Guild of American Luthiers
American Lutherie #88 Extras
Winter Issue 2006


Page 8 - Double-Top Guitars by Randy Reynolds


visit the website of author Randy Reynolds.


Page 16 - The Imperator, Revisiting the Lyra Guitar by Alain Bieber

Front and back view’s of Alain Bieber’s lyra guitar, "The Imperator"
Click to see the rest of the sketch of Lucien Bonapart’s family.
This painting by Goya was mentioned in the article, but not shown.
More on an original lyra guitar can be found on our “extras” page for AL#80.
Author Alain Bieber describes this recent photo: "Here is the final concert of the first World Seminar for lyra-guitar fans. That's Eleonora Vulpiani on the left (playing a lyra guitar by Alain Bieber) and me, Alain Bieber, on the right (playing a lyra guitar by Gerardo Parrinello). I got a silver medal! I am still a bit behind Eleonora in spite of a much longer preparation."
Mr. Bieber also sends a lot of information about searching for more lyra guitar information on the internet.
Guild member Wilfried Ulrich sent this photo of himself with a recent lyra guitar. We published it in the letters section of AL#89. www.ulrich-instrumente.de/

Video of The "Imperator" lyra guitar, demonstrated by Jean Dufieux

"Etude" by Carulli

"March" by Bobrowicz

Author Alain Beiber also recommends "The Volcano Lover" by Susan Sontag, an historical novel about the life of the man who was key in the neoclassical movement of the 1780s, Lord William Hamilton, Ambassador of the British Crown to the Kingdom of Naples. Hamilton is more famous as the husband of Admiral Lord Nelson's mistress.



Page 24 - The Universal Vacuum Island by Charles Fox

Charles mentioned that his special extra-stiff lining system enables some of the vacuum techniques he uses.

Charles Fox’s website.

Source links from the article:

Grainger

McMaster-Carr

MSC Industrial Supply

American School of Lutherie


Page 34 - Meet the Maker: Benoit Meulle-Stef by Jonathon Peterson

Benoit Meulle-Stef speaks at Harp Guitar Gathering 3. Michael Dunna and Jeffrey Elliott listening.
Ben’s new work. Some of these were in the magazine, some were not. This row is his tzoura-harp, a sort of harp-bouzouki.
His student model Austo-German style harp guitar.
His Mozzani-style harp guitar.
Here are five historic instruments from Ben’s collection. These are examples of what he calls contra guitars, after the general style of Scherzer.
G. Haid, 1925
Hans Raab, 1916
Wappen-style contra guitar, circa 1900


Page 42 - A Method for Generating Rapid Prototypes of the Flattop Guitar by R.M. Mottola

Author R.M. Mottola wrote this addendum to his article about making flattop guitar prototypes:

"In my article entitled A Method for Generating Rapid Prototypes of the Flattop Guitar and in the accompanying sidebar entitled Using High Pressure Laminates in Lutherie appearing in American Lutherie #88 (Winter 2006) I failed to mention that use of high pressure laminates in the construction of acoustic guitars is covered by United States patent #5,406,874, held by Jim Witchel, and that exclusive rights to the use of this patent have been granted to C.F. Martin & Company. I regret the omission and thank Mr. Witchel's agent for pointing this out to me."

R.M. also wrote to update us on the project:
"The prototyping effort featured in the article was performed in an attempt to design an acoustic bass guitar with a tone more like that of the double bass than is typical of ABGs. Since the characteristic sound of the double bass is in large part due to a high degree of damping of the upper harmonics and since orchestral bass strings have a large amount of internal damping, most of the prototyping work involved fitting 1/4 size orchestral bass strings to an ABG. This required a different string anchoring mechanism to anchor the long strings, which in turn required a new bridge, which in turn required changes to the bracing of the top. The instrument that ultimately resulted from that experimentation is shown in the accompanying photos."

 



Page 48 - Meet the Maker: Jose "Pepito" Reyes Zamora by Fred Casey



Page 52 - A Different Way of Defining Body Shapes by Mark French

Author Mark French is into all kinds of cool stuff. Visit his own website and his site at Perdue University.


Page 58 - Product Review by John Mello


visit the Luthiertool company website.


Page 64 - Lutherie Under Glass by Ervin Somogyi



The above picture is a 2 meg jpg. If you would like to view a smaller version of this picture (682k) click here.


Page 68 - It Worked for Me

Here’s the view from author Marco Del Pozzo’s shop door in Castellon, Spain.


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