Customer Reviews

A Guitar Maker's Manual

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The problem with the lutherie books market is that it has nothing to report from the last 20 years. The whole subject has jumped ahead, and yet the books remain in the 70s (having been writen in the 80s).

Most beginers and others would be better served by getting the LMII catalog, some relevant back issue of American Lutherie, and hanging out on the web.

This book is well liked, because it moves the markers ahead in the sand a few months from Cupiano's dreadfully out of date volume. it contains things like a diagram of the Fox side bender, which you can find better info on all over the web, including the factory tour posted of the Fox fascility on the frets site. This is just one area where the books don't cut it. Do an amazon search of the last 5 years published titles in woodworking or almost any field, and then in lutherie. Books just aren't how luthiers comunicate. They actualy really spread their techniques around generously, they just don't write books.

I must have owned Irving Sloane's "Classic Guitar Construction" since about 1970. It was probably the only thing around, in English, back then. Although it has a few quirks, it is still a great read and reveals a no-nonsense approach.

Williams' book tries hard to emulate Sloane's, but fails in the most important department--TRUST!

There are simply heaps of little errors, some of them common to many modern woodworking and lutherie books, as well as a few individual howlers that just make an old-timer suspicious.

Anthony Burgess once remarked [on spelling]: "A guage works as well as a gauge". We know what he means, and we know what Mr Williams means, when he mis-spells this basic item. However, he also goes on to mis-spell, mis-use and mis-name another dozen or more common woodworking tools and concepts that make one wonder if he really knows what he's talking about. [It confuses those of us who DO.] Tri-square, sash cramp, swooge, guages, annular rings[!], jointing vs joining...I believe it's just as easy to get these little things *correct* before publication. If not, at least before the reprint(s)!

There are still, after 3 or more editions, plenty of unclosed quotes--No, on second reading, those are actually *inch symbols* with no figures before them...There are suggestions that 1"= 12.5mm...on a drawing, 3/16" is called 5mm, but 3/32" [exactly half!] is called 2.2mm. What's going on??? I grew up with both systems, but I can't really trust my cuts to these kinds of little blunders.

Way too often the text refers to classic construction, but the illustration shows a steel-string dreadnought...There's actually no problem, but it makes me wonder why there isn't just a bit more text to explain the discrepancy. A clever symbol next to paragraphs to distinguish the classic from the steel-string acoustic parts would also assist the reader greatly.

Most of the photos and illustrations are clear, but some just defy interpretation until the text has been read 10 or more times.

If I were Mr Williams' editor, before any reprints, I would insist on a simple, but apologetic foreword, and review and extend the text to make this "almost-good-enough" book into a great book. If you know a bit about making guitars, however, you'll find some really thought-provoking ideas here. Beginners beware!

This book doesn't really provide enough detail to allow you build a guitar, without having either prior guitar building experience, or a good teacher to assist you. The diagrams and photographs are not particularly clear, and the book generally glosses over the fine details of construction. The section on finishing is quite good, and will be of some use if you're intending finishing the guitar yourself. Be carefull if you intend using the templates in the back of the book - specifically the fingerboard template, which on my copy had all the frets spaced incorrectly when compared to a standard fret rule for a classical guitar. I suspect the photocopying process has enlarged the scale by a small but significant amount...

This manual may be of some limited help to a beginning guitar maker. I found quite a few areas that needed to be expanded upon in order to be useful. The book, "guitarmaking", by Cumpiano is much more comprehensive and is highly recommended. Williams book may give you a few good ideas, but that's about it.

This is a very thorough book and takes the reader through all the steps necessary to construct a classical or acoustic steel string guitar. The book comes complete with life size plans for the parts, as well as plans and instructions for building the various jigs required, including the side bending jig.

This is the first book I have bought on the subject of guitar building, and I have not yet built my first guitar. I have built most of the jigs and have found that with very few exceptions the plans for these are very complete (there were just a few small steps in the side bending jigs where I had to guess what to do, but I have tested the finished product and was very pleased).

Although I have not built a guitar yet, I have been through the book several times and understand the process. The book also painstakingly lays out the materials and tools needed, leaving no guesswork. Being brand new to building guitars, and this being my first book, I was perhaps conservative in rating the book 4 stars. Time may prove this to be a 5 star book, I just had a couple of questions left unanswered. I do highly recommend this book, it is worth ten times the price.