Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey there again,

On the weekend I visited my local library. I found an old book called "The Steel String Guitar" its construction, origin and design by Donald Brosnac. Sunday afternoon I read it from cover to cover. It is the best book on guitar making I have seen. Has anybody else seen this publication?

I bought a copy of "Guitar Making" by Cunpiano and found it very heavy reading.

Although the Brosnac book is not as comprehensive as the Cumpiano book, it made a lot of sense to me.

Just an observation!!!

Would love to hear some comments from you all.

Cheers

Alan

Cumpiano is heavy reading, but it's comprehensive, talks you through the why as well as the how, and shows you how do to things with relatively minimal tooling. A lot of the techniques are fairly 'old-fashioned', and I do things differently, but what Cumpiano did do is help me understand how the guitar goes together.

I've never seen the Bronsac, but in terms of 'eye candy', the Kinkade is pretty good, fairly modern, although not quite so in-depth. The Bogdanovich (classical guitar book) is really quite excellent, though, if only for the extensive, high-quality photography and discussion of design, making wheat purfling and laminated sides.

I think that we need five or six different "How to" book on guitar making. Four reasons.

1. People have different learning styles.
2. The state of the art changes quite quickly.
3. Some books will explain certain procedures better than others.
4. There are different ways to do the same same thing.

I have three books and I refer to them all. Although, these days, I don't refer to them much and get the details on what I'm building from the plans I'm using.

Is there a book on Classical guitar Making that uses an assembly mold, and Radius dishes for sanding and bracing tops and backs?

Ray

I found the Cumpiano andd Natelson book a good book to read. And yes, I forgo the guitar board for a temp. mold, but construct the guitar outside the mold (tend to glue top and back on in a very short amount of time.)

However I agree with Mike on this; having a few guitarmaking books (plus the Internet research and discussion) around can be handy for a synoptic view. I honestly don't think I could wholly rely on the Cumpiano book for building a guitar, especially with regards to some of the errors in the book (Which are corrected on Cumpiano's excellent website), and the modified bolt-on neck joint.

I don't think Sloane was doing that back in '66. But he was soaking sides in boiling water...

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Alan-
I'm with Mike and Sam: the more books, the better!
It's a poor book that won't give you at least one good idea you can use.
I'd add to 'the list':
David Russell Young: The Steel String Guitar-Construction and Repair
Jim Williams: A Guitar-Makers Manual

I had the Brosnac book at one time- my advice would be to keep it, but definitely add some more books to your collection to get a 'wider view'.
A search around abebooks.com (recommended) can often turn up used books at good prices from dealers world-wide.

Some folks get a lot out of DVDs, but I've found them to be on the expensive side. Some of the commonly sold building DVDs are really 'slide shows with audio' while others tend to be disorganized and unprofessional. The Benedetto DVDs are better than average and a good supplement to his (excellent) book.
If you spend a few hundred on used (or new) books, I think you will get more info (much conflicting of course! ) than from a set of DVDs. As you can tell, I'm a 'book guy' not a 'video guy'....

Cheers
John

[QUOTE=JohnAbercrombie] I had the Brosnac book at one time- my advice would be to keep it.....[/QUOTE]

Oops- no...return that book to the library!



John

If you are interested, I did a quick search on www.abebooks.com, and got some hits on the Brosnac book.  You can get it for about $5.95 plus shipping, from a couple of places. 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I like the DVD's. Read through Kathy Matsushita's website, get the Mayes
voicing DVD's, look up Hesh's tutorials, buy a set of plans, and otherwise
use the search function on this forum and you should be good to go.

I have Cumpiano and Natelson's book and it's pretty comprehensive as mentioned, but I found it hard to follow at times with the constant flip/flopping between steel string and classical methods. I thought that Kinkaid's book was a remarkably complete visual trip through the process and I refer to it a lot. If you like to make a lot of your own tools; clamps, planes, jigs, etc, then you'll get a kick out of Sloane's steel string book, I know I did. 

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Jim Womack

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. "
Will Rogers

I liked Sloane's "Classical Guitar Construction" too.  I have it, and re-read it recently.  It is an easy read, and has a lot of good info in it, though many processes have been improved over the years.  His Steel String Repair book is also pretty good.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Ray - Bogdanovich uses an outside form (but a regular spanish heel).
He builds a workboard for his backs, but it is really just a radiused dish so I don't know why he doesn't use one. For the top, his sides are level through
the upper bout down to the lower transverse brace but transition to a 25' dome in the lower bout - a radius dish can be used to sand the linings there.

Jim

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Here is an example of the workboard according to Bogdanovich (build for a Romanillos plantilla - sorry no occupant yet) and the workboard according to Courtnall (with a Reyes-style flamenco awaiting it's back). The Bogdanovich method sure does take a lot more prep work.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I don't know of any book but I heard that fellow Robbie O'Brien has a classical guitar building DVD that uses an external mold, Spanish heel and radius dish for the back.

Yeah, I know that guy O'Brien and his DVD- I even got my last customer too buy his materials as a kit from LMI so I could get the DVD.   

But I hate sitting in front of the screen watching these things, and so if a book comes that I can lay open on the bench, it always seems to win out - hence my reference to Bogdanovich.

Robbie's DVD's contain a pile of info, though - the slide show format does wonders in terms of compressing a lot of info onto a single disk.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

My favorite books about guitar and dulcimer building had very little to do with building,

Acquired of the angels, about D'Angelico and D'Aquisto

and

Dulcimer maker, the craft of Homer Ledford

a lot of insight into their approach to their craft.

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

(a little self promotion never hurts said Doctor Phil)

you got to get Robbie's DVDs if for no other reason than to learn what a God given high tech tool is as well as the technical definition of a skosh. These are absolut must knows for every builder