Posted on February 19, 2026February 19, 2026 by Dale Phillips Three Flattop Acoustic Basses Three Flattop Acoustic Basses by Graham McDonald Originally published in American Lutherie #113, 2013 Gerard Gilet, Jim Williams, and myself were each building guitars in Sydney, Australia back in 1988. As it happened, we all received orders for acoustic bass guitars around the same time. None of us had ever built one previously. Remember, this was twenty-five years ago. There was not much information available — none of this modern interweb stuff — so there was a bit of discussion back and forth about the best approach to take. American Lutherie editor Tim Olsen had written an article in AL#9 (GAL Plan #13) on acoustic bass guitars and this had been followed by several more articles in AL#12 including one from Harry Fleishman. All of these articles can also be found in The Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One. Harry’s article included a photo and diagram of a delightfully asymmetrical body design which I promptly appropriated. (I did retrospectively seek permission when I met Harry at a GAL Convention some years later.) These articles provided at least a starting point for our instruments. All three basses were finished about the same time, so we thought it might be useful to do some comparisons. I came across these few pages of handwritten notes recently and thought our observations might be useful to others who might be working on similar projects. All were about the same size (i.e., as big as possible) and made of similar materials — Sitka spruce soundboard and Tasmanian blackwood (acacia melanoxylon) body. The main difference between the instruments was the method of soundboard bracing. 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 January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Graham McDonald Meet the Maker: Graham McDonald by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #97, 2009 Graham McDonald has made significant contributions to American Lutherie over the years and has attended several GAL conventions, quite a long trek for an Australian. He’s written two books, The Bouzouki Book and The Mandolin Project, and has presented convention workshops to support both of them. I had the good fortune to have my convention display table next to Graham’s one year. He’s a reserved individual with perhaps the driest sense of humor on the planet. As we are both quiet guys, we shared little conversation, so I welcomed this opportunity to get to know him better. As a longtime Aussophile I couldn’t help starting out with questions about his homeland. In what part of Australia do you live? We live in Canberra, the national capital. It is a city of around 300,000 in the mountains about 200 miles southwest of Sydney and built specifically as the national capital. Life is lots slower than in the big cities and the climate is just about perfect for lutherie. Unless it is actually raining, the humidity is around 40% every afternoon. We don’t get much more than a frost on winter mornings with most winter temperatures in the 50°s (Fahrenheit). An oil column heater in the workshop keeps it warm enough most of the time. Summer is hotter with maximums up around 100°F, but again with low humidity. It can get down to 20% humidity on a hot summer’s afternoon, but a workshop humidity meter and an online weather station means that it isn’t real hard to know when it’s gluing time. 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 October 31, 2022May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips A Survey of Guitar Making Books A Survey of Guitar Making Books by Graham McDonald Originally published in American Lutherie #98, 2009 Over the years, I have accumulated quite a few books on building guitars and other stringed instruments, as I’m sure many other instrument builders have. While many of the newer publications get reviewed in American Lutherie and other specialist magazines soon after release, others fly pretty much under the radar and never get much attention or noticed at all. This is a comparative look at most of the books that have been published (at least in English) as instructional manuals over the past fifty years or so. Most have remained in publication over the years and even the ones that are out of print are usually pretty easy to find, especially through such online retailers like AbeBooks (abebooks.com) or Amazon. 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.
