Seventeen-year Guild member Fabio Ragghianti commutes occasionally from Tuscany to visit our convention or teach lutherie. He builds primarily classical and steel string guitars.

this info updated 2006

Five-year GAL member Dave Raley is an engineer in his day job specializing in aircraft landing systems. Check his web page (www.daveraley.com) for his thoughts on the global implications of the GPS system and a nice cornbread recipe.

this info updated 2004

Twenty-four-year GAL member Dale Randall is a retired Michigan Conservation Officer (fish fuzz, possum police, duck dick...) who has been married to Marge for forty-eight years. He tries not to let luthing interfere with a few bluegrass festivals and three months in Florida each winter.

this info updated 2008

Philippe Refig began his career in the ballet in Paris in 1951 and eventually spent eighteen years with the English National Ballet. He learned classical and flamenco guitar playing in the '50s and studied instrument making at the London College of Furniture (now London Guildhall) in the '90s. He now makes guitars full time, both classical and flamenco.

this info updated 2005

Amateur playwright and man of leisure Steve Regimbal lifts weights twice a week with Ted Beringer's son, Barry. He owns five Beringer instruments, and helped Ted present some of his instruments at the McIntosh Art Gallery in Billings, Montana.

this info updated 2003

Three-year GAL member Roger Reid plays Eastern European Jewish music - which brought him to the tsimbl.  He ended up building them due to the lack of availability and a wish to control the design.  He joined GAL to learn about new lutherie ideas and apply them to tsimbali.  His last two acoustic instruments used diagonal/diamond soundboard bracing, with good results.  He may be the only person to build and play a solid body sunrise starburst electric tsimbl - introduced at Klez Kamp 2005 with fuzz and wah wah.

this info updated 2005

After a successful career in the banking industry, José‚ "Pepito" Reyes began building guitars and cuatros in 1986. Three years later he was infected with a passion for the Puerto Rican tiple, and since that time he has dedicated himself (with huge success) to the rescue and promotion of this lovely little instrument. He builds tiples in the mountains of central Puerto Rico.

this info updated 2006

Ten-year Guild member Randy Reynolds makes classical and flamenco guitars on the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. During the past six years he has developed and specializes in double-top classicals. His secret ambition is to be just like Harry Fleishman when Harry grows up.

www.reynoldsguitars.com/

this info updated 2006

Thirteen-year member W.E. Rhinehart builds and plays resophonic guitars, as well as fabricating resophonic guitar cones. Mr. Rhinehart passed away in 1997 but his shop is still running.

this info updated 1999

Prolific and innovative guitar maker, captain of industry, lutherie answer man, Guild author and speaker, "Halfling" inventor, gizmo R + D specialist, teacher, musician, festival sponsor, comedian… Tom Ribbecke has done it all. Twice.

www.ribbecke.com/

this info updated 2008

Seven-year member Kevin Rielly started playing guitar at age eight and built his first guitar in 1972. He is the business manager at Adirondack Community College and teaches guitar and banjo there. His wife and two children are accepting of his eccentricities.

this info updated 2000

Despite being a bona fide weirdo and lifelong member of the arts community, David Riggs has never once seen a UFO. He was recently reminded that he was formerly employed by the Government as an identifier of flying objects. Life is unfair.

this info updated 2004

David Rivinus made his first violins in the early 1970s under the tutelage of Indianapolis maker Thomas Smith. Shortly thereafter he was accepted to a full apprenticeship at the Hollywood shop of restoration icon Hans Weisshaar. In 1979 he opened a shop with violin maker Thomas Metzler in Glendale CA, and moved several years later to Vermont where he devoted himself to new instrument making and acoustic research. His work on acoustics and ergonomics continues, but he has moved west once more, to the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.

www.rivinus-instruments.com/

this info updated 2000

Twenty-two year member Nicholas Von Robison is a convention workshop presenter, former staffer, frequent contributor, and special projects guy for the GAL. We generally send anything pertaining to wood that crosses our desks to him for comment and review. After a 10 year hiatus, he's building again, slow but sure after being out of the hands-on, new world of lutherie for so long.

Nick passed away in 2000, read his memoriam.

this info updated 1999

Nine-year GAL member Todd Rose discovered his passion for the arts in early childhood, exploring everything from music to marionette making.  Attending Interlochen Arts Academy for high school solidified his foundation in a rich array of arts: creative writing, theater, music, and visual/tactile arts (especially ceramics).  He continued his interdisciplinary arts education in college, earning a degree in multimedia arts performance in 1985.  Since then, he has followed a meandering career path that has led him through writing, performing, and teaching music (including composing and performing for theater); making ceramic hand drums; restoring pianos; and freelance writing.  He has also held a number of "regular jobs", mostly in organic and natural foods cooperatives, and spent some time wandering the country and the world.  Finally settling down in mid-life, he has devoted his recent years to learning the arts of marriage, parenting, homesteading, and lutherie.  Since 2000, he has completed courses of study with Harry Fleishman, Sergei de Jonge, and Charles Fox, while starting a family and designing and building a house, homestead, and guitar making shop on a beautiful hillside just south of Ithaca, New York.  Now, he's finally starting to get some instruments built.  His original guitar designs include an alto guitar (which he plans to unveil at the 2008 GAL convention) that incorporates elements of both historical and contemporary guitar architecture.  Making music remains a daily habit.

this info updated 2008

Merv Rowley is a retired engineer whose career was spent in industry, research, and education. For the past twenty years he has been sole proprietor of Roselle Dulcimers, building mountain dulcimers, hammered dulcimers, and the occasional banjo or German Alpine zither. He has authored several articles on innovations in dulcimer design and construction and remains active as a custom builder, teacher and volunteer performer.

www.mountaindulcimer-1-3-5.com/

this info updated 1999

Former beach bum and hot-rod-motorcycle machinist Robert Ruck was inspired in his youth by the sound of flamenco and followed that interest into a long and successful lutherie career. He has been a member of the GAL for most of the past thirty-two years.

this info updated 2008

Nine-year member Dennis Russell is a retired Navy aviation mechanic. He built his first instrument in 1994 and has now built several mandolins and three guitars. He plays flat-pick guitar, mandolin, and old-time fiddle, as well as growing tomatoes and roses.

this info updated 2004

Like Ichiro Suzuki, five-year GAL member Taku Sakashta has moved to the United States and brought a Japanese sensibility for fine craft. Born in Kobe, Japan, he has taught guitar building in a Japanese technical school, and has built custom guitars for artists around the Pacific Rim.

www.sakashtaguitars.com/

this info updated 2001

Twenty-two year GAL member Michael Sanden is converting (with his wife Kari) a 1905 brick school house into a new home, shop, and bed and breakfast. He teaches guitar making and plays Irish music.

www.sandenguitars.com/

this info updated 2006

When not building violins and cellos, Paul Schuback has amused himself by serving in Portland civic politics, riding his BMW motorcycle, and restoring old cars. His latest love is a 1956 British Land Rover with a factory-original fire engine conversion that he and his son picked up in Ireland.

www.schuback.com/

this info updated 2001

Four-year member Stephen Sedgwick builds harp guitars and other such things in the renovated office of a pig farm which has been taken over by artists. Ferraris, Porsches and other speedy exotics race on a track next door. Simply smashing!

www.stephensedgwick.co.uk/

this info updated 2007

Twenty-year Guild member Jon Sevy is a college math professor in his day job.

this info updated 2005

Federico Sheppard was born in Mexico, and began building guitars in 1979.  He was for a time a chiropractor with board certification in Orthopedics, and an independent physician for the National Football League Player's Association as well as a coach at two U.S. Olympic Training Centers. He has also been gainfully employed as a cab driver, sod cutter, lead Hawaiian guitarist for a Polynesian dance band, and consultant for the National Museums of Paraguay and El Salvador. His particular interest is the guitars of Agustin Barrios Mangore.   A particularly enjoyable aspect of guitar making for Federico Sheppard is the interesting characters he meets.  He has been a GAL member for fifteen of the last twenty years.

www.parachodelnorte.com/

this info updated 2007

Gerald Sheppard began building guitars exclusively in 1993. Unlike manufactured instruments, his guitars are handmade and he uses no plastic on his instruments (with the exception of the pickguard). All parts are made from natural materials of the highest quality. Gerald learned his craft through research, hands-on experience, association with instrument guilds, and input from artists and customers. His guitars have been used by professional artists in studio and on stage. Tone related design features include lower bout concentricity and tuned chambers.  

Aesthetic features include the use of color. Focus is on simple refined elegance. Gerald builds about fifteen instruments per year, about half of these are made directly for clients in Europe and Asia. He offers both standard and custom body styles and prefers the personal approach of custom work for individuals.  

Owning and playing fine guitars since he was a boy, Gerald understands how to match the design components of an instrument to the needs of a guitarist and sees this as one of the most important skills of an instrument builder. He focuses his work toward the needs of fingerstyle playing and works closely with clients to  create instruments that meet their specific needs. You can hear clips from Gerald’s recently released CD, and see his work at his website.

www.sheppardguitars.com/

this info updated 2008

Besides being a professional musician and amateur luthier (accent on the love), Tom Shinness is also a proponent of whole foods, exercise, and positive mentality as a means of achieving greater musical creativity and as a way to build greater endurance to tackle the challenges of life on the road.

www.tomshinness.com/

this info updated 2006

Twenty-eight-year member Gene Simpson repairs, restores, and builds acoustic guitars. When he's not in the guitar shop he restores MG sports cars.

www.allanokeguitars.com/

this info updated 1999

Lawrence Smart is a fourteen-year Guild member, a maker of guitars and mandolin-family instruments, and a past convention lecturer.

smart-instruments.com/

this info updated 1998

Eighteen-year GAL member George A. Smith lives and works in his 1886 home in Portland, Oregon, where he concentrates on classical guitars with support from his cat Heathcliff who contributes an occasional hair to the French polish finish, greatly enhancing the treble response.

www.georgesmithluthier.com/

this info updated 2006

Seven-year member William Snavely has been making solid-bodied instruments for more than thirty years, for no discernible reason. He’s been a university professor, a bass player, a pastry chef, and a clothing designer Ä in a word, a misfit. Currently, he is building a house with his son and hoping to contribute to the musical careers of four of his children.

this info updated 2004

Twenty-nine-year Guild member Ervin Somogyi is a respected guitar maker and lutherie teacher. He's been everywhere and done everything. He has lost everything and come back for more. His droll and moderately puckish manner has delighted several. And he can turn his feet backward.

www.esomogyi.com/

this info updated 2006

Hailing from Robin Hood country, Gary Southwell makes a mixture of modern and historical guitars, with a particular interest in the early 19th century. When not working or at home enjoying his young family, he can be found touring the country roads on his motorcycle.

www.southwellguitars.co.uk/

this info updated 2008

Robert J. (Bob) Spear has been in violin work since 1971. He retired from commercial work in the mid-1990s and now focuses on research and building new instruments. Bob is a strong supporter of the New Violin Family and has nearly completed his second octet. He lives near scenic Ithaca, New York, where he shares house with his wife, Deena, and two embarrassingly friendly dogs, Poka and Tupplett.

www.newviolinfamily.org/

this info updated 2008

Twenty-two-year member Ken Sribnick made his first synthesizer in 1968 and began repairing guitars in a Greenwich Village apartment. After meeting his luthier wife, Gayle, at the 1986 GAL convention, he worked at Tom Anderson's Guitar Works in California. Now in Dallas, Ken designs acoustics avocationally and pursues a forty-five-year quest to play Bach, Blind Blake, and Blarney Stone on guitar.

this info updated 1998

Seven-year member Rodney Stedall is an optometrist by profession, stealing time from his practice to make guitars.  He coordinates the Guild of South African Luthiers and his mission is to put South African lutherie onto the world map.

this info updated 2007

Thirty-year GAL member Robert Steinegger builds and restores fine steel sting guitars. He's also into folk dance, mycology, numismatics, and social awareness.

www.steinyguitars.com/

this info updated 2007

Marine microbial ecologist Erik Stenn cultures microaglae for a shrimp farm in his day job. At night he becomes husband, father, luthier, and player of banjos and guitars. He is building guitars and hopes to make violins in the future. Erik's dream is to build perfect instruments for his children as they explore music.

this info updated 2001

Sebastian Stenzel made his first guitar at age fourteen. After excursions into Chinese Medicine and carpentry, he served his apprenticeship with a local guitar maker. In 1996 he established his own workshop, and in 1998 he was awarded the Masterprize of the Bavarian Government for his outstanding performance on the Master of Crafts Examination. In addition to making classical and flamenco guitars he teaches Theory of Guitar Making at the famous Mozarteum University in Salzburg since 2002.

www.stenzel-guitars.de/

this info update 2008

Nathan Stinnette has given up lutherie and is currently studying Geography at James Madison University. Years of living on a guitar maker's salary took a heavy toll, but fortunately, women still find him irresistable. click here to see this photo.

this info updated 2008

When Henry Stocek decided to refurbish his vintage D-28 he didn't realize that a suitable replacement pickguard would cost $10,000 and four years of his life. Of course, he also got a new company as part of the deal. He's becoming famous as the celluloid guy. His wife wishes he were becoming famous for almost anything else.

this info updated 2000

Peggy Stuart, GAL member since 1978, built her first guitar in 1973. Now retired from her day job in higher education, she remains a supporter of the GAL, and dabbles in lutherie when not traveling in her RV painting landscapes.

www.uoregon.edu/~stuartp/index.htm

this info updated 2008

Seven-year GAL member Mark Swanson has lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan for all of his fifty-two years, and has been a professional musician since 1976.  Tinkering with his instruments, along with extended periods of staring at the moon, led to becoming a luthier and repairman.  Mark also serves on the staff of the Musical Instrument Makers Forum.

www.markswansonmusic.com/

this info updated 2007

Thirteen-year GAL member Andrea Tacchi was born into a Florentine family with a rich artisan heritage as jewelry makers and wood carvers. He has met and learned a lot from master luthiers such as Romanillos, Mattingly, Bouchet, Friederich, Fleta, and Kohno. Andrea believes that "masters are very important and impress on you a kind of fingerprint." He has been a professional guitar maker since 1977. Andrea is working world wide, making between 10 to 12 guitars a year, among those a Simplicio, Garcia and Bouchet replica,called "HOMMAGE" plus his own designed guitar. One of those has the top in three parts, two in cedar and one in spruce and is named THUCEA, from the union of the botanical name of spruce and cedar.

this info updated 2008

After four decades of repairing stringed instruments, and driving bus for King County Metro for three of those decades, nineteen-plus-year Guild member Mike Tagawa still hasn't decided which is more fun, interesting, or dangerous.

this info updated 2006

Fan Tao directs R & D at J. D'Addario and Company, where he works on bowed and guitar strings. He collaborates with Norman Pickering on violin acoustics research, is an accomplished string player, and holds electrical engineering degrees from Caltech and Princeton. Mr. Tao is a trustee of the Catgut Acoustical Society and a director of the Violin Society of America, and is also co-director of the VSA-Oberlin Acoustics Workshop.

this info updated 2007

Clive Titmuss went to the University of Calgary as a musicology student and later studied the lute and related subjects in California, England, and finally in Switzerland. He co-established Early Music Studio in Surrey, B.C. in 1987. Since then he has presented the lute and guitar music of the 16th through 19th centuries in performance on instruments he has made.

www.clivetitmuss.com/

this info updated 2008

Harry Tomita was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and learned to play his $10 Martin ukulele in the mid 1940s.  After a stint in Korea and graduating from UC Berkeley with a BSEE and retiring from work, he decided to resume his interest in playing.  The cost of the instruments drove him to build his own ukulele and that has been his hobby ever since.  He is still learning how to build and play the ukulele.

this info updated 2007

Six-year GAL member Ben Tortorici retired in 2000 after a thirty-five year career as an aerospace engineer. He began making classical guitars in the late 1970s and counts Bob Mattingly and Tom Blackshear as mentors.

tortorici-guitars.com/

this info updated 2006

Dake Traphagen has been a nut farmer, an early-instrument nut and, for his entire adult life, a hard-working lutherie nut. The Pacific Northwest is lucky to have him in residence.

www.traphagenguitars.com/

this info updated 2008

Five-year GAL member Peter True got into making by repairing broken guitars for band members of groups that he was in playing sax and flute. Now from his South London (UK) workshop he makes hand built guitars. He also repairs and after a stint of being a Faculty Member at Merton College (a UK guitar making school) he went it alone to teach guitar making in his shop. Although a relative newcomer to guitar making Peter's previous life as Architect and Teacher of Design and Technology gave him a pretty good grounding in many of the techniques required for making.

web.mac.com/peter.true/iWeb/Site/Peter%20True%27s%20%20Place%20To%20Make%20Guitars.html

this info updated 2007

Swiss-born musician/teacher-turned-luthier Benz Tschannen was a Guild member in the '80s, but got sidetracked starting a family, building a house, and a few other things. He joined up again in 2002, built a new shop in 2003, and is now building concert classical guitars full time.

this info updated 2008

Eleven-year GAL member Michael Turko builds all manner of guitars and bowed instruments on a quiet mesa in San Diego.

this info updated 2006

Former GAL columnist Rick Turner's pioneering work with the Grateful Dead and Alembic qualify him as a Founding Father of American Electric Lutherie. Make that a founding uncle. He's a bit young to be a brother of Les Paul or Leo Fender. He continues his quest with Renaissance and Turner guitars which feature his innovative concepts in the amplification of acoustic instruments, and is starting a new buisiness with Seymour Duncan Pickups to be called Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research.

www.renaissanceguitars.com/

this info updated 2002