Posted on August 11, 2021May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Acid Rain Acid Rain by Nicholas Von Robison and Perry Thomas Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly, Volume 12 #1, 1984 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 See also, “Acid Rain Update” by Nicholas Von Robison “World Forest Outlook” by Nicholas Von Robison and Parry Thomas Introduction Enjoy is the word for this afternoon; a hundred kinds of enjoyment. If a wood sculptor had been along on this hike he or she would be having a field day — gnarled roots and trunks on the forest floor; cracks and twistings of naked stumps deceased and debarked; rolling, convoluted patterns of aging limbs. Perry and I stop and investigate engravings made by beetles on some logs. The wood, now bleached, has been hewed out and channeled in designs so intricate they can hardly be retraced. There is a simple artistry about this free-form flow, and it captures the imagination. The creatures whose paths crossed here were of a system of life completely different from our own, yet linked to it. The higher we ascend toward the Angeles crest, the richer the forest seems to become. Patches of Indian paintbrush and columbine increase in size and density. Berries grow in thickets. Alders enclose the streams. Mosses clothe the rocks. Lichens festoon the branches of trees and occasionally glow with a brilliant chartreuse when touched by a spot of sunlight. And everywhere there are trees. We reach the crest, stop to look around a bit, and give each other congratulatory smiles. Our smiles are touched with a bit of whimsy; neither of us are as young as we used to be, and we know the price in sore muscles we’ll pay for this excursion tomorrow. We continue on, the Los Angeles basin five or six thousand feet below us; we adjust our gait for descent rather than ascent. We come to a stand of lodgepole pines and discover a spring gushing out from an outcrop of granite. We plop down and share sausage, cheese, chocolate, and top it off by draping our snouts in the spring; water so cold it hurts the teeth. 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 1, 2021May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Twenty Ancient Dyestuffs and Eleven Mordants Twenty Ancient Dyestuffs and Eleven Mordants by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #236, 1983 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Dyestuffs 1) Madder (Rubia tinctorum) is one of the most ancient dyes, and its color fastness ranks among the best. It is such an excellent source of red that its name (rubia) means red in several languages. In Holland during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, it was the principal source of wealth. By 1792, encouraged by Charlemagne, France was the top grower. We are told that the French Revolution ruined the farmers. They were later revived by a decree of Louis Philippe, who made red caps and trousers mandatory for his army. In England imported madder was also used for army uniforms (redcoats). Before the “Madder Disaster,” England’s total imports came to one million pounds sterling. When alizarin, synthetic madder, was synthesized in 1869, a yearly world madder production of 70,000 tons declined to nothing. Historians speak of untilled and abandoned madder fields and of thousands of starving farmers (Schaefer, The Cultivation of Madder). Today madder can be hard to find; and sweet woodruff, one of the madder family that produces a less potent red dye, may be substituted. If you prepare the dye from roots, be sure not to use too much heat or boil it too long as the color may shift to a muddy brown. 2) Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), also called eastern hemlock or spruce pine, is an important tannin dye. The bark, either fresh or dried, produces a wide range of colors from rose to slate gray. The nice thing about this plant is that it grows over a wide area of North America so it is easily procured with very little expense. I get mine from a landscape gardener who always saves me a bag of trimmings from one of his pruning jobs. A sharp knife will easily strip away the dark outer bark to reveal the red-purple streaks inside. It is not entirely colorfast. 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 April 29, 2021May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips In Defense of the Amateur In Defense of the Amateur by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume11, #4, 1983 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 This is an age of specialists, and I am by nature as well as habit an amateur. This is a dangerous thing to confess because full-time luthiers are likely to turn up their noses. “What you really mean is,” they say, “a dilettante; a playboy of the art and science of lutherie.” I’m afraid they are at least partly right. When once asked if I had a claim to fame, the best I could come up with was: I think I know more about lutherie than any other horticulturalist and more about plant life than any other luthier. I could put up a solemn defense of we who choose the overall view. “Amateur” literally means lover, and an amateur of lutherie very often loves the wonderful world of musical instruments in a way that the specialist builder probably did when he or she was young but maybe has forgotten while trying to keep up with all the knowledge that has unfolded in the past ten years. The important thing is that amateurs are lovers of whatever they are amateurs of. At least that is the excuse I give myself. I think what I have wanted most out of life is to find living itself rewarding. I’m sure that I have wanted that more than I wanted wealth or fame. As Thoreau said, “I don’t want to feel when I come to die that I have never lived.” Like Thoreau, I am inclined to say that I came into this world not primarily to make it a better place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. And that is part of the amateur spirit. I haven’t always been happy. Who has? But I have usually been interested and involved. 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 December 27, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Whence Tree Names Whence Tree Names by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in American Lutherie #31, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 What’s in a name?” cries Juliet; “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Yet Shakespeare might admit that a rose is not less sweet because we know its name. The system of binomial nomenclature is one of the best inventions. It is effective; it is beautiful in its simplicity. A luthier in New York may talk of trees and wood to a luthier in Faroffistan with precision and mutual understanding. Centuries are tied together between us and the many careful observers hundreds of years ago who left good records in aristocratic Latin, when the common vernacular language was considered not to be a sufficient medium for such learning. To know the names of the forms of life is one of the keenest satisfactions; it brings us into relationship with our materials in another facet of our fascinating occupation. Every binomial has meaning; it is uniquely significant. Consider... 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 December 27, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips A Primer on Botanical Pronounciation A Primer on Botanical Pronounciation by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in American Lutherie #31, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 Whenever luthiers sit down to talk wood, Latinized botanical names are neccesarily bandied about. When I was an undergraduate forestry student I witnessed a fistfight between two classmates who had a difference of opinion on how a certain botanical name should be pronounced, so to deter mayhem in the lutherie community, I offer the following rules and notes. The accent method of pronunciation is not my own, but that of the great American botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey, whose Hortus series of encyclopedic reference books paved the way for a standardized method of pronunciation by most authorities. His How Plants Get Their Names also gives accent pronunciations as well as the meaning of many generic and specific botanical names. Your local library probably has this along with Hortus Second; and if they are up to date, Hortus Third. Many other botanical and horticultural references have adapted his conventions. His simple chart of sounds: 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.
