First page 1 Next page Last page

Welcome to interactive presentation, created with Publuu. Enjoy the reading!

number 144 / winter 2021

lutherie

the journal of the guild of american luthiers

NUMBER 96 / winter 2008

BACK ISSUES

discount prices

on back issues!

AL#85- #104: $4 EACH

AL#105- #120: $8 EACH

AL#121- #128: $12 EACH

AL#129- #141: $14 EACH

MEMBER PRICES

(see www.luth.org for shipping charges)

Fifteen years of our journal American Lutherie are currently available

as back issues. That’s fifty-two big issues, from American Lutherie #85

through #141. See our website for photo previews of each one.

◆ Order American Lutherie back issues, instrument

plans, books, and GAL membership with your credit

card or PayPal account. ◆ Read full out-of-print

articles in our new Premium Web Content, available

to members only! ◆ View article photo previews

from current and back issues of American Lutherie,

and see even more photos and details in the Web

Extras. ◆ Link to scores of suppliers, schools,

organizations, museums, and more. ◆ Search article

abstracts by topic or author for any GAL publication.

Visit our new GAL website: www.luth.org

FULL SCALE INSTRUMENT PLANS

GAL Instrument Plans are full-scale inkjet

prints, rolled face out and shipped in a

sturdy cardboard storage box or tube. (For

rush orders, we can mail plans folded in an

envelope.) Most plans are 24˝ wide; some

are 30˝ wide. Some fill two sheets;

some include text and photos.

We currently have over 75 plans

available. (See the inside back

cover of AL#142 for a complete

list in numerical order.) Our website

has details on all of our available plans,

grouped by instrument type, which

include a description and reduced

image of each plan.

See more GAL publications on inside back cover.

NUMBER 100 / winter 2009

American Lutherie #1–#84 are out of print as back issues.

The contents of those issues of AL appear in

The Big Red Books of American Lutherie.

Please note that Robert Lundberg’s article series, “Historical Lute

Construction,” does not appear in any of The Big Red Books. These articles

make up the contents of our hardcover book, Historical Lute Construction.

Plan #18, 44cm 6-cs Renaissance Descant Lute c. 1580

$20/members, $25/nonmembers (plus shipping)

Plan #31, Prima Gusli

$20/members, $25/nonmembers (plus shipping)

AMERICAN LUTHERIE NUMBER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR / WINTER 2021

The Guild of American Luthiers is a non-

profit, tax-exempt educational organization formed

in 1972, designed to function as an information-

sharing system for builders and repairers of stringed

musical instruments.

American Lutherie is a journal of interest to

the maker and repairer of every type and period

of stringed instrument. Our volunteer authors are

motivated by a desire to benefit others with what

they have learned, and support the give-and-take

system employed by the Guild.

The Guild of American Luthiers Convention/

Exhibition, held every three years or so, is another

successful way we have been promoting amity and

cooperation among luthiers as well as bringing to

the public a much-increased understanding of and

appreciation for the luthier’s craft. Our 23rd GAL

Convention (which was canceled for July 2020 due to

the pandemic) has been postponed until July 2023. It

will be held in Tacoma, Washington.

Cost of GAL membership per year in the

USA is $60; elsewhere is $72. Membership can be

obtained for the calendar year only (January 1 to

December 31). 2021 members will receive four issues

of American Lutherie (three regular issues and one

anthology issue) and a membership certificate, as

well as discounts on plans, books, back issues, and

display advertising. Your membership supports the

ongoing work of the Guild, which will continue to

serve the lutherie community for years to come.

Your donations to the GAL are tax-deductible.

The Guild of American Luthiers

8222 South Park, Tacoma, WA 98408

253-472-7853

tim@luth.org www.luth.org

GAL Board of Directors

Tim Olsen

President

Bon Henderson

Secretary

Deb Olsen

Treasurer, Vice President

Todd Brotherton

Robert Petrulis

GAL Headquarters Staff

Tim Olsen Ä Editor

Deb Olsen

Bon Henderson

Dale Phillips

Kurt Kendall

Steve McElrath

Contributing Editors

Cyndy Burton Ä Senior Contributing Editor

John Calkin

R.M. Mottola

Printed in USA

Be an American Lutherie Author

With the exception of material generated by GAL staff and contributing editors, articles published in

this journal are voluntary submissions. Members are urged to contribute articles (large or small), interviews,

letters, and reviews. The “right way” is a myth. Everyone has something to tell and something to learn.

The more one knows about lutherie (or anything), the more one realizes how much more there is to know.

We exist to provide a forum of information exchange between Guild members, and we are interested in

publishing information and methods that are backed by experience.

Articles should be submitted by e-mail. Digital photos should be high-resolution, uncompressed files.

Or send negatives, prints, or slides. We will return chemical photos.

We do not reprint articles that have already appeared in other publications or on the Internet. Authors

of the articles and photographs in this magazine retain the copyright and grant to GAL an irrevocable license

to publish the materials and to republish them in collective works and revisions. We ask that authors who

reprint their articles in other publications or on the Internet give GAL full credit as the original publisher.

GAL retains exclusive right to the layout of all articles and all graphics produced by the GAL staff.

Letters and More from our readers...........................................................................................3

“Restomodding” Wall-Hanger Guitars by Roger Häggström............................................6

Seeking the Holy Grail: Torres’ FE08, Part Two by Federico Sheppard........................ 24

Meet Robert Anderson by John Calkin................................................................................. 36

The Charles Fox Guitar-Building Method, Part Six by Mark French...........................44

Getting Good Inlay Results with Inexpensive CNC Routers by Jon Sevy....................52

Guitar Making as a Teaching Tool by Debbie French and Mark French....................56

Two Reviews of the SuperMax 16-32 Drum Sander

by Ralf Grammel and John Calkin...............................................................................60

Reviews: Vincente Arias (1833-1914), The Forgotten Luthier by Kevin Aram

and Fretting Course with Michael Bashkin by John Calkin..................................65

In Memoriam: Wesley Brandt

by Chris Brandt, Michael Yates, Dan Compton, and Mark Moreland....................68

It Worked for Me

by Steve Kennel, Dan Alexander, Jason Hull, John Calkin, and Michael Breid.....70

This Issue’s Authors ............................................................................................................72

On this issue’s cover we see an inexpensive century-old Swedish guitar being restored

and modified by Roger Häggström for further decades of service. An adjustable bridge

piece is being used to set the intonation to levels of accuracy undreamed of by the

workers who quickly assembled this instrument. Photo by Roger Häggström.

On the back cover we see a cabinet photograph of Antonio de Torres. The photo is

courtesy of Federico Sheppard, and colorized by Susan Martin.

Coffee that advances your passion

for acoustic guitar.

Freshly-roasted, 100% Arabica coffee—sourced from

the world’s most desired growing regions—

delivered right to your door.

Use your rewards to advance your passion for

acoustic guitar and help important causes.

Explore our coffee selections at

www.acoustic.coffee

Coffee that empowers the makers of music.™

Enter this code

at checkout to get

your first bag free*

GAL2022

* With an order

of two or more

bags, limited

to first-time

customers only.

250-871-4329

wyatt@wilkiestringedinstruments.com

Vancouver Island, BC, Canada

Two-week, one-on-one archtop guitar building

master class with Wyatt Wilkie

ART OF THE ARCHTOP

instrument “in the flesh.” The Stormbringer was a one-of-a-

kind masterpiece made with tremendous skill, craftsmanship,

and knowledge of sound production. “I wish I could see it, just

play on it once,” Morrison Taylor would muse. “Yes, I wonder

where it is now. Eric is gone and the guitar disappeared with

him, lost forever” Lintz would respond.

But let us return to 2013. Lintz agreed to build the guitar

free of charge if Stadler would use it to promote himself and

Lintz’s shop. They shook on it and the luthier worked tirelessly

to do the board-up build: a 7-string, neck-through based on the

Ibanez RG but shortened by a half inch all the way around. Per

Stadler’s request, Lintz used a 25.5˝ scale length. The pickups

were active Seymour Duncan blackouts and the fingerboard

was ebony to generate “a more articulate sound.” Every part

of the instrument, including the Grover tuners and the Kahler

bridge, was U.S. built.

Lintz and Stadler worked in an interlacing tandem: The

guitarist knew the sound that he wanted to elicit from the

instrument and had ideas about the look of the headstock and

the inlay, but it was up to the luthier to design a functioning

guitar capable of producing that sound while maintaining

the desired aesthetic. For instance, when picking the wood,

Lintz analyzed Stadler’s earlier recordings and decided that

mahogany would be best to enhance mid- and low-end

response. He also mounted the pickups directly to the body

instead of using the standard suspended solution with long,

thin bolts and springs. This, Lintz believed, would increase

tone response and sustain.

Once the Stormbringer was complete, Stadler began

performing with it immediately. Wherever he posted his

recordings, enthusiasts praised the sound of the instrument

while musicians wanted to know the identity of its maker. To

share the breadth and depth of its sound, Stadler recorded a

full album aptly named The Stormbringer, which featured the

nationally acclaimed hard-rock and blues guitarist Gary Hoey.

The album was positively received

and shortly afterwards orders began

coming in. Seasoned musicians and

rookie electric guitarists wanted to

commission a custom-made guitar

from Lintz Custom Shop. It seemed

Lintz was going to get the break he was

counting on, but then the unthinkable

happened. He fell ill. Diagnosed with

muscular dystrophy, he couldn’t build

or work anymore. This is the predica

ment in which Morrison Taylor met

him several years later.

Now comes the most curious

part. A few months ago, Morrison

Taylor stopped by his favorite guitar

pawn shop. There, he launched into a

discussion with the store owner about

the latest makes and models. After

touching on Les Pauls and Gibsons,

the conversation turned to custom

builds. Morrison Taylor started telling

the owner about this one-of-a-kind

Tim and crew,

I sent this e-mail to Evan Gluck after reading the write up of

his 2017 GAL Convention workshop in AL#141:

Hi Evan,

I’ve been catching up on my AL reading. I just wanted to let

you know now much I enjoyed reading, “When Your Business

Hits a Bump” and learning about your new shop setup and

ergonomic ideas.

My bump, years ago, was when I moved my two shops out of

Sam Ash (because it took them months to pay me — something

they apparently did to all their subcontractors at that store) and

Willis Music (because customers were used to free “repairs”

by their salesmen). I moved all my equipment home and then

wondered, “What am I going to do now?”

That didn’t last long, not even a week. My customers

tracked me down and started calling me at home. Working

from home was my original intention. It took building my

reputation in stores to make it happen.

Working from home was the best setup I ever had in my

lutherie career. I’ve mostly retired from working for customers.

Now I work on my own projects (new builds and restorations)

and I play music.

Thanks for the workshop and the article, and continued

good luck with your business.

Neil Harrell

Cincinnati, Ohio

stringhospital@cinci.rr.com

Dear Editor,

Recently a guitarist friend, Jamaal Morrison Taylor, told me

a story that I would like to share with you.

A year ago he received a call from an unfamiliar number.

He and the stranger on the other end of the line turned out to

be mutual friends of electric guitarist

Eric Stadler, who had disappeared

several months prior. Looking for

Stadler, the person dialed Morrison

Taylor by mistake. Their conversation

could have ended there, but instead, the

two continued chatting and became

friends. Seemingly worlds apart, the

men shared a kind disposition towards

life. They also loved music and they

cherished electric guitars.

Morrison Taylor knew Stadler as a

guitar teacher, but Russ Lintz was the

luthier who built Stadler’s custom-

designed electric guitar, the Storm

bringer. When Lintz and Morrison

Taylor struck up their friendship,

the Stormbringer came up often in

conversation. After all, Morrison Taylor

had seen videos of Stadler playing it

and had heard awe-inspiring, hair-

raising recordings of the musician’s

compositions, but had never seen the

Russ Lintz

with the

Stormbringer

COURTESY OF RUSS LINTZ

instrument that made a huge but brief splash in the electric

guitar world. “It had a cool name, too...” he continued. “It was

called the Stormbringer.”

The owner looked at him, incredulous. Morrison Taylor

stopped too and raised an eyebrow. “Well... You’re not gonna

believe this,” he said slowly, “but I think I have it here, in

the back....” He walked to the back of the store and brought

out a 7-string electric guitar that handled like a six: black,

nitrocellulose-finished body with a dazzling blue trim, a

pearlescent emblem on the shoulder, active Seymour Duncan

blackouts, and the finest inlay work Morrison Taylor had ever

seen. He was stunned. The videos of Stadler, the recordings,

the pictures he had seen came flooding in. He recognized the

instrument immediately.

Anya Ezhevskaya

Houston, Texas

anya.ezhevskaya@gmail.com

Dear GAL —

I would like to build classical guitars and donate them to

schools and organizations supporting music for kids. I’ve build

a few 650mm scale guitars and they seem too big for many

grade school or middle school players. Can you tell me the

proper size for beginners in the 5th and 6th grades? Where can

I obtain plans for that size guitar?

Ron Berge

Centennial, Colorado

byersview@gmail.com

Mark French replies:

Cordoba has a series of inexpensive beginners’ instruments

called C1M that come in 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and full size. The Cordoba

website gives fairly complete dimensions for them.

Richard Bruné tells me that the Suzuki guitar program had

a range of smaller guitars for beginning players which are very

well sized for kids. I spent some time looking, but could not

find a good reference for them.

RM Mottola replies:

I know of no source for such plans, but assuming that

string tension would not be much different than for a full-size

guitar, simply scaling down a full-size plan should work. As is

indicated in plans for the uke family, there are practical limits

to how thin plates and ribs can be made, but other than that,

everything should scale down just fine. And given the low price

of factory-built student guitars, simply buying a new Cordoba

guitar to take it apart and make a drawing would not cost

considerably more than a typical set of guitar plans.

Tim,

I just finished reading Federico Sheppard’s excellent

article, “Seeking the Holy Grail: Torres’ FE08, Part One” in

AL#143, a technical and literary tour de force. However, the

same cannot be said for Federico’s math skills. He states the

guitar was built in 1858 and then states he began work on

March 29, 2018, and later adds, “...but that I was removed by

him by exactly 150 years.” Sadly, that is not 150 but 160 years.

Hibdon Hardwood, Inc.

Hardwood Imports

Est. 1978

1410 N. Broadway

St. Louis, MO 63102

(314)621-7711

www.hibdonhardwood.com

Dear GAL,

How does one “close up shop?”

At seventy years old, I’m having scant sales and failing

health. I’m relocating my home to lower expenses. It would be

a huge project to try to sell my stuff one-tool-at-a-time. Plus,

I have two trademarks to sell. Any ideas? Has anyone written

an article on this subject? Maybe I should write the article!

Rossco Wright

The Dalles, Oregon

RosscoSoloEtte@aol.com

The GAL Staff replies:

This is a big question, and one that will be increasingly

relevant for luthiers of a certain age. There are the retirement-

type issues you bring up, as well as the issues for families when

a luthier passes away without a plan for what will happen

to their lutherie estate. Such questions are becoming more

frequent here at GALHQ, and we don’t have much good

advice to give. We’ve never done an article on this subject, so

now seems like an opportune time to bring it up! We’d like to

encourage members to share any thoughts and/or plans they

may have made about what to do with the valuable woods and

tools they have accumulated over the years when they are no

longer luthing. If we get enough response, we’ll put together an

article. E-mail Tim (tim@luth.org) with your thoughts.

Correction

The Howard Stephens commentary (which was referred to

by Gila Eban in our Letters column in AL#143) appeared in the

Questions column of AL#141, not AL#142.

So the question is, was this a simple miscalculation or

another of Federico’s tricks such as the reversed tile on the

butt joint he copied from the original guitar? Either way,

I thoroughly enjoyed the article and look forward to the

concluding installment.

Clifford Wilkes

Smithville, Texas

clifford.wilkes@att.net

Federico Sheppard replies:

Blame it on my fat fingers. I never took typing class!

Actually, the project began in 2008. It took ten years to get

the materials and data together. And I would like to point out

that Torres and I both used such mathematics in calculating

our income taxes.

GAL —

This is in response to the letter from Sjaak Elmendorp in

AL#142. I build bolt-on necks and the fingerboard is not glued

down. I want to easily remove the neck if it should become

necessary, without any damage to the body finish.

I have had two instances of a neck heel cracking just as

Sjaak illustrates. Once in shipping (the gorillas must have

dropped the box 8´ onto a concrete floor) and once when a

performer’s instrument was knocked off a stand on stage. My

old heel bolt-on design, while different from Sjaak’s, left a weak

area where the grain running parallel to the fingerboard could

crack. I redesigned my heel to be much stronger (see Figure).

Before the heel cap is glued on, I drill a 9/16˝ hole most of the

height of the heel and epoxy in an oak dowel. Then a hole is

drilled in the end of the neck and a threaded brass insert is put

in. The outer threads of the brass insert are gripped into the

cross grain of the oak dowel, and the rest of the oak dowel ties

the whole heel together. To break the heel would mean having

to break the dowel crosswise. Very difficult. A wide-flange

furniture bolt threaded into the brass insert is used to bolt on

the neck. Since the bolt is threaded into metal you can get it as

tight as you want with no danger of things stripping out.

I think that just having a screw into the end grain of the

neck for a bolt-on neck seems weak. The threads are not going

to hold well into end grain. I tested this by making a neck

mock-up, bolting it to a block on the bench, and dropping a 3‑lb.

sledge on the outer end of the headstock. It just bounced off.

Jonathan Dale

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania/Jupiter, Florida

jupiteruke@gmail.com

23rd GAL Convention/Exhibition

Rescheduled for

JULY 2023

All members were e-mailed on Nov. 2, 2021

about postponing our event.

See the letter on our website:

luth.org/conventions/2023-convention/

If you didn’t get the e-mail,

make sure we have your current e-mail address

and that you allow “luth.org” e-mails.

Thanks to the many members who sent

encouraging and supportive replies.

We look forward to seeing everyone at

our big festival of lutherie in 2023!

threaded brass insert

9/16˝ oak dowel

HEAP GUITARS were made in great numbers all over the

world at the beginning of the last century. In Sweden, the

driving force behind a burgeoning interest in guitars was the

independent church movement. The prevailing sentiment was that

every able-bodied parishioner should be able to play three chords on

a guitar at prayer meetings and fundraisers (Photo 1). Many of these

instruments still exist, mostly in unplayable condition. I have found

ways to restore these wonderful old guitars and make them play and

sound better than ever.

I love the bass-balanced sound of old-style ladder bracing in a

small steel-strung parlor guitar. The complex sounds keep me wanting

to play another chord. Modern X bracing gives more bass but also less

varied tone, in my opinion.

I do restorations and modifications (“restomods”) of wall-hanger

guitars for a living. Preserving the original patina and the history

of the instrument is important, but enhancing tone, durability, and

functionality is always my number-one priority. I’ve done about 190 of

these “GammelGura” (that’s “OldGuitar” in Swedish) restomods so far.

My ideas and methods have been developed over many years

of empirical experimenting where I compare the sound before and

after changing a detail in one guitar. To avoid being misled by the

psychoacoustic effect, I try to be objective and not to expect anything.

Successful ideas are then implemented on succeeding guitars to validate

the findings. Without scientific hard data, and while acknowledging the

danger that I may only be hearing what I believe, I will describe how

I came to my conclusions.

I work with old, plain, factory-made

guitars in bad shape (Photos 2, 3, and 4).

Despite their low collector value, they

have great potential, being handmade

with aged and solid old-growth woods.

They were made to be easily repaired,

built with hot hide glue and shellac-

based varnish. Correcting the mistakes

and cheap mass-production design

features of these guitars will improve

the sound and playability immensely.

Giving new life to old guitars like this

also gives me ample opportunity to try

out and develop new ideas.

The ladder bracing in old and inex

pensive guitars was usually very simple,

with just three transverse braces across

the top: one (or sometimes two parallel

braces) above the soundhole, and two (or

sometimes only one) below (Photo 5).

Not much effort was put into the bracing

pattern, although some variations on this

basic formula can be found. Sometimes

the two braces below the soundhole were

slanted. The main third brace could be

placed above or just below the bridge on

top. Sometimes there were thin spruce

patches on either side of the soundhole

designed to reinforce that weak area. The

bridge plate could be large or small, or

omitted entirely.

Photos 2, 3, and 4. A typical guitar wreck. This one is a very basic tailpiece Levin from 1914. The name

“Edvin” is scratched into the soundboard. Photo 1 shows the original owners. Is that you, Edvin?

Parlor guitars before the 1920s were often dimen

sioned for gut strings with low tension compared to

modern-day steel strings. The neck was often thin or

made of soft woods, like the poplar used in old Levin

guitars. The braces in European parlor guitars were

typically too thick, too tall, and made of flat-sawn

wood. Parlors made in the USA typically had braces

with smaller and more suitable dimensions, but some

times the tops themselves were excessively thin.

“Restomodding” Wall-Hanger Guitars

by Roger Häggström

ALL BY ROGER HÄGGSTRÖM EXCEPT AS NOTED

COURTESY OF ROGER HÄGGSTRÖM

Photo 5. The disassembled guitar. The neck is soft poplar, the

back and sides birch, the fretboard walnut. In all their old

parlor guitars, Levin uses a tone-killing birch torsion stick

under the saddle. That gives fewer cracks in the top but only the

sound of the strings.

Photo 6. The back had two missing braces and two loose braces.

The bookmatched back had a knot covered with a spruce cleat.

It was called “tone cushions” if the customer asked about it!

Photo 7. Shaping the radius of the braces with the LMI jig, 20˝

for the bottom and 30˝ for the top braces. This is done before

triangulating.

Photo 8. The jig to triangulate braces from 8mm ×15mm brace

blanks. Two loose inserts gives the angle for the plane. The box

is movable so I can change direction of the planing if the wood

has a bad runout. Thin shims of different thicknesses are used

under the inserts to match the actual blank size to the jig.

Photo 9. Tapered braces.

Studying old guitars is a great way to learn the effects of aging

on the construction and integrity of the instrument. Wood shrinks,

loses weight, and becomes brittle with age. Almost all old guitar

tops have cracks on either or both sides of the fretboard. These

cracks typically result from the rotation of the neck into the sound

hole caused by the tension of the strings, and from the wood in the

fretboard shrinking more than the top. Cracks also typically occur

in front of or below the bridge as a result of top wood shrinkage

and/or the rotation force from the pin bridge. The hardwood in the

back shrinks across the grain, and it’s not uncommon to find cracks

in the middle joint of the back (Photo 6) or too-tightly fitted back

braces pushing out the sides of the guitar.

Ladder bracing is nowhere near as strong as X bracing. When

guitars became bigger in the 1930s,

some factories added more ladder braces

or made the braces bigger to make the

top stronger. It never really worked; the

guitars were just over braced. Big guitar

tops need the strength of X bracing.

But for a parlor-size guitar, I think that

ladder bracing is the best alternative. The

small top makes ladder bracing strong

enough for a standard 0.011 steel string

set, and you also get the great sound

from a ladder bracing.

I’ll spend a couple of hours taking

the guitar apart so that I can have total

access to the guts of the instrument. If

the top and/or back are too thick, they

will be thinned from the inside. I will

replace all the braces on the top and

the back (Photos 7, 8, and 9), although

I sometimes keep a couple of the original

back braces, readily visible through the

soundhole, for aesthetic reasons. The

combination of fresh, tough wood in the

bracing, and old and brittle wood in the

rest of the guitar is great for both the

durability and the sound.

When I add new parts inside the

guitar, I don’t like to make them look old

artificially. With time, they will blend

in nicely with the old wood. Until then,

they will proudly show the recent history

of the guitar.

Photo 10. My special caul to glue the tapered braces is made of a U-shaped

aluminum channel with small sticks of soft basswood glued inside.

Photo 11. The back braces are glued using the special caul on top and a 20˝

radiused caul under the back. The red light comes from a heat lamp to give the

hot hide glue longer set time.

Photo 12. The new braces glued to the back and shaped. When the back is

shrunken, you need to add new wood to fit the outline. On this one I put a

rosewood strip between the two halves of the back. I usually make the third

brace flat to make the back more flexible, but this back was thin and needed

more stiffness.

To prevent top cracks along the fretboard, and to support

the weak spot around the soundhole, I use a thick and strong

upper brace and an A-frame reinforcement (Photo 13). The

A-frame, used in some newer Martin models, is surprisingly

strong even with thin 6mm×6mm (0.24˝×0.24˝) spruce braces.

More recently I have added a thin 2mm (0.08˝) cross-grain

spruce patch to the plan. In my opinion, the upper part of the

top doesn’t add much to the sound of the guitar, so it can and

should be made very sturdy.

The main brace under the fretboard keeps the rectangular

cross section from the brace blank for added strength. The

other two main braces are shaped to a triangular cross section

with a rounded top edge. The main braces are all made

from 8mm (0.32˝)×15mm (0.59˝) blanks, and their maximum

finished height is about 12mm (0.5˝). If the guitar is bigger,

I will make the main braces a bit higher. I use old-growth

quartersawn Swedish European spruce in the top braces.

The brace directly below the soundhole must be strong

enough to reinforce the weak area around the soundhole, but it

must not be too stiff, as it is close to the main sound-producing

part of the top around the bridge.

The main brace in front of the bridge is the most important

tone brace. It should be as light and stiff as possible, but still

strong enough to keep the top in shape. I select the lightest and

stiffest spruce I can find for this brace.

Between the 2nd and 3rd braces, below the soundhole

and toward the center of the top, I place a thin spruce patch

about 1.5mm (0.06˝) thick along the grain for added strength

(Photo 14). I like to give the top a sort of reinforced backbone

under the strings. Below the bridge, I add a thin spruce stick,

mainly to keep the fibers in the top together. My experiments

When doing repairs and adding new parts, I use protein

glues like hot hide glue or fish glue whenever possible. These

are the same glues that were used when the guitar was made.

The new braces in the top are glued when the sides are

already in place. That makes the gluing of the braces a bit

harder, but not a problem with a go-bar deck.

Photo 13. All the rough braces for the “Edvin” parlor guitar laid

in position.

have shown that small amounts of glued-on lightweight

spruce can strengthen the top in strategic places with

little, if any, discernible negative effect on the tone.

The bridge plate is where I do something different.

I make it cross-shaped with three glued-together pieces

of spruce (Photo 15). To counteract the rotation of the

bridge, the middle part of the bridge plate has grain

running parallel to the grain in the top. The grain of the

wings of the bridge plate goes across the grain of the top.

The wings extend beyond the ends of the bridge above to

prevent cracks forming at those stress points. The bridge

plate is about 3mm–4mm (about 1/8˝) thick in the middle

and thinned down to nothing towards the ends of the

wings and the lower end of the middle part. The middle

part has roughly the cross section of an airplane wing.

All the main braces have thinned-down ends

(Photo 17). The slope of the ends begins about

60mm–70mm (2.4˝–2.8˝) away from the sides, and at the

junction, with the sides the brace is about 1mm (0.04˝)

high. The tips of the main braces are tucked into a small

gap made under the lining. The gaps made for the

original braces are filled in with sawdust and glue.

All the bracing in the top, including the bridge plate

and patches, is given a shallow 30´ radius. The top should

not be perfectly flat, but rather have a gentle arch in both

directions. The tone will be more focused and the top

will not crack as easily with a slightly domed top.

Photo 16. The last gluing of the two top braces. Channels and notches for the A-frame

braces are cut into both. This is how I did it a year ago; now I always use a go-bar for the

top and a reinforcing patch under the A-frame.

Photo 17. Top braces shaped in a recent ladder bracing with the reinforcement patch

under the A-frame, a single patch in the middle, and brace ends tucked in under the

lining. The sides of patches in a top should always be thinned out to nothing, or cross

more than one grain in the top, to prevent cracks from forming. The main brace under

the fretboard is not yet glued.

Photo 14. Gluing reinforcing spruce patches in the top. Now I just make one triangular

patch, so as not to induce stress points along the grain where a crack might start.

Photo 15. Gluing the pieces of the spruce cross-shaped bridge plate

together with hot hide glue.

fretboard, I typically fill in the original fret cuts and resaw them

in the correct places (Photos 18, 19, and 20). I have often seen

original fret placements that are pretty good until the 12th fret,

but the higher frets were probably set by eye and are way off.

The new bracing makes the body of the guitar strong enough

for 0.011 steel strings or low-tension Newtone Heritage 0.012

strings, but the neck is not strong enough. A short 12-fret neck

doesn’t need a truss rod; a stiff carbon rod will do.

I prefer a carbon rod instead of a truss rod for many reasons.

Big chunks of metal are never good for the tone, and the added

weight makes a light parlor guitar neck heavy. A truss rod

never gives the neck the smooth relief curve you expect when

adjusting; the wood in the neck will compress differently along

the neck and the curve will have peaks and valleys. Only the

part of the fretboard between the truss rod’s anchor points will

actually bend. Some types of truss rod, when adjusted, will

lessen the compression in the plane of the frets in the fretboard,

making the neck less stiff. The milled slot in the neck makes the

whole neck weaker, especially at the weakest spot near the nut

if the truss rod nut is at the head, or from the neck joint to the

body if the truss-rod nut is at the other end.

Carbon rods, on the other hand, are strong and firmly

glued in place and have about the same weight as the removed

wood in the neck. The carbon rod does not creep and bend

from tension with time, as wood or a metal reinforcement is

prone to doing. I always put a carbon rod in the neck, which is

easy with the fretboard off. Even if the neck is hard and thick,

the carbon rod doesn’t hurt. I use epoxy to glue the carbon rod

into the neck, and a thin wood strip to cap the rod so I can glue

the fretboard with hot hide glue.

With a stiff neck, it’s much easier to reset the neck at the

correct angle with strings at tension. A stiff neck is also good for

volume, attack, and clarity. I sand a nice smooth 0.1mm–0.15mm

(0.004˝–0.006˝) relief in the fretboard and frets with the neck in

the shape it has with strings at tension. Then I trust the carbon

rod to keep the shape of the neck in place.

I use a hollow square carbon tube because it’s lighter and

retains most of the stiffness of a solid rod. The tube is 10mm

(0.4˝) with an 8mm (0.32˝) hole. I fill the hole in the carbon

square with a matching round birch rod and a short piece of

solid carbon rod at the heel end. Old parlor guitars often have

a weak and cracked heel. To reinforce or repair the heel, an 8mm

(0.32˝) hole is drilled almost through the height of the heel

and filled with a birch rod glued with epoxy. I drill the hole

through the solid end of the square carbon tube to constitute

a very strong L-shaped reinforcement (Photos 21–24).

The guitar’s sound is as important as its structural strength.

All the energy driving the guitar comes from strumming or

picking the strings. The composite of the frequencies, the sound

“recipe” generated by the strings, is filtered, or attenuated,

at every possible intersection of the various materials that

constitute the guitar. Guiseppe Cuzzoli and Mario Garrone

describe this process in their book, Classical Guitar Design.

Some energy from the strings is lost to internal friction and

heat, some frequencies will readily pass through the filters, and

other frequencies are attenuated or reflected back. Frequencies

filtered out before they arrive at the main sound-producing

parts of the guitar, the top and back, will be more or less lost.

For example, a solid bone saddle seems to increase trebles, but

what it actually does is not attenuate the trebles as much as a

plastic saddle. With this simple dynamic in mind, I believe that

the parts of the guitar closest to the strings (the nut, saddle,

bridge, and bridge plate) are most important for the shaping of

Photo 18. Marking the fret positions using a nice large caliper. I mark with a

sharp awl for better precision. When sawing the fret slot, I make sure that the

dent from the awl is visible on both sides of the saw.

Photo 19. Sawing fret slots with an early StewMac fret-slotting miter box.

Photo 20. Instead of using the cumbersome adjustable screws in the miter

box, I have made a selection of plates of different thicknesses to put under the

fretboard to set the perfect saw depth.

When doing the final shaping of the braces and before

gluing the back and bridge, I tap in the bridge area and listen

to the resulting sustain. If the sustain is too short, I shave more

from the ends and/or top of the braces below the soundhole.

I also use my thumbs on the bridge area to press down the top

to feel how flexible the top is. I let my experience tell me when

enough is enough.

More often than not, I replace the fretboard when doing

the restomod. The typical original flat fretboard is not in the

taste of most modern steel string players, who prefer a fretboard

with a radius. With a new fretboard, I can also be sure that

all the frets are accurately positioned. If I keep the original

Photo 21. The milling jig to cut the channel in the neck for

the carbon rod. The neck is secured with two small screws

on either side of the cut on top and a caul under the neck

secured with wedges. Note the tuner post plugs: The holes

for the tuner posts need to be redrilled to the modern

standard spread for the replacement tuners. European

tuners before 1950 had a varied and tighter spread between

the posts.

Photo 22. The square carbon tube and other parts that

will be glued into the neck.

Photo 23. I made a test gluing a piece of solid 8mm carbon

rod into the hole in the carbon tube and drilled a hole for

the 8mm birch rod I use to strengthen the heel. The L shape

turned out to be very strong!

Photo 24. The square carbon tube glued in place in the neck.

A birch cap on top of the tube and a birch rod (and now also

a piece of a solid carbon rod) inside the tube is added.

Photos 25 and 26. Gluing the fretboard using two nails as

alignment pins. Basswood sticks of different thickness are

used to add pressure to the sides of the radiused fretboard.

the tone. I have not experimented with string pins. On old parlor guitars, ebony

pins with 4mm (0.16˝) pearl dots are pretty much mandatory.

Historically, a bridge plate was not really required for a gut-strung guitar.

Gut string knots rarely damage the soft spruce around the bridge-pin holes. But

the ball ends of steel strings require reinforcement on the soundboard, typi

cally in the form of a hardwood plate. Over time, this hardwood plate grew to

become an integral structural part of the top, equally designed to help combat

the rotation force of the bridge. It strikes me that few builders gave much

thought to the adverse effects of a large hardwood bridge plate on the tone of

the guitar.

I once came across an old Finnish-made instrument with nothing but

spruce on the top. The spruce bridge plate was a bit worn, but it was easily

repaired, and I was able to keep everything original as the customer wanted.

To my surprise, I could hear an unusually beautiful, warm, open, and complex

tone in this guitar. At the same time I realized that the oversized torsion bridge

plate in old Levin parlors, in the form of a 30mm (1.18˝) wide and 3mm (0.12˝)

thick birch strip across the whole top, is a real tone killer

(Photo 27). Maybe using hardwood in the top bracing isn’t the

best idea. In my next restomod, I used a spruce bridge plate

with harder maple buttons inlaid around the string-pin holes

with a StewMac BridgeSaver. This achieved the same beautiful

tone as in the Finnish guitar. After that, I have never used any

wood other than spruce in bridge plates.

Since then, I have replaced the maple buttons in my bridge

plates with much harder bubinga wood. There are many other

really hard woods that could be used. Maple is actually a bit

too soft to cope with the wear and tear from the ball ends of

steel strings. I think that these individual, separated wood

buttons also contribute to the separation of the sound from the

individual strings.

More recently, I have also seen spruce bridge plates extend

ing about half the width of the top in USA-made parlor guitars

from the 1890s, so this idea is not a new one. But with no

reinforcement around the bridge-pin holes, all those old spruce

bridge plates were badly chewed up.

One plausible explanation for this improvement of tone is

that hardwood in the bridge plate may attenuate some of the

most important frequencies for the spruce top, and, at the

same time, let pass some frequencies that the spruce top in

turn will attenuate.

The original plain-spruce-rectangle bridge plate I started

with gradually evolved into the three-piece cross-shaped bridge

plate that I use now (Photo 28). The central part, with its grain

oriented in the same direction as that of the top, is stiff and

can be made long or short, depending on the relative strength

needed to counteract the rotation of the bridge.

I intonate each string individually at both the saddle and

nut. Even a perfectly placed slanted bridge saddle will typically

have to be thick on a short-scale parlor guitar, around 4mm

(0.16˝), to reach all the intonation points. This makes a solid

bone saddle heavy. To make it lighter, I installed separate

bone posts, 5mm (0.2˝) wide, one under each string, and filled

the voids between the posts with light spruce. I glued the

bone and spruce together to constitute a one-piece segmented

saddle. This is practical, requiring no additional change to the

construction of the bridge.

When trying out my first segmented saddle, it took some

time to sort out exactly what I was hearing. The sound was very

different from the sound of a solid bone saddle. The difference

in the weight of the saddle alone could not fully explain it.

I discerned better string separation from the segmented

saddle. When playing a chord, I could hear that the individual

strings of the chord did not blur into a uniform sound as

much as with a thick, solid-bone saddle. I also noticed that the

headroom increased; the guitar kept on sounding good and

providing more volume, even when strummed quite hard.

Also, the sound became more dynamic and not as compressed

as with a solid-bone saddle. On the negative side, there was a

ESSENTIAL

PRODUCTS MADE

SPECIFICALLY

FOR LUTHIERS!

GluBoost®, MasterGlu™,

MasterTint™ and

Fill n’ Finish™ are trademarks

of Gear Up Products, LLC

BEST IN CLASS BUILDS,

REPAIRS, AND FINISHES

learn more at gluboost.com

Photos 29 and 30. I use a slightly modified Proxxon KG 50 grinder to cut

the bone posts from camel-bone blanks. The blanks are precisely thinned

down in my drum sander to around 5mm thickness to match various size

cuts in the spruce blank for the segmented saddle. I cut the bone posts to

noticeable loss of volume and a less aggressive attack. But the

biggest surprise was that the tone changed for the better with

the segmented saddle. I concluded that the reason for this

must be the spruce mated to the saddle bone.

I made a batch of segmented saddles, with different

woods between the bone posts, and tried them out on the

same guitar. All hardwoods sounded about the same and

not as good as the softer woods. The only wood I tried that

could compete with spruce was cedar, another soft wood

commonly used for guitar tops. The cedar saddle gave the

guitar a different and darker tone than the one with spruce.

My theory for these changes of tone is that the wood in the

segmented saddle changes the filtering properties of the full

frequency recipe coming from the strings.

After listening closely, and comparing the spruce and

cedar segmented saddle on the same spruce-top guitar,

I concluded that the spruce segmented saddle enhanced the

“sound of spruce” with extra everything, and that the cedar

one sounded good but a bit mismatched to the top with lower

overall volume.

I also tried stand-alone bone posts with no wood in

between. I achieved the same string separation and increased

headroom but no tonal change, as I had with saddles with

wood connecting the bone posts.

An Internet search revealed that there had indeed been

attempts to cut solid-bone saddles into separate pieces, primarily

as an expedient to solve the problem of uneven volume from

UST pickups. Eltjo Hasselhoff addressed this challenge some ten

years ago, reporting that the segmented saddle also improved

the acoustic unamplified sound of the guitar. The use of wood

between separate bone posts in a saddle is an innovation, as far as

I can tell.

I construct the segmented saddle from a single piece of

spruce, cutting notches for the bone posts (Photos 29–32).

I impregnate the spruce in between the posts with thin super

glue. The glue strengthens the wood, and also acts like a sort of

lacquer. I cannot discern any major difference in tone between

saddles with or without this superglue reinforcement. I custom

build a segmented saddle for each individual guitar, since the

string spread, thickness, length, height, and crown of the saddle

are never uniform between one old guitar and another.

The segmented saddle is as strong as a solid bone saddle when

tightly fitted in the saddle slot, but care must be taken when

removing it from the slot since the spruce is brittle. To make the

saddle stronger, I superglue a thin piece of wood (the same wood

as the bridge) on the underside of the finished segmented saddle

to safely hold the parts together. This also gives me another

chance to adjust the final height of the saddle.

about 5.5mm length to match the thickness of the spruce blank.

Photos 31 and 32. A piece of spruce with vertical grain is cut for the segmented

saddle and sanded to the 5.5mm thickness of the precut bone posts.

Photo 33. A temporary spruce saddle is fitted to the saddle slot and marked with

the exact position of the strings, using a long ruler from the notch in the nut to

the center of the string pin hole. The bass side is marked with a black dot.

Photo 34. The markings are transferred to the piece of spruce prepared for the

segmented saddle. I make sure to mark the bass end, too!

Photo 35. I use my StewMac miter box and a special jig to cut parallel and

straight slots 5mm wide in the piece of spruce.

Photos 36 and 37. The brass plate in the jig has been notched to 5mm by CNC.

Photos 38 and 39. The outermost bone posts are made wider to fill the length

of the saddle slot.

Photo 40. The precut bone posts are fitted to the cuts in the piece of spruce

using a 5mm thick metal file and a 4mm chisel.

Photos 41 and 42. The bone posts are glued with StewMac’s tough number 30

superglue. I use an extractor for the fumes and a gas mask when doing this

gluing. The spruce is reinforced with thin number 10 superglue.

Photos 43 and 44. The segmented saddle is thicknessed to the width of the

saddle slot using my drum sander. The ends are then cut to fill the saddle slot

with all the strings centered on top of the bone posts. The top of the segmented

saddle is given a slant to the treble side, given by the measurements from the

nut intonation, and the same radius as the fretboard. The segmented saddle

is test fitted in the saddle slot and the depth of the slot is marked on the saddle

with a pencil following the surface of the bridge. Using my measurements

from the nut intonation and the depth of the slot, I can cut the height of the

segmented saddle.

Photo 45. I glue a wooden shim on the underside of the segmented saddle to

make it stronger. This also gives me another opportunity to adjust the height of

the saddle if it turned out to be too low.

Photos 46 and 47. The saddle is fitted to the slot and adjusted for height, then

filed to the correct intonation points.

The segmented saddles have lower volume and less attack

than solid-bone saddles, making the guitar sounding a bit too

wimpy and kind. This was remedied by my next invention:

hardwood plugs between the underside of the bridge and the

strings’ ball ends.

The spruce bridge plate combined with the thickness of the

spruce top makes for about 4mm (0.16˝) of soft wood between

the ball end on top of the hardwood button and the underside

of the hardwood bridge. My theory was that the soft wood

acted like a spring that yielded to the tug of the ball end when

a string is plucked, lowering its volume and attack. I remem

bered my previous experience with a brass PlateMate that gave

an unpleasant metallic sound, and a chewed-up bridge plate

that gave low volume and a dull sound.

I could find little on this subject, but I have later learned

from Alan Carruth that the longitudinal tension force tugging

on the ends of the string is about a seventh of the plucked

transverse force. It is possible that some of this force travels

over the saddle all the way to the ball end. If this is not the case,

the contact point between the string and the top of the saddle

Photo 48. The bridge is in its location and the center of the string-pin holes are

marked with the tip of a brad-point bit.

Photo 49. Drilling 8mm holes in soft spruce for the plugs is tricky. I drill a small

hole 4mm above the center of the string-pin holes as the center of the plug. Then

I drill a couple of millimeters deep with an 8mm brad-point bit backwards from

both sides using the small hole as the center of the brad point. Finally, I drill

through the top and bridge plate with a sharp metal drill bit turning the right

way. Doing it this way prevents most of the splintering of the spruce.

Photo 50. Gluing the bubinga buttons using the StewMac BridgeSaver tool.

Photo 51. All the ball ends rest on plugs and the hard buttons, except the two

unwound strings with no plugs and only soft radial spruce to dampen volume

and trebles.

Photos 52–55. Making bubinga buttons using the StewMac BridgeSaver.

Predrilled center holes make it easy to ream the string-pin holes. The buttons

are sanded free using the drum sander from the back of the slightly too-thick

bubinga plate.

Photo 56. The middle part of the spruce bridge plate in the test guitar has the same

thickness around the 9mm holes centered at the bridge-pin holes for the loose plugs. I made

many sets of plugs with different woods and grain directions, and marked them with

different colors to tell them apart. The buttons are made of bubinga, but I also made a set

of plugs with rosewood buttons. I could hear a small difference in tone; less trebles with the

softer rosewood.

Photo 57. You can see the bottom of the rosewood bridge in the holes. The rim of the plugs

will rest directly on the bridge. I sanded a set of slotted bridge pins straight and thin enough

to fit the unreamed holes.

Photo 58. Loose plugs with a good enough fit to stay in place. The shank of a drill bit is

used to loosen the plug through the string pin hole on the finished guitar. The color can be

seen from above through the bridge pin hole.

Photo 59. Some of the plug sets with various woods and grain directions. Each type is

marked with a different color and stored in a small jar.

is the business end of the string. With a firmer anchoring of the ball end,

the string may not slide as much over the top of the saddle, or the saddle

won’t micro-bend as much.

In addition to the plucked longitudinal tension force, there is

also another tension force in the string. This force is a longitudinal

compression wave called the clang or zip tone. It occurs when the string

is plucked off center, and it has a high and often dissonant frequency.

This tension force should be able to pass the saddle inside the core of the

string and tug the ball end.

I drilled 8mm (0.31˝) holes 4mm (0.16˝) in front of the center of

the bridge-pin holes, through the spruce bridge plate and the top

(Photos 48–51). The holes were filled with hard birch dowels before

gluing the bridge and mounting the hardwood buttons as described

above. The ball ends thus rested against a firm support created by the

hardwood button, the birch plug, and the bottom of the bridge. This gave

a surprising increase in volume, attack, distortion, and treble response.

The piercing, sharp sound of the two plain treble strings actually hurt

my sensitive ears. I tried to find these characteristics appealing, but

I realized that I had to find a way to tame the harsh tone.

End-grain spruce is almost three times harder than spruce in

any other direction, but still much softer than birch. I removed the

birch plugs and replaced them with end-grain spruce plugs. This gave

the same beautiful, complex tone as without plugs, but with higher

volume, better attack, and increased clarity from the added trebles.

The difference the plugs made was much greater than I would have

imagined. By choosing the hardness of the plugs, we can thus regulate

the combined volume, attack, treble, and distortion for each string. As

far as I know, this is a new discovery.

I modified an old European-made parlor guitar as a test bed to

pursue this idea. I made 9mm (0.35˝) plugs in different woods and capped

them with the same hard bubinga buttons as before. The middle hole is

big enough for the ball end to pass through, and I use straight, thinned-

down slotted bridge pins (instead of a reamed hole) to save time. I made

the plugs fit tight enough in the holes to keep them in place without glue

(Photos 56–59). I can easily loosen the strings and replace the plugs to

different ones from inside the guitar.

Here is a chart of the Nordic woods I used and their Brinell hardness

ratings in end-grain and radial directions. This information let me build

a palette of different plug hardnesses.

end grain

radial

spruce

3.2

1.2

alder

3.7

1.4

fir

1.9

birch

6.5

2.2–2.7

oak

6.4–6.6

3.4–4.1

red beech

7.2

2.7–4.0

The best sound was when each string in a full chord had

the same volume, and the midrange on the parlor guitar shone

through. At first, I missed the dominating shimmer from the

two unwound strings, but after a while the new tonal landscape

was much more interesting.

Let S=Spruce, F=Fir, B=Birch, and R=Red beech; further,

let upper case mean end grain and lower case mean radial

grain. The setup with equal volume from the low E to high e

strings that I preferred on the test guitar was BSFSss. I needed

a little more volume and a harder plug for the D string, but

this might not be the case for all parlor guitars. Thus, only four

plugs are needed for this setup; the radial spruce for the two

treble strings are already there in the form of the spruce top

and bridge plate. Another well-balanced setup, with a bit more

volume and overall roughness, is RFFFff.

The plugs restore the missing volume and attack that was

lost with the segmented saddle compared with a solid bone

saddle. The biggest improvement comes from the hard birch

plug under the low E string. The bass becomes firm, less

muddy, and almost piano-like. For a ladder-braced guitar, it’s

a good thing to dampen the trebles from the two unwound

strings with no plugs, or softer plugs.

As for the bridge, the hardness of the wood under the saddle,

and not just the sheer weight of the bridge, affects the tone. In

my experimental guitar, I can replace the bridge wood under the

saddle, as the saddle slot is in fact an elongated hole through the

bridge. Soft spruce under the saddle gave me lower volume and

less trebles, not a good thing. I still use traditional hardwoods in

my bridges, both for the tone and for the durability.

I also add twelve metal bushings for the tuner posts in

the slotted head. That way, the distal end of the string is

optimally anchored. The audible effect of this modification is

modest if any, but it looks great and the strings are prevented

from getting stuck between the post and the wood, not an

uncommon issue with slotted-head tuners.

In my experience, the shorter the open string length of

the guitar, the greater the intonation problems. This can be a

significant issue with a parlor guitar, which are small and have

short scale lengths.

Even if a fretted guitar never can have perfect intonation, my

aim is to get the best possible intonation with equal-tempered

placements of straight frets. Adjusting for proper intonation

at both ends of the strings means that we can approach

perfect intonation at two different spots on the fretboard.

I use the (standard) 12th fret as one of these, and I select

the 3rd fret as the second; it’s not too close to the nut, and

it is often used in standard chords. I will adjust the contact

points both at the bridge and at the nut until the open

string, the fretted 12th-fret note, and the fretted 3rd-fret

note are all in tune, then measure the location of those

contact points.

Contrary to common misconception, no two guitars have

exactly the same pattern of intonation points at the nut and

saddle, although guitars with the same open string length and

setup will have similar patterns. This means that no mathemat

ical formulas can be relied on to achieve optimal intonation.

Each guitar must be individually measured.

The bridge is a moving target. When a string is plucked, the

bridge moves, and the string communicates with the behavior

of the whole guitar. That affects the perceived pitch you and

the tuner hear. More responsive guitars typically need more

corrections at the nut and at the saddle.

The setup of the guitar must be spot on before you begin

measuring for intonation. The string height at the 1st and 12th

frets affects intonation at both ends. The neck relief should be

minimal, almost flat. Fall off in the fretboard above the 12th

fret will make the intonation worse in that area. The frets have

to be well seated in the right positions and well crowned.

Wound strings can’t be trusted. Even the same gauge from

the same maker will have small variations in intonation.

Sometimes a single string in a new set is way off. When I take

my measurements, I always compare the result with a reference

string to catch faulty wound strings.

To get the right pitch for the open-string note, the

fretted 3rd-fret note, and the fretted 12th-fret note at the same

time without retuning, both the nut and the saddle have

to be adjustable when measuring. The positions for the

adjustable nut and saddles need to be incrementally shifted

forward and back, with a retune to pitch after every move,

until all three reference notes have the correct pitch accord

ing to the stroboscope tuner. Moving one intonation point

will necessarily affect the correct position of the intonation

Photo 60. To lengthen the fretboard before intonation measuring, I glue a piece of maple to the end. The height is leveled to the fretboard with a StewMac razor

file. The tip of the file is covered with thin plastic tape to protect the fretboard.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76