Wow, what a great convention! Great weather, great people, great vibe. Let’s
start with the informational presentations. Click any thumbnail for the full
image.
Marshall Brune showed us how to French polish an entire instrument in one day.
Dan Erlewine and Frank Ford did their popular multi-day repair clinic again.
Here they are shown with some participants. That’s Frank to the left, Dan
to the right.
Lutherie legend Michael Gurian (left) talked about making purfling elements.
He’s posing here with GAL staffer Jon Peterson.
Violin and mandolin maker Chris Burt showed us all how to carve arched plates
in the last few issues of American Lutherie magazine. At his workshop he took
the opportunity to give some of us the hands-on version.
Harry Fleishman’s workshop on voicing through the access panel got an
extra dimension when Mark Swanson volunteered his own instrument as a test case.
That’s Mark at left.
Erick Coleman (left) of Stew-Mac gave a workshop on magnetic pickup troubleshooting
and rewinding, as well as presenting a workshop with Elliott John-Conry (right)
on electric guitar setup. They used a Dan Erlewine-style neck jig which was
then donated to the Guild’s benefit auction.
Peter Prier, founder of the Violin Making School of America, spoke on violin
materials.
A panel of Kerry Char, Gary Southwell, Mike Doolin, and Fred Carlson discussed
the hot topic of harp guitars. Mike also presented a workshop on intonation.
Cyndy Burton and Woodley White led a listening session for classical guitars,
with guitarist Michael Partington.
Joe McNalley and other members of the Hutchins Consort offered an upclose
workshop on the New Violin Family instruments.
David Hurd has developed some simple test equipment to measure the compliance
of guitar and ukulele top. He told us how to do this and how to relate the data
to real-world results. Click the thumbnail to see him talking about it with
don MacRostie and Charles Fox.
We were honored to welcome Manuel Velazquez to speak about his seventy years
as a guitar maker. He was assisted by his son Alfredo (far left). Guitar makers
Robert Ruck (right) and Jeffrey Elliott (left) interviewed him about his ideas,
experiences, and techniques.
Pickup whiz TV Jones, electric guitar maker Saul Koll, and guitarist Jim Bybee
(left to right) presented our electic guitar listening session.
Scott van Linge provided more in depth information on his parabolic brace
and bridge shaping theory.
Steve Andersen demonstrated his methods of fitting bridges and braces to archtop
guitars.
John Park facilitated our first-ever flamenco guitar listening session. Bob
Park, shown here, was the guitarist.
Geza Burghardt gave a workshop about the design and construction of his new
bass viol. Here he is with his wife Tini.
Tim Shaw, Principal Engineer at Fender, lecutered about his quick and easy
tooling system for making guitar prototypes.
Dan Erlewine (at left in yellow shirt) showed off his Rockin’ Chair,
an elecric guitar that you sit on to play.
Jeffrey Elliott (left) does not claim to be a flamenco guitar maker. Here
he is facilitating a flamenco guitar panel consisting of (from right) Eugene
Clark, John Park, and R.E. Brune.
Ervin Somogyi facilitated the steel-string guitar listening session. Mike
Doolin was the player.
Gregg Miner put together a wonderful exhibit of harp guitars and other extra-string
fantasies. The exhibit ran for three days, and Gregg gave a detailed talk on
the many harp guitar configurations.
Charles Fox showed us his method of building honeycomb-core guitar tops. Here
he enjoys a cafeteria ice cream cone.
