repair work in a normal fashion, his creative bent might run off in any direction when he turns his mind to instrument creation. His Spam instruments have been a hit at several GAL Convention auctions. The Spamdolin is a mandolin that uses a Spam can as a body and resonator. The Spamavarius is a violin made in a similar fashion. They are funny, weird, and fully playable instruments that entice fans of the bizarre into the auction room several times a day to sample them. They always sell for surprising amounts of money. I first talked to Duane across the cafeteria lunch table the first day of the 2001 GAL Convention, and after hearing his tale of successfully marketing ukes on eBay, I knew I’d have to get him to repeat it for my tape deck. So here’s Duane, the first luthier I know to leap willingly into the 21st 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 15, 2025July 15, 2025 by Dale Phillips The Heretic’s Guide to Alternative Lutherie Woods The Heretic’s Guide to Alternative Lutherie Woods by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #67, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Why do we even need alternative wood species for musical instruments? That’s a perfectly valid question, and the answer is that we don’t. Rosewood, mahogany, and maple have served us well for centuries, we know what to expect of them, and our customers have already come to accept them as trustworthy and will pay for them. So why look further? First of all (and speaking from a steel string guitar perspective), let’s discard the notion that some species of wood make good instruments and that others don’t. The concept of tonewood is a hoax. Of the few things we can do to a guitar and still call it a guitar, changing the wood it is made of will have the least impact upon the quality of the sound it produces. The tonal difference between a mahogany guitar and a rosewood guitar is exactly the same as the difference between two mahogany guitars or two rosewood guitars. Can you tell what a guitar is made of while listening to an unfamiliar recording? No one I know claims they can. No one at the blind listening sessions I’ve attended could reliably distinguish between mahogany and rosewood guitars, or maple and koa guitars for that matter. 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 3, 2025June 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Resurrecting the Family Banjo Resurrecting the Family Banjo by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Though the title says banjo, this could as easily be about any stringed instrument. We’ve all seen them, the family “heirloom” that some relative has decided deserves to be played again, perhaps because they think it will be cheaper than buying a comparable new one, but more likely for some sentimental reason. The number of such beaters you actually get to work on may vary with your locality. Sentimentality didn’t count for much in New Jersey, and I had a collection of junky guitars that had been abandoned once the concerned relative learned what the cost of resurrection would be. Virginians, on the other hand, seem to put more stock in sentimentality and I’ve had the chance to rebuild several instruments that probably weren’t worth the fee I charged. Though this is about restoring an instrument to playability, please understand that we’re not talking about restoration as a vintage specialist would understand it. That sort of restoration often requires specialized knowledge and may demand a lot of research as well as the exchange of hefty sums of cash. It’s not much fun, either, unless you suffer a certain type of personality. In fact, some of what you and your customer may decide to do may interfere with future restoration, so it pays to have some idea of what’s collectable and what’s not. 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 March 1, 2025May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Mending a Bomber Mending a Bomber by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #89, 2007 It’s probably inevitable that repairpeople develop an affinity for certain instruments, and the reasons aren’t always rational. I like Gibson B-25 guitars. One such was the best sounding Gibson guitar I’ve ever encountered, and the model is loaded with factory funk. The B-25 Mitchell has always been one of my favorite World War II airplanes, which predisposed me to like a guitar with the same model number. Not rational, but there you have it. When a new customer dropped a smashed up B-25 in my lap — the guitar, not the bomber — I was prepared to make him two promises. First, for $200 I could make it as good an instrument as it ever was. Second, it wouldn’t be pretty. The guitar top had been punched behind the pickguard, creating a wicked crack that traveled across the guitar in front of the bridge, then cut back under the bridge and out the back side. A leg of the X brace had been torn loose in the process. The bridge plate was creased through the pin holes creating a nasty hump in the spruce that I couldn’t push down. But most of the big crack could be forced into place with finger pressure and the edges mated nicely. I didn’t think the job would be that big a deal. I could have suggested refinishing the top to hide the scar, but the process would have erased most of the weird factory charm of the guitar. I was also pretty sure that the $500 tag would have scared off the customer. For about $700 the instrument could have been retopped, essentially restoring it to factory newness. As it turned out, the man had bought the broken guitar for $55 and was leery of putting even $200 into it. His companion urged him to go for it, and I pointed out that he’d have a difficult time finding as good a guitar as he’d end up with for anything like $255, so he consented to the repair. Sometimes getting a job you want to do requires a bit of polite arm twisting. 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 February 28, 2025April 24, 2025 by Dale Phillips Fall Collection 2024 Articles Online Fall Collection 2024 GAL Members – Login first before clicking on article titles to read the full articles. Not a member? You can join or renew here. Radiation from Lower Guitar Modes by Graham Caldersmith (1985) Caldersmith discusses the efficiency and pattern of sound radiation in the classic guitar produced by the four lower resonance modes, which he calls monopole, cross dipole, long dipole, and tripole. Inside Pacific Rim Tonewoods by Steve McMinn (1993) McMinn’s lutherie wood business has turned out to be a pretty big deal. Here we gain perspective by seeing it at the very beginning. The Great White Sitka by Jeffrey R. Elliott (1993) Holy Moby Spruce! How does one hack a log that’s eleven feet wide into 4000 guitar tops? Very carefully! By the way, this is a log that Steve McMinn rescued from the pulp mill. Meet the Maker: Bernard Millant by Jonathon Peterson (2006) Millant is a violin maker, a bow maker, an appraiser, an author, and a man of high repute within the violin world. The depth of training behind many old-school fiddle people will astonish most guitar makers, and it makes for entrancing reading. Meet the Maker: Dmitry Zhevlakov by Federico Sheppard (2007) This is not only the story of a Russian luthier who also makes beautiful rosettes for other builders, but is another example of how the Internet has changed the world — in this case for better. Aluminum Sonatas: A Brief History of Aluminum Stringed Instruments in the Last 120 Years by James Condino (2007) Every luthier knows how fickle and finicky the market is, so it’s no wonder that musical instruments made of aluminum didn’t catch on. Examined here are a violin, a mandolin, and a pair of bass viols. Fun stuff! Mechanical Compliance for Soundboard Optimization by David Hurd (2007) Hurd believes that the fastest way to great instruments is science, and it’s hard to argue with such a rational man. His jigs measure the deflection of top plates while under tension, and once he carves the top and braces to the numbers he wants, he’s done. This could be math heavy, but he offers an Internet spread sheet to ease the pain. Construction of the Colombian Tiple by Anamaria Paredes Garcia and R.M. Mottola (2007) Cross a 12-string flattop with a classical guitar and you get the Colombian tiple. The tiple has four courses of three steel strings, but on the inside, it’s a classical. Follow Alberto Paredes as he builds the instrument in this photo tour. See GAL Plan #51. Meet the Maker: Mervyn Davis by Rodney Stedall (2007) Davis’ South African upbringing inspires a wonderful decorative sense in his instruments. He’s built a ton of different stuff but may end up best known for his wildly unique modular guitars called Smooth Talkers. Cricket: A Reclaimed Salvage Recovery by James Condino (2007) Condino’s mandolin is made from recycled materials, mostly Douglas fir and katalox. It is unique and beautiful, and the story behind it is pretty cool, too. Grading on the Curves: Fitting Bars and Bridges on Archtop Guitars by Steve Andersen (2007) This is a very detailed look at how a notable builder of archtop guitars fits tone bars and bridges to his instruments. The Venezuelan Cuatro by Aquiles Torres (2008) Traditionally, this instrument is a small 4-string guitar with 14 frets clear, no frets over the body, a flush fretboard, and a large veneer tap plate. Note that the cuatro built for the article has 17 frets clear of the body. See GAL Plan #58. The MacRostie Mandolin Deflection Jig by Don MacRostie (2008) MacRostie’s clever jig measures the top deflection of a carved mandolin under string load at any stage of its construction. It is a valuable tool within the reach of any luthier. The “Corker” Guitar: A Sideport Experiment by Alan Carruth (2008) Carruth built a classical guitar with many small ports drilled in the side. By plugging the ports in various combinations he investigated the usefulness and physics behind them. Though this guitar did not make a believer out of him, he admits that his results are somewhat inconclusive. Electric Guitar Setup by Erick Coleman and Elliot John-Conry (2009) Two disciples of Dan Erlewine explain the latest techniques of setting up the electric guitar. All the details and specs are there, as well as a bit of philosophy. Dulcimer 101 by John Calkin (2009) Dulcimers are needlessly maligned and in need of advocates, and the author is a strong one. Tools and jiggery are kept to a minimum to make construction of this entry level instrument as accessible as possible. The Guitar as a Structure and Some Practical Information on Bracing by James Blilie (2009) A structural engineer and guitar builder sees the guitar as a thing buffeted by forces and stresses. Total Flame Out: Retopping a Harp Guitar by Harry Fleishman (2009) Harry replaces the failed soundboard on a complicated instrument with as little refinishing and other stress as possible. Strings: The (Often) Forgotten Accessory by Fan Tao (2010) D’Addario's resident scientist Fan Tao helps us understand string issues in relation to custom instruments and customized tuning. Practical Acoustics by Michael Cone (2010) Cone describes his advanced apparatus and method for acoustically testing classical guitars. Meet the Maker: James Ham by Roger Alan Skipper (2010) Ham operates from a shop in Victoria, B.C. where he repairs and restores violin family instruments and constructs world class double basses. It’s All About the Core or How to Estimate Compensation by Sjaak Elmendorp (2010) Mathematics and parameters used to address the problem of string compensation estimation. Articles Online Fall Collection 2024 Radiation from Lower Guitar Modes by Graham Caldersmith (1985) Caldersmith discusses the efficiency and pattern of sound radiation in the classic guitar produced by the four lower resonance modes, which he calls monopole, cross dipole, long dipole, and tripole. Inside Pacific Rim Tonewoods by Steve McMinn (1993) McMinn's lutherie wood business has turned out to be a pretty big deal. Here we gain perspective by seeing it at the very beginning. The Great White Sitka by Jeffrey R. Elliott (1993) Holy Moby Spruce! How does one hack a log that’s eleven feet wide into 4000 guitar tops? Very carefully! By the way, this is a log that Steve McMinn rescued from the pulp mill. Meet the Maker: Bernard Millant by Jonathon Peterson (2006) Millant is a violin maker, a bow maker, an appraiser, an author, and a man of high repute within the violin world. The depth of training behind many old-school fiddle people will astonish most guitar makers, and it makes for entrancing reading. Meet the Maker: Dmitry Zhevlakov by Federico Sheppard (2007) This is not only the story of a Russian luthier who also makes beautiful rosettes for other builders, but is another example of how the Internet has changed the world — in this case for better. Aluminum Sonatas: A Brief History of Aluminum Stringed Instruments in the Last 120 Years by James Condino (2007) Every luthier knows how fickle and finicky the market is, so it’s no wonder that musical instruments made of aluminum didn’t catch on. Examined here are a violin, a mandolin, and a pair of bass viols. Fun stuff! Mechanical Compliance for Soundboard Optimization by David Hurd (2007) Hurd believes that the fastest way to great instruments is science, and it’s hard to argue with such a rational man. His jigs measure the deflection of top plates while under tension, and once he carves the top and braces to the numbers he wants, he’s done. This could be math heavy, but he offers an Internet spread sheet to ease the pain. Construction of the Colombian Tiple by Anamaria Paredes Garcia and R.M. Mottola (2007) Cross a 12-string flattop with a classical guitar and you get the Colombian tiple. The tiple has four courses of three steel strings, but on the inside, it’s a classical. Follow Alberto Paredes as he builds the instrument in this photo tour. See GAL Plan #51. Meet the Maker: Mervyn Davis by Rodney Stedall (2007) Davis’ South African upbringing inspires a wonderful decorative sense in his instruments. He’s built a ton of different stuff but may end up best known for his wildly unique modular guitars called Smooth Talkers. Cricket: A Reclaimed Salvage Recovery by James Condino (2007) Condino’s mandolin is made from recycled materials, mostly Douglas fir and katalox. It is unique and beautiful, and the story behind it is pretty cool, too. Grading on the Curves: Fitting Bars and Bridges on Archtop Guitars by Steve Andersen (2007) This is a very detailed look at how a notable builder of archtop guitars fits tone bars and bridges to his instruments. The Venezuelan Cuatro by Aquiles Torres (2008) Traditionally, this instrument is a small 4-string guitar with 14 frets clear, no frets over the body, a flush fretboard, and a large veneer tap plate. Note that the cuatro built for the article has 17 frets clear of the body. See GAL Plan #58. The MacRostie Mandolin Deflection Jig by Don MacRostie (2008) MacRostie’s clever jig measures the top deflection of a carved mandolin under string load at any stage of its construction. It is a valuable tool within the reach of any luthier. The “Corker” Guitar: A Sideport Experiment by Alan Carruth (2008) Carruth built a classical guitar with many small ports drilled in the side. By plugging the ports in various combinations he investigated the usefulness and physics behind them. Though this guitar did not make a believer out of him, he admits that his results are somewhat inconclusive. Electric Guitar Setup by Erick Coleman and Elliot John-Conry (2009) Two disciples of Dan Erlewine explain the latest techniques of setting up the electric guitar. All the details and specs are there, as well as a bit of philosophy. Dulcimer 101 by John Calkin (2009) Dulcimers are needlessly maligned and in need of advocates, and the author is a strong one. Tools and jiggery are kept to a minimum to make construction of this entry level instrument as accessible as possible. The Guitar as a Structure and Some Practical Information on Bracing by James Blilie (2009) A structural engineer and guitar builder sees the guitar as a thing buffeted by forces and stresses. Total Flame Out: Retopping a Harp Guitar by Harry Fleishman (2009) Harry replaces the failed soundboard on a complicated instrument with as little refinishing and other stress as possible. Strings: The (Often) Forgotten Accessory by Fan Tao (2010) D'Addario's resident scientist Fan Tao helps us understand string issues in relation to custom instruments and customized tuning. Practical Acoustics by Michael Cone (2010) Cone describes his advanced apparatus and method for acoustically testing classical guitars. Meet the Maker: James Ham by Roger Alan Skipper (2010) Ham operates from a shop in Victoria, B.C. where he repairs and restores violin family instruments and constructs world class double basses. It’s All About the Core or How to Estimate Compensation by Sjaak Elmendorp (2010) Mathematics and parameters used to address the problem of string compensation estimation.
