I wanted a guitar that played like an electric, but one that I didn't have to plug into an amplifier to hear. What I enjoy about the electric guitar are the bendable notes, the sustain, the greater sensitivity to vibrato and tremolo and the physical ease of playing....
Finishing the guitar was pretty much a pain and took way longer than I expected. At first I was going to use violin varnish which I'm more familiar with, but having gone so far down the "conventional guitar" road, I felt I should go all the way. Unlike violins,...
Luthierie in the time of Covid With the arrival of Corona Virus I realized that business would be slow for a while so I decided to take a little time out for some of the violin related projects that I could never quite find the time for. The idea of making myself...
My introduction to Luthierie The first instrument I made was a steel string guitar. I'd seen someone in my Industrial Design course in college make a guitar and I thought it was the coolest thing. A couple of years later, I'd moved to Berkeley, California. I had my...
Guitars and fiddles have a lot of similarities and some major differences. Comparing the two is an interesting exercise which sheds some light on how each instrument works. Stringed instrument building is essentially concerned with two things: