THE ASSOCIATION OF STRINGED INSTRUMENT ARTISANS

In This Issue

Paul Reed Smith's Symposium '89 Transcription

Yuri Dmitrievsky's December Interview With Mark Dronge

Educational Update: Standards For Repair Certification

The Latest Designs Number Seven From Steve Klein The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans BOARD MEMBERS

If you have input, concerns or suggestions about the association, ssociation of you are welcome to contact any of the board members to discuss your ideas:

fringed James Rickard; President 600 Wildcat Hill Road; Harwinton, CT 06791 (203) 485-9809 shop nstrument Duane Waterman; Treasurer 1027 S. Sierra Madre; Colorado Springs, CO 80903 I (719) 473-8444 shop rtisans William Cumpiano Secretary c/o The Luthier’s Collaborative [0 31 Campus Plaza Road; Hadley MA 01035 PURPOSE (413) 253-2286 work William Laskin; Vice-President The Association O f Stringed Instrument Artisans, a non­ 192 DuPont Street (rear); Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5R 2E6 profit trade organization under the provisions o f Section 501 (c) (416)923-5801 work (06) o f the Internal Revenue Code, was established in 1988 to help provide a sense o f community and professionalism to the Roger Sadowsky; Public Relations 1600 Broadway #1000B; New York, NY 10019 field of stringed instrument making and repair. The goals o f the (212) 256-3960 association provide fo r but are not limited to: the establishment of a comprehensive database of resources, supplies and technical information; a means o f providing multi-level education within DickBoak; Editor the profession; assistance in marketing and promotion; health c/o Church Of Art, 14 South Broad Street; Nazareth, PA 18064 and insurance packages at group rates; a repair or service (215) 759-7100 home; (215) 759-2837 work certification; an advertiser’s marketplace; and the publication of informative newsletters and journals. Jon Natclson; Legal Advisor

Annual Membership is $50.00 HONORARY MEMBERSHIPS Donations and subscriptions are not deductable as charitable contributions. Lifetime Achievement Awards (Membership application on inside of back cover) James D’Aquisto Mario Maccaferri A.S.I.A. Newsletter #7; May 1990 Manuel Velezquez Copyright © 1990 “A.S.I.A.” “Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans” Awards for Excellence in the Field All rights including editorial are reserved. John Monteleone

No part of this journal may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. All submissions COVER will be juried. We strongly encourage submissions from all This extraordinary closeup photograph is a neck detail of a members, but we will not be responsible for loss or non-return of Custom Schoenberg Soloist, with headstock inlay designed by unsolicited photographs or manuscripts. Address all Dana Bourgeois. Shell and recess were cut with a pantograph correspondence and subscriptions to: milling machine by Jim Cox, a banjo maker who lives within Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans walking distance of Dana's shop in Topsham, Maine. Dana made 14 South Broad Street by hand the four to one plastic patterns from which the shell and Nazareth, PA 18064 recess were cut; he also did the clean-up and assembly. The design is an upside down elaboration on a motif from top of the line Howe-Orme mandolins. Dana says: " I don't do CAT.!, FOR ARTICLES ______dragons and mermaids!" As a member generated publication, we greatly depend The collaboration between noted fingerstyle guitarist Eric upon the submission of articles and photographs for the text of Schoenberg , luthier Dana Bourgeois (who has done voicing and our publications. Please do more than consider what part you critical assembly), with fabrication by the Martin Guitar Company can play in the "coming to fruition" of this association. has proven to be quite a successful combination.

- The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans MASTHEAD CHANGES ______Banjomaker Dick Kenfield has been workin for several years After reviewing the cover of the Newsletter, the Board of on an unusual project unrelated to the instrument making field. Directors unanimously decided that a single word masthead He has developed software ($25 per disk) for individuals and would be more appealing to a greater number of potential new clubs interested in investing in the stock market. Dick Boak also members and as a result, would better enable ASIA to achieve its dabbles in this. Is anyone else out there interested ? Contact: goals. This represents solely a graphic change rather than a Dick Kenfield c/o Kenfield Banjo Works change in the focus of the association, which is to promote all 11808 Crawford Road types of stringed musical instrument artisanry. Hopkins, MN 55343 Respectfully... (612) 938-4382 THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gary Lea has advised us of his address change: Gary Lea LETTERS 359 Aklan Court San Jose, CA 95119 Dear A.S.I.A., I would like to respond to Mr. William R. Cumpiano’s Please send correspondence to: ASIA Letters, 14 South Editorial (ASIA 12/89) in which he writes: “...we are nonetheless Broad Street, Nazareth, PA 18064 forced to peg our prices to the price-ceiling of the factory production lines, and not to that which we need to (sic) survive, MEMBER’S SPOTLIGHT ______nay, to thrive...”. With absolutely no disrespect to Mr. Cumpiano, I have to THE BOLD STRUMMER LTD. ask, why? Why "must” we determine our prices by factory The Bold Strummer Ltd. was begun some twelve years ago standards? Isn’t that rather ludicrous? Does one pay the same by Nicholas and Mary Clarke to promote via mail, books about price for an original painting as for a mass produced the guitar. These days “BSL” is almost entirely a publishing house, reproduction or print? Does one pay the same price for a piece of producing it ’s own and distributing foreign books. custom furniture as for a knock-off factory piece of inferior We have been particularly aggressive (if that’s the word I quality? want) in re-printing books that have gone out of print. We can How long can we survive (forget about thrive) under these now boast publishing rights to David Russell Young’s STEEL conditions? Who else would, or choose to? Isn’t it about time STRING GUITAR CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN, Irving Sloane’s that luthiers adhere to, and dare to say it, enforce a realistic price CLASSIC GUITAR CONSTRUCTION, GUITAR REPAIR, and STEEL structure for handmade instruments and repairs? STRING GUITAR CONSTRUCTION Sloane’s MAKING MUSICAL When I see the education, creativity, time, and sacrifice INSTRUMENTS is planned for later this year. We have also devoted to this craft by all of us and the miserly remuneration purchased the rights for the now defunct Musical News Services and recognition paid us, I seriously have to question our (UK) to Mike Doyles famous book on the history of the Marshall collective sanity and sensibility. The day of the starving artist amp, THE SOUND OF ROCK, and other electric guitar titles like mystique is long gone. No one finds such a posture romantic, nor THE GIBSON GUITAR SINCE 1950, Volumes 1 & 2. newsworthy. I repeat, to my knowledge, no other profession We are particularly proud of our association with Element endures such a situation. Books, (UK) publishers of the book ANTONIO DE TORRES — When I consider the (literally) millions of dollars garnished GUITAR MAKER. HIS UFE AND WORK and Das Musikinstrument by the music industry, I wonder: where is our share? Don’t we (WG) o f MANUAL OF GUITAR TECHNOLOGY fame. deserve something more for providing the very media that these Our associate company Pro/Am Music Resources specializes other artists exploit to create their art and income? I can count on in books about piano and other instruments. Between the two one hand the number of times I have seen any mention given to companies, we reach stores, schools, libraries and individuals all instrument builders (or other “back-up” technicians and artists) over the world. by any musician, whether world famous performer or up and Titles planned for 1990 include a new book, first published coming talent. in French entitled SPANISH AMERICAN GUITARS, and we also Something has to change or we won’t be able to exist much plan to re-print Vldimar Bobri’s THE SEGOVIA TECHNIQUE, and longer. And let’s face it, no one is going to come along and Harvey Turnbull's GUITARS FROM RENAISSANCE TO THE change this situation for us. WE HAVE TO. PRESENT DAY. Thanking you for your attention, We are also planning a series of adults only titles, beginning Don Alfieri; Alfieri Guitars with MOLLY AND HER MARTIN, GERTIE AND HER GIBSON, and 9 Oak Drive FANNY AND HER FENDER... (just joking folks). New Hyde Park, NY 11040 Our aim is to continue on our present course and increase (516) 437-1377 our catalogue of good quality books about stringed instruments As promised in the previous issue, Robert and Cindy with an emphasis on the guitar. Luthiers and/or authors are Benedetto have forwarded their new address to us after having welcome to submit manuscripts for review. We also welcome any made the migration from Florida to Pennsylvania: information concerning out of print books that may be of interest Benedetto Guitars to us. We will gladly send you our book catalogue on request: 85 North 1st Street Nicholas and Mary Clarke CPU Box #1, Unit 8A The Bold Strummer Ltd.; 1 Webb Road Stroudsburg, PA 18360 Westport, CT 06880 (717) 421-5933 (203) 226-8230 The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans DENNIS A. MASTIN______instruments in conjunction with assorted flutes, congas, tablas, and violin. Since 1974 William has been an administrator and As a new member of A.S.I.A., I am writing to give you a brief teacher at the Roberto-Vcim School of Luthicry in Phoenix, biography of myself. Being new to the business of making and Arizona. He is the co-founder of Tansen with dancer Christine repairing stringed instruments, I found it easy to put off writing Iamb and he has conducted residencies and seminars throughout this letter. I ’ve been a guitar player since I was about nine years the United States on music, instrument making, and old. I bought my first Martin guitar (a 000-18) in 1964 when I was environmental education. Bill’s various addresses are: in high school. I loved the wood and the smell of that guitar and William Ea to n/Tarisen always dreamed of working at the Martin factory. But, as you P. O. Box 670 know, things don’t always work out, so I worked construction T cm pc.A Z 85011 most of my life to raise my family. For the last ten years 1 worked (602) 968-1233 in the oil fields of Colorado, but was laid off two years ago. It was or then that I started to pursue my dream of becoming a c/o The Robcrto-Vcnn School of Luthicry guitarmaker. 4011 South 16th Street I started out buying old guitars from yard sales and Phoenix, AZ 85040 pawnshops. I tore into them and then tried to put them back (602) 243-1179 together. I also bought a Stewart-MacDonald herringbone guitar kit and built that. I ordered all of Dan Erlewine’s guitar tapes, MARK STANLEY______bought tools, and started a repair business. This went along fairly well, but I found that a lot of things were too hard for me to fix. In 1973 I decided to build myself a new electric bass. I was Then I decided to go to the National Guitar Summer Workshop in 21 at the time and working as a carpenter. I had what I now New Milford, CT. This was the turning point in my career. Steve perceive to be minimal skills, although I was endowed with a Arcnschield, who is in charge of the repair school at NGSW was a measure of that bold naivety associated with young people. great influence on me. The whole five weeks I spent there were Thinking back, that instrument turned out fairly well considering fantastic. how little I knew about what I was doing, and the scarcity of the The first two weeks, Rick Starkey from Ovation taught me materials available at the time. Several years later the market fret jobs, how to make bridges the right way, and many other opened up for luthier supplies and electric hardware. It was at techniques. We also got a great tour of the Ovation and Steinberger guitar factories; two very different facilities. For the second two weeks, our teacher was Joe Konkoly of Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. Joe taught me a great deal. I learned how to re-fret in a way that will strengthen the neck, especially on those old Martins without adjustable rods. I’ve done a few of these since. The last week was taught by Dan Erlewine. Dan was a great inspiration to me and we became good friends. He was able to gel Robert Meadows to give an all-day talk and demonstration, which for me was one of the high points of the seminar. After school, I was able to get a job with the Ome Banjo Company in Boulder, Colorado. I worked there for about four months and learned a great deal but because of a slow market, I went back to instrument repair. I am presently working in my basement shop. I do some work for John Eaton, a luthier in Boulder. John is a great help and is eager to teach. I just finished my second Stewart-MacDonald guitar kit and I’m starting on a Martin D-28 kit. After a little more experience, I ’ll start building from scratch. Steve Arenschield, Joe Konkoly, and Dan Erlewine all talked highly of A.S.I.A. and urged me to join. My business address is: Dennis A. Mastin D & M Guitars 4 l6 l C ooper Court Boulder, CO 80303 (303) 499-4934

WILLIAM EATON______William Eaton sent in an impressive flyer that he uses in the promotion of his instrument construction and his musical performances. His instruments are unique and varied, including the Lyre, a Koto Harp Guitar, a 26 String Guitar, an O ’ele ’n Strings, and an assortment of I larp Guitars. As a performer, he has produced several recordings which feature all of his Current traditional classical guitar by Mark Stanley. The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans that time when many of us became interested and active building Stringed Instrument Artisans. or repairing instruments. Bill believes ardently that the craft will best evolve with Unlike many other people, I didn't jump in with both feet. I artisans working in community, as well as in competition: also ran a woodworking shop, worked as a carpenter and played Currently the Stringfellow studio forms part of the music professionally. I am still a part time luthier. To date, my Instrumentmaker’s Collaborative, an amalgamation of artisans, regular job is as a supervisor/lead Finish carpenter in commercial tools, and materials which includes a harpmaker, a drummaker, construction, which involves mostly interiors of office buildings. I and three guitarmaker/technicians. feel that my varied woodworking experience aids me immensely in the lutherie business. See Inside Front Cover For Bill's Address Lately, I've been building mostly classical guitars; before that steel strings and acoustic basses. Actually, I've built 12 acoustic bass guitars. In a minor way I think I have aided in the WILLIAM “GRIT" LASKIN______development of that instrument. My only claim to fame is my William “Grit” Laskin has been building acoustic guitars unusual workbench design, which was featured in the lutherie professionally for close to two decades. More than 400 steel­ section of THE WORKBENCH BOOK by Scou Landis (Taunton string, classical, and flamenco guitars bear his signature. Requests Press). for Grit’s instruments come from players across Canada and the I have lived in the greater Seattle area the majority of my life. U.S., Japan, Britain, and Western Europie. He considers himself I welcome anyone in this Field to call or write or stop by. I also lucky to have had a steady waiting list for his instruments from dabble in the ancient art of Zymurgy (Brewmaking) of which I the time before he had even purchased his First tool. am more than willing to share with guests: Originally a musician, a Field he still keep* his hand in part Mark Stanley time, Grit was an early apprentice to Jean Larrivee when Jean 20903 175th Street East himself was only a few years into his career. Ortlng WA 98360 Over the years it has been a priority with Grit to promote the (206) 893 6451 cause of instrument making and his fellow artisans. Through numerous appearances on national radio, television, and Films, or BILL CUMPIANO______with the curating of exhibitions, or by the publishing of his book For almost twenty years Bill has been active in virtually every The World Of Musical Instrument Makers - A Guided Tour. Grit has unintentionally emerged as an "ambassador” for the facet of the guitar profession: production guitarmaking, handbuilding, repair, supply, documentation and teaching. instrument making community. Most recently he has instigated (and with other luthiers, is developing) full-time, three year, After formal training in design and several years of working intense programs in guitar and violin making and repair to begin in New York City as a furniture draftsman and designer, he began in September 1990 in a Toronto applied arts college. a career in the guitar world as a worker on the production line at Grit has published articles on guitarmaking and his unique Gurian Guitars in New Hampshire, there participating in the approach to inlay and engraving in magazines such as Fine construction of several hundred guitars. Later, Bill learned Woodworking. Guitar Canada. Ontario Craft, and Woodworking individually handcrafting guitars from the Vermont master International (England). Michael Millard. Then, in 1974 he established in Massachusetts, Grit’s musical side has produced two solo albums and three his own studio, Stringfellow. other albums with various bands. His writing has led him into Since that time, Bill has made and sold over 200 Stringfellow children’s fiction with short stories, a novel and a second novel in instruments: classical, steel-string and electric guitars; folk the research stage. instruments such as hammered and plucked dulcimers; banjos; As one of those who help>ed establish A.S.I.A., Grit believes mandolins; Latin American and Caribbean fretted instruments strongly in A.S.I.A.’s goals of increased benefits and high proFile such as cuatros and tiples; and a number of unusual or for stringed instrument builders/repairers, as well as the experimental instruments. encouragement of high standards. Only as a linked community During the same period, Bill taught apprenticeship* to a are those and other goals possible. dozen aspiring instrument makers and technicians, many of which are now working as professionals in the Field. He also See Inside Front Cover For Grit's Address taught guitarmaking to dozens of students over the period of several years in an academic setting. We want to know more about you and it wont hurt your Bill has had over thirty Five articles on instrument making business to have the information published. Please share your topics published in the woodworking and guitarmaking media, biography with : ASIA Member’s Spotlight, 14 South Broad such as Fine Woodworking, Frets, and String Instrument Street, Nazareth, PA 18064. Craftsman. Bill reduced his guitarmaking activity several years ago to enable him to devote himself to the publication and promotion of TIPS FROM READERS______a textbook which he co-authored, GUITARMAKING: Tradition Do you have an interesting technique or tip for our readers? and Technology. The book has since been critically acclaimed Share your ingenuity with: ASIA Tips, 14 South Broad Street, and widely accepted as the standard reference in the Field. Nazareth, PA 18064 Bill has lectured before the Guild of American Luthiers, the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, Symposium 85 and QUESTIONS & ANSWERS______Symposium 88. He was given the Honor Award of Merit for Excellence in Craftsmanship by the American Institute for Having a technical problem? We can help you through it! Architects and he has had his work recognized by the Send your questions to our expiert staff c/o: ASIA Q & A, Smithsonian Institute. He helpjed establish the Association of 14 South Broad Street, Nazareth, PA 18064 5 The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans NEWS FRANKFURT MUSIKMESSE The Frankfurt Musikmesse, held annually in Frankfurt, West MARIO MACCAFERRI OFFERS Germany, took place this year from March 21st through March PLASTIC VIOLIN RECITAL 26th. The show certainly rivals the Anaheim NAMM Show in its size and scope. AT N.Y.C. S CARNAGIE HALL This years show was extremely active. Perhaps the most memorable aspect was the weekend segment which was open to the public. Thousands of East German teenagers had been A Review by Dick Boak transported to the show in school buses to sample the instruments, and sample they did. They devoured the show like On Thursday, March 8th, 1990, Mario Maccaferri presented ants on a carcass. “The First Plastic Violin” live in concert in the Weill Recital Hall at Prices were high in Frankfurt. A modest hotel room cost Carnegie Hall before a crowd of about 200 people. Violinist about $130.00 US per night, but of course breakfast is included. Dorothy Happel featured the instrument, which was selected Meals are quit expensive as well. A typical dinner, modest but from the first batch of more than 100 prototypes. She was nice, seemed to run nearly twice what you would expect to pay accompanied by pianist Susanna Nason in a concert that featured for the same thing in the States. nine varied pieces from Bach to Gershwin. The real benefit of this show is for companies that wish to Many A.S.I.A. members and other dignitaries of the music enter the world music market. The Musikmesse is the essential industry attended including Michael Dresdner, James Garber, place to meet with or locate distributors from all over the globe. John Monteleone, Sandor Nagyszalanczy, and John and James The entire european community was very well represented, D’Addario. The concert was reviewed by the New York Times the including the eastern block, obviously excited by their new and next day. The Times gave a harsh if not coldly honest review heightened sense of freedom and mobility. There were pleanty of saying that the instrument “looks and sounds like a violin, but not people from Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and a very good one." India. Africa, Egypt, Scandinavia, and Canada were there as well. Few would argue that any contest between plastic and wood There was a definate absense of people from Central and South could yield anything but wood as the winner. Although it would America. One would suppose that those economies are so weak have been interesting to hear such a contest, the plastic violin currently that their populations cannot afford the luxury of was the only one to be heard that evening, and I was certainly musical instruments other than the inexpensive local folk not disappointed. varieties. In all honesty, I must admit that the plastic violin lacked that It is not necessary for those attending the show to speak warm woody sound perhaps in the same way that Ovation German, since everyone seems to speaks English, which has Guitars are notably different from solid wood guitars. Mr. become the international business language. The Germans do Maccaferri’s instrument performed at about 80-85% of the volume appreciate it when people try to "sprechen Deutsch”, unless you and projection of a good quality wooden violin. The upper range really bungle it like most Americans do, then they just charge you seemed slightly suppressed and so did the lowest bass notes, but more for your taxi ride. the expanse of mid-range notes connecting these two extremes This show virtually always follows the Anaheim show, with a was extremely rich, almost cello-like. To hear such sounds tendency toward March. Combining the show with a short shivering out of a few pieces of assembled plastic was both european vacation is a great notion for the uninitiated, though it startling and surprising. would be nice to see the currency exchange improve. We as makers expect to encounter tonal differences when we start fooling around with experimental materials, but that BOAK PROMOTED certainly doesn't invalidate the viability, the quality, the integrity, or the potential marketplace for such products. These violins are Dick Boak, former president and current exectutive director/ the very first, with a potential for many more to follow. Is it editor of A.S.I.A., was recently promoted to Advertising Manager conceivable that minor design improvements combined with of the Martin Guitar Company. Dick has worn many hats during technological advances in raw materials could gradually chip his 12 years of development at Martin. He started as a design away at the tonal differences between w ood and plastic? The draftsman, cataloging the specifications of the vast assortment of ease of fabrication of a high quality plastic instrument could keep Martin models. He was involved with several prototype projects the price well under $300, while a high quality wooden and played a part in the development of Martin's solidbody instrument can cost many thousands of dollars. A small electric guitar program as well as the more recent acoustic basses. percentage sacrifice in tone might well be worth a 90% savings in In 1978, Dick was given the opportunity to develop "The 1833 dollars, dependant upon the seriousness and necessity of the Shop", and the store flourished under his direction until it split buyer. into two factions. Wholesale Telemarketing grew out of the retail Mario spent several years and a substantial amount of money accessories business, and "Woodworker's Dream" opened in the trying to perfect the unique design of his plastic violin to a point old Martin North Street plant, catering to woodworkers and that showed a consistent quality. This was no easy task. In my luthiers. The retail wood division grew rapidly and Dick was put estimation there is little doubt that Mario has succeeded. He has in charge of the "Martin Wood Products", which also taken his personal quest much further than any of us ever could encompassed the wholesale processing facility known simply as or would, and I beleive that the next century will prove how valid "The Sawmill". After becoming proficient in computers, Dick took his notions are, especially as sources for good quality wood on responsibilities in bulk string sales as well as the development vanish. The evening was a great tribute to this remarkable man, of an in house desktop publishing department. That direct and to his passion for activity and exploration within the musical involvement with advertising eventually led to his new position instrument field. as Advertising Manager.

.■xwx;- \ • • • The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans EARTH DAY 1990______CARDINAL O ’CONNER During the observance of Earth Day 1990, it seemed DEALS HEAVY METAL BLOWS appropriate for us as an association to attempt to define our unique position in the scheme of things. It is becoming evident Quite a media battle has arisen between the lover’s and that we as a group will become more and more effected by the hater’s of heavy metal music. Wearing white trunks is Cardinal ecological impact of tropical rainforest destruction, acid rain, O ’Conner who warns of the evil effects of heavy metal music and global warming, species endangerment and conservationist the musicians that play it, suggesting that such material be legislation. We will need to be prepared when our customers banned from sale or regulated with a rating system. In the other come to us with questions about what we are doing or not doing corner, an insensed rock music media ready to battle the forces to contribute to the preservation of our planet. As users of rare of censorship. Among many others, Gerald Rothberg, Editor-in- tropical timbers (among other questionable resources) we are in Chief of CIRCUS Magazine says: “When and where individuals or a precarious position. We offer some suggestions as a starting groups, well meaning or not, intrude on young p>eop>le’s rights of point and request your participation in the ongoing dialogue: musical and artistic choice, (we) will continue to be there in 1. ) Take a strong stand in opposition to the purchase of or strong and aggressive defense of those privileges.” use of ivory, walrus tusk, whale bone, or materials that will A.S.I.A. invites a mature editorial clarification of this issue. endanger the ecosystem. Refuse requests for these materials from What do you think? your customers and explain why. Impliment and promote alternative materials. 2. ) Don't waste wood. Oppose the use of wood for fuel. SOURCES______Recycle paper to prevent unnecessary forest harvesting. Use and The usual substantial listing of sources yields to this month's promote recycled products. Experiment with alternative woods two lengthly interviews... but if you have a newsletter or catalog and materials. Lobby your customers in the direction that you or know of a publication that’s pertinent to our field, please forsee will be necessary. Plant brazilian rosewood trees ! review it yourself or, if you don't trust your writing ability, send it 3. ) Reconsider your standards. Dont be arrogant in the to us: selection of your materials. Utilize what you have and respect ASIA Sources, 14 South Broad St, Nazareth, PA 18064 what you buy. Plant mahogany and spruce trees too... 4. ) Support responsible forestry management where-ever possible. Encourage your vendors to support these same efforts EDUCATIONAL UPDATE and if necessary or possible, change to vendors who have the right idea. Be willing to pay the price for doing it right. 5. ) Help the woodworking community to dispel the myths EDUCATION COMMITTEE REPORT that are developing about deforestation. Read about the Submitted by William R. Cumpiano problems. Get involved. Take a political stand. Figure out what to the Board of Directors you stand for. Write your congress person. Do the right thing ! The education committee was formed by the A.S.I.A Board during the last Board meeting. At that time, the Board named Tim Poling, David Sheppard and myself as constituent members. YOUR CALLING CARD Chris Pile is also working on the committee. Tim Poling has taken the most vigorous part in the group, OR HR PAGE AD acting as defacto Secretary of the committee, coordinating the discussions between himself and other members. I have asked WOULD LOOK GREAT him to document his conversations with the others and send IN THIS SPOT ! them to me so that I may summarize them and present them to the Board with the hope that the Board can eventually decide SEE BELOW FOR what action should be taken, in view of our resources and A.S.IA.'s "GUITARMAKER " priorities. Regardless of the pace that the Board sets, Tim, Dave, and AD RATES AND SIZES. Chris are interested in “doing” as well as “talking”, and are thus intent on setting up a rudimentary internship program right away. Indeed, Tim has ventured some seed money on his own toward this end and believes that getting something going on an informal A.S.I.A. AD RATES level, and then expanding on the theme as resources become available, is the way to go. I feel that their action-orientied Ad rates and sizes for inclusion in A.S.I.A. publications have enthusiasm merits our commendation and support. been established. Members in good standing may deduct 20% (x Other than this, the committee has to date simply exchanged .8) from the rates listed below. You may submit your p>rinter views on educational topics and has of this date no concrete ready artwork (or calling cards) to "A.S.I.A. Ads". We will provide proposal to submit for approval or disapproval to the Board. assistance in preparing members ads at no extra charge. Sizes are I suggest that the education committee be classified as a as follows: standing committee, and that it concern itself with basically three basic areas: Full Page: 7.25" x 9.75" ...... $200.00 1.) Internships— i.e. under A.S.I.A. sanction and organization, a One/Half Page: 3 5" x 9 75" or 7.25" x 4.25" ...... $105 00 group of participating professionals accept visiting students, in One/Quarter Page: 3.5" x 4.75" vertical only ...... $55 00 groups or individually into their workshops for short periods to One/Eighth Page-. 3.5" x 2.25" horizontal on ly ...... $30.00 tutor them in skills or to hone existing skills. The instructors will The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans be reimbursed for their time. This is essentially what Tim Poling’s CERTIFICATION OF REPAIR PERSONS proposal calls for but can certainly stand modification as a result of further input by the Board and by the membership. SUGGESTIONS FROM DAVID VINCENT 2. ) Accreditation— participating technicians may choose to have THE REDWING TECHNICAL INSTITUTE their work evaluated by a panel who will comment on it ’s execution. If the work conforms to certain minimum standards, Here are some of my thoughts on certification of repair then a certificate to the effect is given, which may be used by the persons. I think repairwork can be judged with reasonable technician as credentials or evidence of his competence in that fairness. I do it every day. We will have to accept that any system particular activity. will have imperfections and invariably someone will be unhappy 3. ) College of Instrument Making—an educational structure with what someone else thinks is reasonable. endowed by industry, fees, and grants. It would offer expanded Certifying repair people will be difficult and inexact. The curricula in instrument artisanry as well as fund research and question is, “Can we be accurate enough to make it worthwhile, documentation. It would produce instrument makers on the to do more good than harm?” journeyman level, accredited in instrument design and On some repair jobs, simply deciding what is correct will be construction, prepared for salaried positions in the industry, for the problem. For example, what is the correct shape for a nut? jobs in the music trades, or for self employment. The college Should the end of a fret have a 45, bevel, 60, bevel, or simply could take place wholly within an existing campus that wishes to rounded? What is correct action height? Some things can be host the program, or could simply coordinate educational judged accurately and fairly. resources that are already existing, creating smaller structures that I have to judge and grade the work of approximately 20 bridge these ongoing facilities where necesary. people on a year’s worth of various projects. This is simplified Tim Poling has identified and drawn on a magnificent somewhat because I teach them and set the standards they work resource: a professor with expertise in designing curricula whom to. Still, if a luthier can accurately adjust a neck to have .005" he knows, and who has apparently offered his services to consult relief, then he or she can probably set it at .007”. But what about on curriculum development. Tim has documented an initial the skilled luthier who accurately works by eye and never uses discussion (included) with this person I hope we can draw on the feeler gauge? his expertise again as things gel rolling. I am also including T im ’s Copying a bridge is an example where we can accurately notes on the different discussions that transpired between the judge a person's skill. At Red Wing I have a list of checkpoints for members on different topics relating to the subject. most jobs and points for each checkpoint. To judge a bridge It seems to be agreed that the issue of accreditation is copy, I check the dimensions, worth 20 points, one point off for capable of arousing a fair amount of controversy. I firmly every l/64th” error; string hole spacing worth 10 points, one believe, however, the topic is not unthinkable, since accreditation point off for every l/64th” error; smoothness and overall structures exist in many trades and are useful. It appears that the appearance worth 10 points This last one is obviously a safest course for the board is to push for membership judgement call, but smoothness can be judged. Can you see any participation in future discussions of this topic, culminating in a sanding scratches? Do they appear to be from 80, 120, 220, or 320 decision being made once and for all as to whether accreditation grit? should be actively pursued. Before this happens, I think we should try to find eloquent advocates pro and con, and publish "Certifying repair people their rationales as a springboard for member response. will be difficult and inexact. CONCLUSION The question is, The degree of ASIA’S participation in pursuing these activities must necessarily be placed in line with other priorities Can we be accurate enough to facing the organization. The critical necessity to firmly establish make it worthwhile, the organization as an ongoing, viable entity may necessarily command our group’s time and existing resources, and we might to do more good than harm?” have to choose to relegate ASIA’S educational activities to brainstorming and planning by the educational committee (and Even overall appearance can be judged. Do the curves start to it ’s self-starting shoestring/bootstrap internship program) for and stop in the same places, and are they the same approximate the time being. radius? Are the edges crisp? On the other hand, it can also be argued that getting people Feedback on what is right and on what needs improvement involved in ASIA-sanctioned educational structures might result is a necessity to make any judging system worthwhile. The in a cash flow (other than dues) that can be drawn upon to boost participants must also know in advance what the criteria in ASIA, and thus a higher priority might reasonably be accorded. judging will be. But before this view is heeded, it needs to stand up to a hard- I could also get diagnosed schizophrenic for arguing both nosed appraisal of its potential for profitability in the short-term. sides of this issue with myself. The following are some of the checklists that I use in grading students. They receive these in advance of doing the job to give "Work is work if you’re paid to do it, them some idea of what I consider important and what I will look at when I grade them. and it ’s pleasure if you pay to be allowed to do it." REFRET CHECKLIST 1. ) clean removal of frets Finley P. Dunne (1867-1936) 2. ) fingerboard properly prepared (straight lengthwise, proper 8 mmmmmmMmsmmmmmmmmmMmmmm The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans arch across, and defects repaired) 3. ) frets fully set (no gap under the bead of the fretwire) INTERVIEWS ______4. ) fret ends (flush with the edge of the fingerboard, properly beveled at a 45, angle, and no sharp edges) MARK DRONGE 5. ) fret level (frets level, properly crowned and polished) DECEMBER 1, 1989 (PART ONE) Each item is worth 10 points A-50-45; B-44-40; 039-35; D-34-30 Interviewed by Yuri Dmitrievsky Transcribed by William Cumpiano GUITAR SADDLE CHECKLIST Edited by Dick Boak 1. ) height of all the strings. 1 point off for every l/64th" error 2. ) fit [BKIUTFIY bYYEbl BbLUEKIlIYMblJIH] 3. ) intonation. 1 point off for every 2 cents error 4. ) smoothness and overall appearance MD: My father, Al Dronge, was born in Warsaw. He came to the Each item is worth 10 points. United States when he was a child. He didn't have much formal A-40-36; B-35-32; C-31-28; D-27-24 education. He was working by the time he was twelve years old. Yuri: He was Polish? GUITAR NUT CHECKLIST MD: Well, w e ’re Jewish. We d o n ’t really think of ourselves as 1. ) fit to the fingerboard and the shelf Polish. His family went to France, and lived there for a little 2. ) angle of the top of the nut while until he was four or five years old, and then he came here. 3. ) string spacing So he was working very early, and one of his first jobs was in a 4. ) string height off the first fret (.002" with string fretted music store in Lower Manhattan. He was always interested in between 2nd and 3rd frets) music. 5. ) height of the nut (the depth of the slots should be 1/2 of the Yuri: Great! full diameter of the wound strings, except on the octave strings of MD: He played banjo, and later on he played jazz guitar. He a 12-string set where the top of the string may sit below the top of worked in a music store, and eventually he got some money the nut) together. He had a partner who was named Sagman. They had a 6. ) smoothness store on Park Row. That store is now Jimmy’s Music, a big record 7. ) overall appearance store. They had a normal music store. Everything... drums Each item is worth 10 points horns... and little by little he bought his partner out. His partner A-70-63; B-62-56; C-55-50; D-49-45 wanted to do something else. Then right after the war—and you have to understand, in BRIDGE REPLACEMENT CHECKLIST this country everybody who wasn’t in the army in the war made a 1. ) clean removal, minimum of spruce off the top, no lacquer lot of money, especially in the music business. He did very well, chipped off and right after the war an Italian guy came in and said, “I’d like 2. ) fit (no gaps around the edges) you to buy my accordions.” So he bought some accordions, or 3. ) accurate placement (square to center line, correct placement maybe he got them on consignment, I d o n ’t know, but all of a for intonation, and centered) sudden he was selling so many accordions, and he was selling to 4. ) cleanup (no glue left on bridge or on top) other dealers, going around the East Coast selling. It was Each item is worth 10 points. fantastic, at that time the accordions were crazy! So he slopped A-40-36; B-35-32; C-31-28; D-27-24 the music store, and he became an importer and distributor for accordions. He kept getting bigger and bigger and it was terrific! BRIDGE COPY CHECKLIST 1. ) dimensions (possible 20 points, 1 point off for every l/64th” error) 2. ) string hole spacing (10 p>oints possible, 1 p>oint off for every "The reason they named it Guild 1/64" error) was because of the craftsmen’s guilds. 3. ) smoothness and overall appearance (10 p»ints possible) They said there was A-40-36; B-35-32; C-31-28; D-27-24 a certain quality to the name." BOW HAIR CHECKLIST 1. ) fittings and stick clean and px>lished About this time a friend of his named George Mann was the 2. ) hair length, even and correct length sales manager for Ep>hiphone guitars. And Epiphone had a strike. 3. ) ribbon, hair evenly spread the full width of the ferrule with a The strike was nine months long and it destroyed them. They minimum of crossed hairs were two Greek brothers, one was named Epi, and I think one of 4. ) tip plug, fit and shap>e them had a heart attack during this time, or got very sick—I 5. ) frog plug, fit and shap>e don't know what happened...they were not going to go back in 6. ) knots, tight and correct length for the bow business. It was finished, it was over. 7. ) playability, the hair must be rosined and the bow play must Yuri: And at that time Gibson bought them? be tested MD: Long, long after that. Many years after that. Not around this Each item is worth 5 p>oints. time, not at least maybe for eight years, ten years. My father was convinced by George Mann to start up a guitar company with some of the workers from the Epiphone factory. The key guys: D avid Vincent heads up the stringed instrument repair the foremen, the finishing people, some of the craftsmen. They program fo r the Redwing Technical Institute in Redwing, MN. set up a place on Lower Manhattan, on Pearl Street, between 9 The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

Foley Square and Broadway. It was very close to where the store D’Angelico said no, no, no. And finally he said, I w o n ’t do it had been. And they started making Guild guitars. because I d o n ’t have the wood. I only have small wood for The reason they named it Guild was because of the violins. My father went out bought the right size wood and the craftsmen’s guilds, they said there was a certain quality to the very first jazz guitar that D’Angelico built was built for my father. name. They started doing this and it seemed to go well. There That's a story, I d o n ’t know for sure if it is true, but I heard it from wasn't a lot of competition, there was only Gretsch and Gibson. more than one source. Gibson was enormously powerful, and Gretsch...it was there but The SECOND part is, when we started to make really good it w a sn ’t important: they sold a lot but they w e r e n ’t real strong. guitars, we made a guitar named the Artist Award, which became And he started to do pretty well. the Johnny Smith. Well, Johnny Smith was a D’Angelico player They had a lot of trouble though, with the finish. I remember and owner. It was a couple of things: Guild became good eighty guitars coming back from the midwest distributor at ONE enough to compete with D’Angelico, and second, we took away time. All the finishes had cracked. All. Beautiful finishes, the best player D’Angelico had. And from that moment on he beautiful guitars. GREAT necks. You look at an old fingerboard wouldn't talk to my father. He was really mad about it. of an Epiphone, the Guild is the same. The inlay, the abalone Yuri: I’m interested in stories about the factory. Stories about vee, the two double lines of inlay on either side, the same like the Gibson wanting to buy Guild, and... old Epiphone. And the early Guilds had that same Epiphone MD: Okay, I can bring you up to date. In my time, which was the neck, the same feel. It gradually changed, it became more what sixties (I joined in I960, and left in ’68) what happened basically, my father liked, and what he felt. We both have small hands, so was the guitar business was a small business, a sleepy business, we like to have an easy-playing neck. And we both play: he but you made a living, it was O.K., it w a sn ’t bad, and got bigger played more than I do. little by little. I got into the company and learned about guitars Little by little, certain things developed, and he learned more before the rock and roll thing became really big when Elvis and more about making guitars. It was something he d id n ’t Presley and the Beatles, and folk music came in about the same know. And little by little, he got better people. I think the Epi time, so it got really big. My contribution, basically, was the folk people must have been pretty good craftsmen as hands-on instruments, the rock instruments...we made amplifiers for a people, because the people my father had were not really as while. I d o n ’t know if you ever saw those, but they were pretty good until the second generation workers... until he got rid of interesting. We got much bigger very fast. them all and he got his own. But the craftsmen making the My father was quite a business man, as well as getting good at WOOD parts, they stayed for years. For YEARS. They were great. guitarmaking. He sold the company twice. First, he took the I remember one guy, his name was Little Louie. This man company and he went on the stock market with it. He went must have been about four and a half feet tall. He was great—he public, he sold some part of the company to the public, and he was bending sides, he was making sides, some tops, he did a lot kept a lot of it. Then he sold the company again to another of sanding with a belt sander. He was one of the original company named “Avnet". So he became fairly well-to-do. Fairly Epiphone p>eople. I knew him for at least eight years myself, when I joined the company. There were a few people like that, in the woodworking department. Woods Company Department GT Box 532 Sicklerville, NJ 08081 "...little by little, my father got to know more about the craft,

and he would take the guitars Phone (609) 728-5555 out at night to jazz people..." (800) GIDWANI (For Orders Only) Telex: 9102507962 FAX: (609) 728-6262

The history went on. I guess it was a big struggle, but little by MANUFACTURERS, IMPORTERS & DISTRIBUTERS OF little, my father got to know more about the craft, and he would MUSICAL INSTRUMENT WOODS take the guitars out at night to jazz p>eople, and they would come & MOTHER OF PEARL INLAYS up to the factory. It was the only factory in New York City. He got better and better. Gibson was a big competitor— it w a sn ’t Specializing in Fingerboards (Ebony & Rosewood) easy. When I joined the company in I960, we already had a little Rosewood Backs & Sides (Ebony & Rosewood) success. We were established but not really a p>ower. It’s hard to Peghead Veneers (Ebony & Rosewood) explain... Flamed Maple, Birdseye Maple, I also have to tell you a very interesting small story. I d o n ’t & Rock Maple Body Blanks know if this is true. But I suspect it ’s true. John D'Angelico was a friend of my fa th e r ’s. They were friends for many years. John Most Sizes Are In Stock. D'Angelico gave him some advice. He never went to the factory, but my father would go talk to him. He would show him stuff. Inquiries For Custom Sizes Are Welcome. My father wanted a guitar made by D’Angelico. The story was that D'Angelico was [at that time] a violin maker; not a guitar Satisfaction Guaranteed Or Your Money Back. maker, in the beginning. My father said, listen, y o u ’re the best, and I want a jazz guitar from you. I know you can make me a great jazz guitar. Because the shap>e of a jazz guitar is the shap>e Please Write For Our Price List of a violin. You understand woods. I know you can do it. And The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans wealthy, not very, but a little wealthy. financially. He was doing terrific. They moved the factory to Then about this time there was...I made a little money, so I Rhode Island, because it was far enough that he would have to said, you know, it's enough, I want to do other things in life. You travel by plane and there they could find good workers. know it ’s difficult working for a very strong father. Especially Otherwise, it was a very silly thing to go so far, I mean, look, the when you wind up with some degree of...competition. He was first move was from New York to a subway stop in New Jersey. very strong, and I wanted to do certain things, and it was easier T H A T ’S smart. Moving to Rhode Island was a little crazy. But he to go out and see what else was out in the world for me. So I left could fly his plane back and forth. He could live in New York when we were in Hoboken, the first factory was in New York. and fly his plane up there. And he had a house up there...he We needed some more room. We needed to move, and so we loved that. went to Hoboken, which was only across the river by subway One day he had a little accident and he d id n ’t walk away. He from where we were. We expanded into a nice place, and then flew up to Rhode Island to visit the factory. The weather was bad we had to expand again. and he crashed. And that was the end. After I left and after he died, Guild became a different kind of "I knew Bob Weir company. When I was there, we made classic guitars. We made o f the Grateful Dead, jazz guitars. We made rock and roll guitars. Yuri: And acoustic guitars, steel strings. and then I met Eric Clapton... MD: And acoustic guitars. Well, th a t’s what we became famous I knew just about everybody!" for. Which is very strange, because th a t’s not how we started out, and that's not what we were when I was there. I was responsible My father had taken up flying as a hobby. He loved to fly. As for the twelve-string guitar. I was responsible for the Guild a matter of fact he had said that in another lifetime he would have dreadnought guitar. I was responsible for the electric bass, the been a pilot. Later on, when I came back in '83, Guild was StarFire bass. I was responsible for double-cutaway StarFires— owned by this other company, a big company, and it was dying. not single-cutaway, but double-cutaway. My father was totally Yuri: What was the name of the company? responsible for jazz guitars and classical guitars. Those were his MD: Avnet. A very, very big electronics company—supplies, areas. And we had a beautiful balance of different instruments. parts. They are the biggest distributor of electronic parts for We were known for this balance. But somehow, later on, all we industry in America, and why they had a guitar factory...it's a long came to be known for was acoustic guitars. And when acoustic story. They were a conglomerate. They owned Garrard record guitars were selling fantastically in the seventies, business at changers. They owned a lot of things. They bought Guild Guild was doing great. because they thought that leisure time activity would become very, very big. But the music business, as far as overall, will "He flew up to Rhode Island never be so big. Any way, I left in 1968 and there was nobody else really at that company who had a real idea...who spent a lot to visit the factory. of time with musicians any more. The weather was bad and he crashed. I did. I lived in Greenwich Village, in the sixties, and I knew And that was the end." everybody, because every night I would go out, walk around a couple of blocks, and all the clubs were there. I lived in the area, and I knew Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, and then I met Eric Then the acoustic business dropped dead. Heavy Metal came Clapton... I knew just about everybody ! Bob Weir was my in and th a t’s when they called me, and said, we want you to special friend. As a matter of fact in the winter of '68 the Dead come back. 1 was doing something else—I was a producer of came to New York, they knew nobody, they had no money, and television commercials and I loved the business. I was happy, but they came to record at Gotham Recording. They needed a place everybody said, you gotta go do this. You c a n ’t let Guild die: my to stay and I had moved from Greenwich Village to New Jersey. I sister and my mother and my wife and my brother-in-law. My lived in a huge house. We had about ten bedrooms. We were brother-in-law and my wife...my wife's family is Levin guitars just renting it. It was a fun, crazy thing to do. And the Dead from Sweden. came to live there for a month while they were recording. Yuri: Ooh. Interesting. Everybody had their own room, it was terrific for them. And they MD: And here it was called Goya guitars. Yeah, and my brother- had a lot of fun. in-law picked up the phone one day, from Frankfurt, and he But I knew everybody... The Loving Spoonful; they were big called me and he said, you gotta go back. I said, what do you then. Clapton was in and we did a thing with Clapton. There mean, I gotta go back? He said, th e y ’re going to sell, it ’s going to were so many groups. We did things with Jefferson Airplane at die, th e y ’re going to close the doors, it’s going to be finished: the time. There were the folk people. I forget a lot of them, but I YOU have to go back. I said, come on, you know, leave me was one of the only young people in the guitar business at that alone. I made guitars, it ’s not my real thing, it’s m y fa th er’s thing. time. Gibson was in Kalamazoo, Michigan. There was nobody in I’m making a living and doing very nice: I’m happy. It was a field New York. Martin was in Pennsylvania, so when anybody wanted where nobody knew my father and every reputation for the name anything, I was around and I used to take people to the factory in Dronge is ME and MY work. And I LIKE that and no one says, Hoboken. It was easy coming from New York. I took Duane your father this, and your father that...nobody says that. Eddy to the factory, I took Merle Travis to the factory, and it was (Chuckles) And I LIKE it. I d o n ’t want to go back. fun. My contributions to the company were the folk guitarists, But everybody said, you gotta go back, and then they offered the rock and roll guitarists. me, really, a very nice contract to go back. And I said, okay. I When I left, they moved the factory. They needed to expand, went back in ’83, to a dying company. It was only about sue or and my father was a pilot, and he was looking to have fun. He seven people, and no sales. Guild got to be interesting again. had made a lot of money and he was relaxed. It didn't matter if We made a very low priced dreadnought guitar and that took off. the business was going. to die, or not die. He was safe and secure And we saved the company with that one guitar. We had no / The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans binding, and no Finish. All mahogany. And we made them in big spruce top or a maple top, or something, you know, hollow. The quantities, and we saved the company. same principle as the M-75. And I liked that guitar. We h a d n ’t Yuri: Great. made it for years. And George said, oh I have a better idea, and MD: And we made a mini-jazz guitar. We took a jazz guitar and he convinced me to make chambers instead and to make it look we shrunk it down into a little guitar, and that became a nice like a Les Paul. It’s funny, I was very involved with the financing, thing. And then we started with rock and roll guitars, solid body trying to buy the company, and these people got hostile. electrics. And little by little...we had some success. We had a Towards me. I d id n ’t pay too much attention, I let George do Motley Crue model. That helped us. And then it died, but at least what he wanted to do. And I think he did a pretty good job with it helped us for a while. We sold lot of those. And we had EMG the idea that I gave him about bringing back the Aristocrat. But 1 pickups. Those were much better quality than we had ever used. still think the original Aristocrat would be a better idea. And we started to improve the woods. We had flamed maple With my new guitar company, one of the models we want to when we could get it and quilted maple. And then I came out make is that model. We have many hot designs. W e’re going to with this bass. I designed this bass, and I found all the hardware do something very, very interesting with our new company. One for it and I named it after my father: “the P ilo t ”. little footnote I have to tell you, the people that George introduced me to were from the South; Tennessee. They decided I designed this bass, that the company was really running pretty well, I made too much money and they could show more profit if they didn't help and I found all the hardware for it me buy the company. And of course, they did buy the company and I named it after my father: unfortunately. “the Pilot” It had basically taken me two years to turn the company around and really get exciting. We had Brian May and Flliolt Easton from the Cars. We had Twisted Sister playing our stuff and And then my three year contract was coming to an end. I was Motley Crue... looking to find some people to help me finance the company and Yuri: And Guild built a Brian May guitar? to buy it from the people who owned it at the time. I had gotten MD: Yes. I was with Brian in the factory. We help>ed DiMarzio a little bit friendly with George Gruhn and I brought him in to develop Brian May pickups, we had a lot of fun, we had a lot of help us re-design the acoustics. George wanted to re-design p>eople coming, we had everybody talking about Guild, there was everything. I said, no George. You c a n ’t re-design everything. a real excitement again about Guild. Plus we made a lot of very You can re-design the inside bracing a little bit. He showed me nice guitars. The mini Manhattan jazz guitar we started making, some ideas, and I understood what he was talking about. I said, and in one year the southerners who had come in made such a fine. W e’ll take some of your advice. The decoration was very mess, the company was really in trouble. In a year and a half, important to him. they were desperately trying to sell the company. In two years We wanted to make a new F-series guitar like the F-40, which they went bankrupt. The first company that tried to buy them was is an old favorite guitar. It's a jumbo but not a huge jumbo like Gibson. the F-50. I told George: “Yo u ’re not going to get a different size or shape. I t ’s got to be Guild-shape, and this is it. And the "In a year and a half, jumbos, the dreadnoughts, we have a fine shape. Y o u ’re not they were desperately trying going to touch that. Talk to us about the interior bracing and we'll put certain decoration you want on it and w e ’ll call them to sell the company. Gruhn models because it ’ll help Guild step up a little bit In two years and...yes, w e ’re doing something new.” But in fact, he d id n ’t they went bankrupt." contribute new designs. Or construction principles. Or sound principles. What he did was show us how to make guitars the Martin way. The company desperately needed money. So these brilliant Yuri: I see. guys decided that they d id n ’t need a Dronge running the MD: And how to use some of the Martin bracing patterns like company, and that was evidence of how smart they were. Final scalloped braces. We did scalloped bracing, but not exactly like evidence was they killed the company. Martin. George is not original. George is a collector and The other thing that I did at the company was, I was always historian. But h e ’s not an innovator. looking for new products, new markets, new business: anything to help Guild, to build up Guild. Anything that would make us exciting. I found the Hartkc speaker. The aluminum-coned "I said, no George. speaker. When I found them, they were making two speakers, You c a n ’t re-design everything." three speakers a month— now its over a million-dollar company, th e y ’re doing terrific—and when I left, Hartke left too. They said, Yuri: How about the electric guitars with the chambers.. “no, no, no, no. These guys d o n ’t want this guy running the MD: You mean the Bluesbird, or the Nightbird. I had an idea to company? There must be something wrong with them." So they make a new guitar and I told George about it. And George said, went and got a new distributor. naw, I have a better idea...or he thought about it and then he And we had a lot of fun with Hartke. We had Jaco Pastorius said, no I want to do a different thing. I was very involved with playing Guild Pilot bass and we had Darryl Jones, w h o ’s with the people financing...who I met through George. I wanted to Miles Davis. All this stuff was going on, and we also had them on make the old Aristocrat. I d o n ’t know if you know that guitar. Hartke speakers. It was called Guild/Hartke. And all that just The M-75- T h a t’s what I wanted to make. I said to George one went away, pfft...and when the company went bankrupt, Randall night, he called me always [snores) and I said, I want to make the Amplifiers bought it. And what th e y ’re doing with it, I d o n ’t Aristocrat. That would be an interesting guitar and I think the know. I hop>e th e y ’re doing well. time is right for a small guitar, for a hollow-body with a thick Yuri: But Guild still exists and builds guitars? The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

MD: Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. happiened exactly. My brother-in-law left and eventually Martin Yuri: Still in Rhode Island? closed the Levin factory. They sold the name and now somebody MD: Still in Rhode Island. I hope th e y ’ll do good. else in Sweden makes a hundred guitars a year or so and they call (later) them Levin. MD: Everything in our house is Swedish. Our kids have Swedish But th a t’s how my wife and I met, through the music business. names. They look Swedish. The furniture is Swedish. The piano Yuri: It’s a nice story. is Swedish. The cars are Swedish. Only me: I’m from the Bronx. MD: Y eah...it’s the kind of thing that makes you think. Their was My w ife ’s great-grandfather started Levin. And Levin started in no question we were MEANT to get married. As a matter of fact, New York. His name was Herman Carlsen. He came to America. one of the first things I did after I got married... I bought a Levin. I believe he was a young man, maybe fourteen or fifteen years It was a G -10 with beautiful birch sides and back. A very nice old. It was a very hard time in Sweden. Everybody left Sweden guitar. We had a lot of fun. We have our children now: Camilla and came to America: something like thirty-three percent of the and Annika . country came to America. They had a terrible famine. Yuri: And now, you want to start a new guitar company? He came to America, and his family came. He became MD: Oh yes. We have a couple of ideas. First we have a design apprenticed to a guitarmaker in Manhattan. I think it was on East for a guitar that we feel is the next step forward in electric guitars. 74th Street, which has very, very expensive apartments now. It is something we d o n ’t really like to talk about, because w e ’re They had a factory there. He learned to make guitars and he took not quite ready to produce it. But it ’s patented. We sp>ent a lot of the name Levin. It was usual in those days for an apprentice to time and money on the patent. And we think we have a design, take the m a ste r ’s last name. But we d o n ’t know for sure th a t’s but we also have an accessory on the guitar that we think is as what he did. When he went to America his name was Herman important as the Floyd Rose vibrato. It’s not a vibrato. And we Carlsen. And when he returned to Sweden it was Herman think we will have very big interest among guitar players. Carlsen Levin. Yuri: Among all rock players? He started Levin guitars in Gothenburg, Sweden. I believe it MD: Yes, among rock players. But not just rock players. And was about 1903, but I ’m really not positive. And then her good players as well as beginners I think will like it and enjoy it. grandfather joined the company. His name was Hartvig Levin. It’s a very simple thing to use. When you see it you say...Hmmm! He had two brothers, one of whom is still alive, whom I ’ve met Absolutely. I understand that. It ’s terrific. many times. His name is Robert Levin. Then my brother-in-law, But w e ’re not ready to produce it yet, so we d o n ’t like to talk Goran Levin, went into the business. I met my father-in-law and too much about it. You can be sure that you will see a Dronge my brother-in-law at the Frankfurt Fair long before I met my wife. I met my wife at a Chicago NAMM show. "You can be sure that you will In 1967, she was a stewardess for Pan Am. She never had a see a Dronge guitar soon." "...on the low end the Harmony and Kay companies both died guitar soon. We also have a number of ideas about jazz guitars, and acoustic guitars, and although it ’s going to take a lot of time when Japanese guitars hit the market." and effort, we do plan to make a Dronge Guitar Company. Yuri: Great! flight to Chicago before, and she never had a flight afterwards. MD: We have started with a new string. A hand-made string. And just at that time I met her. Jerry Hirschman was a distributor Which is very interesting, it ’s called “DR” Handmade Strings of Goya guitars. They had re-named Levin for the American Yuri: Is it after your name? market. Harry Hirschman, his brother Ed, and his nephew Jerry MD: Y es... D for Dronge and the R is from Ben Zion Rappapjort. I were running this company. They had a nephew, Mark have two partners, Rappaport and Schell. We have a string that's Hirschman. They owned the company. We all knew each other, made differently. I t ’s hand-wound of course. I explained to you since they were from 23rd Street in Manhattan. So we were New about the compression winding. You have more metal in the Yorkers, we all knew each other, we were all friendly. So Jerry same gauge. introduced me to my wife, whose name is Elizabeth. Well, th a t’s Yuri: I would love to take it to Russia. just a family thing. MD: We will send you more, and you will have fun. It’s a very As far as the guitar part, my brother-in-law Goran kept the long-lasting string, it ’s good. And then we have the idea to, Levin program going and then business got a little tough. The because we're small and we're hand-made, we can do anything. Japanese came in and it became very difficult for Levin to We are going to bring out a chart and a little booklet, how you complete against their pirices. The Americans managed somehow can order your own strings, with whatever kind of gauge wrap to complete on the high end, but on the low end the Harmony you want and whatever kind of gauge CORE you want. We will and Kay companies both died when Japanese guitars hit the make custom....we call it “Made to Measure.” Like a pair of market. clothes are made to measure. Harmony was the biggest guitar company in the world. They I ’ve been distributing TC electronics: p>edals, delays, had railroad cars filled with lumber coming into the factory. The equalizers— automated equalizers, from Denmark, some very fine tracks went right into the factory. They were so big and the equipment. Now my interest is more in making this guitar Japanese just killed them. Now t h e r e ’s nothing left of Harmony. company, so I c a n ’t continue to sp>end full time with them. But My brother-in-law felt this also, and they had a lot of trouble. we are also going to manufacture the TC p>edal, under another So he began talks with the Martin Guitar Company, and Martin name. T h a t’s going to be part of the Dronge Guitar Company. bought the Levin factory. Gorin worked for Martin for about two Their quality is marvelous, but their prices are really prohibitive or three years. As a matter of fact, they were making some parts for the average musician, who just c a n ’t afford to sp>end four for Martin, and they were distributing Martin in Europe. But it hundred dollars for a chorus p>edal. The cost of making anything d id n ’t go well. They had some difficulties, I d o n ’t know what in Denmark is enormous. (Continued on page 14) M aple O ak Ply The Latest D esign s From Steve Klein

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Mark Dronge presenting Beatle John Lennon with Guild "StarFire" twelve string electric while jealous and George Harrison looks on

(Continued from page 11)

MD: I will show you one picture tonight. The high point of the conference in 1964, at the Warwick Hotel, one of the first times whole time at Guild was not the Grateful Dead. It was not Eric they had come here. I think it was their first tour. It was at the Clapton. It was not making twelve-string guitars or introducing press conference where somebody asked Ringo, “what do you new stuff or selling tons and tons of stuff at a trade show. THAT call your hair?" and he said, “Fred.” I came up from the audience was not the high point. The high point of the whole time is when to give the guitar to John Lennon. George Harrison thought the I met the Beatles... and I presented John Lennon with a StarFire guitar was for him. And I walked behind him, and he got really twelve-string electric guitar. That was absolutely the high point. mad. He got really sour in his face. Of course, he was not the Here is the picture. That was absolutely the most fun moment of one playing twelve-string, it was John. So th a t’s why I gave it to the entire time. him. Yuri: And did they use it? MD: I have absolutely no idea. But the guitar has surfaced. 1 (7'o be continuedj think it ’s in the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles. It was presented Part Two of the Mark Dronge Interview will appear in a to them from someone in the Beatle family. Either Yoko Ono or subsequent issue of"GUITARMAKF.R". Paul McCartney or somebody in the Beatle organization. It was We wish to thank our international correspondent in the all flamed maple veneer, amber finish with D ’Arm o n d pickups. I USSR, Yuri Dmitrievsky, as well as Mark Dronge, and William think they were D ’Arm on d 2000’s. It was a beautiful guitar. Whether they used it or not, I have no idea. And the funny thing Cumpiano for their efforts in producing this informative and was, when I went to present it to the Beatles, it was a press historical piece. Photo courtesy o f Mark Dronge. (Circa 1964) The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans LECTURE: PAUL REED SMITH

Transcribed and edited by William R. Cumpiano from Paul's talk at Symposium '89

Introduction by Dick Boak: I t ’s with great pride that I introduce the next speaker, who promises to roll through a barrage o f subjects which will leave you filled with ideas fo r your shop environment. I went down to Thompson Mahogany, where people acquire mahogany in large quantitites, and I kept seeing these piles of lumber marked "PRS.“ I didn't know what it meant, really. Then I started seeing players on the cover of Guitar Player magazine, one after another, playing these beautiful guitars. The guitars seemed to be so unbelievably sensitive to what guitar players really wanted. / began to develop a respect and a fascination with PRS Guitars and a desire to meet the man behind it. He seem ed like a mystery. After meeting him, he remains a mystery—a likable one. He really has made a drastic impact on the market in what I thought to be a very quick time. Actually, Paul tells me that it took him years and years o f hard work, like everybody else. He's going to tell you all about it. Please give a rousing applause fo r Paul Reed Smith:

Wow! When I was asked to speak here, it seemed like such an honor to me: to speak to those whom I see as my peers— other instrument makers who worked in tiny garret shops on top of buildings, in places no bigger than bathrooms, trying to make magical instruments. Its an honor to be here, I honestly appreciate it. I wanted to say something really quickly about Steve Klein. Steve Klein would always come to NAMM shows and bring instruments to my booth. My jaw would always drop, because the workmanship was unbelievable. It was just a joy and an honor. When I was in the car today, Dick said that Ren Ferguson was going to speak. He was an inspiration to me. There was an article in Guitar Player years and years ago about someone who had made John McLaughlin a double neck and I knew that Rex Bogue was taking credit for it, but Ren had actually built it. I wanted to meet him here. We were eating cafeteria food together, and I was asking him all the questions that I wanted to ask, you know: how did ya get those apprentices to work for nothing for all those years? It was an article of major impact for me. I guess I really appreciate, in some way, Ren, that you make guitars, because it was another stepping stone for me, to really want to do what I ’ve done so far and I appreciate it. Also, there are two other people here, Ned Steinburger, who I think is about the most dangerous person in the musical instrument business, because if anybody is capable to come up with something new, that works, th a t’s great, th a t’s marketable, that is Ned. And Jim Rickard, who worked so hard at Ovation, and now at D’Addario, developing amazing things. If you guys get a chance to talk to them, I recommend that you do. I h a v e n ’t spoke to Jim since I've been here, but I’d like to talk to him before I leave. 17 The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

Also, Roger Sadowsky is going to speak, who is one of New I built a bunch of Les Paul Junior copies back there and my Y o rk ’s guitar gurus. I ’ve had a phone relationship with him, and father fought me the entire time telling me what a huge mistake I an occasional face to face; and D ic k ’s just been a pleasure. I was making. The whole time he screamed and yelled at me, he wanted to say something about that. d id n ’t want me to become a guitarmaker because he thought I My goal for this talk is to try to give you as much useable would just hibernate in a little room and never deal with people information that you can take home—and change your shops— and he thought it would be really bad. as possible. And also, I want to spend a little bit of time on the I ’ve actually turned it into something where I'm dealing with history of how we got to where we are. I think w e ’re a team of people constantly, my whole job is about that, and h e ’s finally people; not just one person. And I want to talk about the many proud of me. It took me eight years, maybe ten years to earn his teachers I ’ve had and a lot of practical information about shop respect. Maybe I ’ll make more money than him... I ’ll really get it. tools, patents and trademarks...I also have a fun story about But not yet... anyway... I’m not there yet. Fender bass necks, which I want to talk about, because they Anyway, so I started a little repair shop in Annapolis, and always bend at the body, and nobody ever understands why and about once a month I built an electric guitar and most of the we always fight it all year long, and I want to actually draw a other time I did all the repairs no one in Washington or Baltimore picture—there’s a story behind that—and answer a bunch of could do. So if they had a repair, like a Firebird with the questions. So I ’ll just get started. headstock glued three times back on with Fox-E-Poxy, th e y ’d send it to ME. You know, y o u ’ve seen these nightmarish repairs, ...m y father said: “You ’re going we all do them, right? And I said, “sure, I can fix it,” and th e y ’d leave, and I’d g o , ”Oh my God, how in the world am I going fix to becom e a mathematician,” this?” and I’m going: So I took all the repairs that nobody knew how to do— and I “I want to becom e a guitarmaker!” didn't know how to do them either— but I w a sn ’t going to tell THEM: I needed the rent money! So I’d take the fifty bucks, the down payment, you know. I started building guitars in college. Actually, I got a job at I had it down to an art, man! I was living on two dollars a day. Washington Music Center repairing them for about a year or so. I I had fish sandwiches morning and evening: a dollar a pop)—and went to college and I was a math major because my father always water. I had it down! No money, and did these repairs that told me I should be a math major since I was in the crib, and so I nobody else would do: like Telecasters that had been refretted went to college to become a math major even though I used to fifteen times. You know, you'd take the frets out...you d o n ’t get a have math nightmares. chisel and a soldering iron to get them out, you just kinda pull I used to get these cluster migraines and I’d be laying in bed ’em out, each one of them. And then you put the new ones in— beating my head against the wall with all these numbers going you fill the slot with glue, and bend it to the radius: you'd push through my head. I was sure it was because of what my father ’em in, the glue would squirt out and y o u ’d pray like hell. said: “Yo u ’re going to become a mathematician,” and I'm going: “I want to become a guitarmaker!” So I knew what I wanted to do, but he knew what he wanted ”A lot of them were for famous people: me to do, so it took me about a year and a half to figure out when Carlos Santana, I went to college that I d id n ’t really want to go to college. What I Al DiMeola, really wanted to be was a guitarmaker. I went to the music teacher and I brought him a whole bunch of pieces of wood, and Peter Frampton..." I said, “I’m going to make this into a guitar. Can I get four credits for an independent study project?” And he said, yeah, and he I did all of these repairs that NOBODY wanted, you know. said, “We’ll have the guitar teacher grade it.” Anyway, I must have built, like, ten or twenty or thirty or forty or So I spent a whole semester in the basement of the art sixty guitars by the end of the ten-year repair shop— one a building, making a guitar that looked very much like a single­ month. A lot of them were for famous people: Carlos Santana, Al cutaway Les Paul Junior and my first girlfriend left me while I was DiMeola, Peter Frampton... building it. I was in great pain (chuckles)...I literally built this I used to go to the Capitol Center and hunt roadies down, thing in tears, you know, in my basement. when the trucks drove up, and show them the guitars at twelve I d id n ’t have anything to level the neck with, so I borrowed a noon, and wait around all day for the musicians to show up. I huge mirror and taped sandpaper straight up to it, because it was can remember I built a guitar for Peter Frampton and he was on the most level thing I could find...I literally gnawed the thing out the road somewhere and I c o u ld n ’t get it to him, so I was with my teeth. I ended up getting an “A” on it and quit college showing it to everybody: the guy in Little Feat, Lowell George; I and started a little shop in my mother and fa th e r ’s house. They showed it to Al DiMeola, I showed it to all these people. were so nuts, they let me put a spray booth in my bedroom. God, I hope Peter forgives me for this, but...Al DiMeola picked I had two Lasko fans—these cheap fans from K-Mart— in the up Peter Frampton’s guitar and he says “Peter Frampton?” I window, spraying lacquer thru the door. It was unbelievable! says,"right”. This was like in the days of “Return to F o r e v e r ”, you This was a rugged bedroom...I had a wood shop in there! My know, th e y ’d get standing ovations before they ever played. And brother was doing the inlay work. When I think back on it, I h e ’s holding the guitar, he goes: must have been CRAZY! 1 would NEVER let my kids do this! “You mean, like (mimics] 'I want youuuu...t’show me da w a y ’" I can tell you some nightmarish stories. Just as a side-step, I This is Al DiMeola, right: “...showww me da way...” and h e ’s had a boss at Washington Music who would spray lacquer in the like imitating him, and h e ’s like, being unbelievably... WEIRD. BATHROOM...with a CIGAR in his mouth. And all of a sudden he starts to play the guitar. "Marty, w h a t’re you DOIN'?” “Not bad..." “Shut up. Go back to work.” So I w a sn ’t selling guitars, all I was doing was taking The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans instruments and putting them in p e o p le ’s hands and hoping that on a limb it was unbelievable. the experience of playing them would get them interested in Like Federal Express did the same thing. I heard they told the using them. In one in ten times I would get a fish on the line. banks they had the airplanes, and told the airplanes they had the For every one time I sold a guitar to Carlos Santana, or Al banks. They d id n ’t have either. So the banks went, okay—you DiMeola, or Heart or whoever, I got ten people got the airplanes, w e ’ll give you the money. And the airplanes going.ppprrrrrppppp! come and they said, okay, you got the banks, w e ’ll give you the So it w a sn ’t for lack of trying. So I finally came up with a money. So they took the money, traded hands and they got model that I thought was marketable. Something I felt was the Federal Express. He was just so far out on a limb he c o u ld n ’t see right weight, that was the right shape, that had the right tremolo, straight. I knew just what they were talking about. that had the right inlays— that was something that wasn't an We raised the money and shipped in August. And we started esoteric wood-shop guitar: this was something that I could shipping about sixty guitars a month in the beginning and we're actually go to market with. shipping about three hundred guitars a month now. I think it will So, the whole time I was spending my evenings from like nine go up to about four or five hundred guitars a month. We have o ’clo c k until two in the morning at the drafting table drafting all about fifty people working there. I t ’s ten thousand square feet of the machines, to build them, drafting all the body shapes. PACKED area—were completely out of room. But th a t’s basically Basically, I drew the whole thing out in machinist’s terms, not in how I got from little shop to big factory. A very condensed, woodworking terms. Everything was in thousandths—all the R e a d e r ’s Digest version. I ’ve got many little stories in the midst of drawings we had were good machinist's drawings. And I went it. I just wanted to give you guys an idea of how that happened: on the road, and took about three hundred thousand dollars everybody said, "Y ’kn o w he just kinda came out of nowhere," worth of orders. and the truth is that we worked our tails off in a tiny little room I had two guitars: I had the yellow one in the first brochure, for years and years and years working on this product. and the white one in the first brochure. And there were only I ’ve always had the theory that you could rent any bad two—nobody else knew there were only two. None of the guys I apartment and sit in one of the rooms in the apartment and work was selling to knew I had only two. We took about three on something hard enough and get it worked out long enough hundred thousand dollars worth of orders, and came back and that you could finally come out and say, “Here. This is it,” and be started to try to raise the money to build this factory. able to move it along. I kinda guess it ’s my way. I worked really hard in a closed environment and go out to a NAMM show and "the whole time I’m drawing say "here are all the new products” or go out and take all the orders, or whatever it was. and having the machines built— ordering all these machines, “Well, man, I just don wan’ it ordering all the parts, to go outa tun, mon, y ’kn ow . not having a penny to pay for any of it." I just cant deal with that lock and wrench and ting, y ’kn ow .” I was so far out on a limb! I was so far gone, man!. There was no way I was going back down the tree I’d climbed up—I had to jump, or something. The plan my wife and I had was if the It was the same thing for a guitar for Carlos Santana: I get the whole thing fell through, we were going to move to Maui. We order and then I have to work a month and a half day and night, were moving to Maui, and there was no way I was going to be and I come back out and say, "here it was." T h a t’s kinda the way able to look Ricky Ash or Robert Levin or any of these guys back the tremolo without the locks came about. Carlos said, I c a n ’t in the face. I was taking these huge orders from them...I stand Floyd Roses but I d o n ’t want it ever to go out of tune. I remember Richie A sh ’s chin on a pile of cardboard boxes, and he remember being on the phone with him: “no problem. Trust me, says, “Yeah, I ’ll take one of these and one of those and two of Carlos, I ’ll take care of it. No problem.” these and three of those, and five of these and six of those. And [mimics] “Well, man, I just don wan’ it to go outa tun, mon, I’ll take each of these orders double once a month in that store, y'know. I just cant deal with that lock and wrench and ting, that store, that store, that store...and I went [slaps his head] y ’kn o w .” I mean, I KNEW if I d id n ’t fill this order, I was never going to I said, " I t ’s no problem, Carlos, it ’s not a problem. I ’ll take be able to walk on 48th St. again. So I think I was pretty much care of it." I hang up the phone. I d o n ’t know HOW in the hell driven by fear, and debt to my lawyers, and debt to my I’m going to get this done. publishers for the brochures and that kinda thing. I understood I remember Peter Frampton's bass player. He says, “will you finally what they meant by people in high places are usually build me a bass?” I said, “surrre I'll build you a bass.” So we driven by DEBT. Me. I knew exactly what to do. wrote up a whole thing he walked away...he had no idea I’d And so we did a NAMM show without the money and just NEVER built a bass in my life. I d id n ’t know the first thing about guitars we built in the room, and we did a NAMM show with a bass. money and without having shipped and we finally raised the Anyway, I just wanted to give you that, and kinda go on. money with the help of a lawyer friend of mine whose become We have a very large team of p>eople working with us. very close, and started a limited partnership. We got the money Machinists, very hard working p>eople— its a team effort, and in May and had all the machines in, built, working, by August. I there's no way in the world that I could have done one-tenth of d id n ’t sleep much. If you think about it, I got the orders in w h a t’s happened by myself. I c a n ’t say that enough. W e’ve built November, we did a NAMM show in January—the whole time I’m like a family between our people in Germany, and England, and drawing and having the machines built— ordering all these the factory, and the machinists, and the advertising people. My machines, ordering all the parts, not having a p>enny to pay for wife helped me get the business off the ground. It ’s a big family any of it. Oh man, this is TRUE, y’know —man, I w as so far out 19of p>eop>le, who work real hard for a common goal. The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

And I encourage people that if they are deficient in an area, done, I had somebody else design them 'cause I’m not an ad like if they're not good in book work or if th e y ’re not real good in designer. My father w a sn ’t a merchant, so I ’ve had to learn from budgets; or if th e y ’re not real good at insurance issues; or the best salesmen in the business. So I would always surround machine work or jigs and fixtures; or whatever your area is that myself in my booth with the best salesmen in the business. And y o u ’re deficient in—that you get help th a t’s better than you are, these salesmen. My God, these people could sell ice to the it ’s always out there. Eskimoes, and sand to the Arabs—no problem. So I just For instance I had a teacher who taught me to always think in recommend that you do that, and it ’s worked really well for me. machinist’s terms instead of woodworking terms. I mean, I was a If its been any one thing th a t’s helped, its building a team of woodworker so 1 did everything in thirty-secondths of an inch. p>eople to work on a single project, 'cause th e r e ’s so many And h e ’d say, "well how high IS the nut?" And I’d say, “seven- different aspects to getting something off the ground. and-a-half thirtysecondths.” And he look at me and go, “WHAT?" I wanted to talk real quickly about patents. When I was a kid, ...Because all my rulers were in thirty-secondths of an inch, so I getting a patent was THE thing. I’m sure a lot of people come up did everything in quarters of a thirty-second, half of a thirty with patentable ideas in this room. Patents give you ALL you second, two-thirds of a thirty-second. And h e ’d get out the get—trademarks are the same way. The practical experience calculator and, “you mean, like, two hundred and fifty thousands, with patents that I wanted to pass on was, if you want to get a minus fifteen, th a t’s two hundred thirty-five thousands?” So I patent on something, make the difference first that you would be replied, “I guess. I d o n ’t know.” willing to defend this thing in court, to sp>end that kind of money. So he taught me how to draft, he taught me how to do jigs and Otherwise go to market with it, and once s o m e b o d y ’s at market fixtures, he taught me how to build machinery— he’s an with it, firstmost wins sometimes. So y o u ’ve got to make a incredible teacher. His n a m e ’s Eric Pritcher. H e ’s got fifteen decision whether you want to spend that kind of money. And patents on the books. And he still works intimately with the the translation fees, into Japanese, and Korean and all the other company now, building our machinery. W e’ve a digital neck­ kind of stuff will just rake you over the coals. Patents are just carving machine, dupli-carvers, fret machines, all kinds of very skyrocketing as far as what they cost. specialized machinery that w e ’ve built together. H e ’s drafted a lot of them, I drafted a bunch of them. I used to bring all these "Trademarks give you big drawings to him and say, “ok, h e r e ’s my new machine,” and h e ’d go, “well-11...” and h e ’d guide me along and help me shape the right to go to court." the machine 'till it was something that would work. And find yourself a really good patent attorney. A poorly "I’ve had a lot of teachers written patent can ju st...I’ve had some poorly written patents and in the form of old instruments. th e y ’re just disasters. Get somebody REAL good. Also with trademark’s the same thing. Trademarks give you the right to go Old Strats, old Les Pauls, to court. Of all the things that w e ’ve done with our patent old Martins, old Gibsons." attorneys the best thing has been trademark stuff. I think I’m in the position that nobody can really use the name PRS or use the I ’ve had a lot of teachers in the form of old instruments. Old bird inlay or use “Paul Reed Smith,” those names are very well Strats, old Les Pauls, old Martins, old Gibsons. I would love to covered. I recommend you do that, th e y ’re inexpensive and you take old J-45’s, take that plastic bridge off, with that ceramic can get the trademark boards to stop people from using your saddle, and put a real bridge on it, and they actually sounded trademarks fairly inexpensively. Trademarks are very powerful pretty good. I’d use the old instruments, and being detached to and I recommend that you use them. my own work, try to have an honest comparison. Like I had a I wanted to talk to everybody about jointers, and planers, and 1952 Les Paul that played wonderfully and I used to build an shapers and pin routers. I know that we all use them. I instrument and then go to the old I.e s Paul, and go: “the Les discovered some things about jointers that I think are a g a s — it ’s Paul's better, I still gotta go back to the drawing board.” really dangerous, but I think I want to dip into it for a moment. So when an old Strat or old Tele would come in, I would I used to sit at a jointer with a piece of real-curly maple and go always compare what I was doing to that and try to understand real slow. These blades were razor-sharp, all the right angles and exactly what it was about those old instruments that p>eople love everything...and go reall-ll slow over it and right in the middle it ’d so much, because I was a guitar player 0 played four nights a go...tchk-k! and would CHIP. week in clubs— I still play). I could separate myself enough from I’d go, “man, h o w ’d these people DO this? You take a really my own work to know what about my work was working and heavy-curly piece of maple and you want to get a good joint, what about it w a sn ’t, and what was working with the old how do you do it? I just d id n ’t know. I tried to sand it straight: instruments. They were great teachers, old Strats, old Teles, old you can FORGET that. You can try to gel some low-angle planes Les Pauls—-Juniors—they were wonderful teachers. So whatever that the old guys used to use th a t’ll work— if you can find one— line I was in, I kep>t a benchmark around—an instrument that one of the really old planes, I ’ve seen it done. But I c o u ld n ’t could be a teacher to you. figure out how to do it. I ’ve had a teacher th a t’s taught me a whole lot about This guy once told me. He was making moulding cutters, and goodbusiness practices. The man who wrote the Consumer’s he says, “once you sharpen the molding cutters you take a stone Report Guide, you know, the giant Tax Return Guide, the man while the thing’s one and you run a stone into it while it’s on and who wrote that is Warren Esnew. He helped me raise the money it ’ll work perfect. I’m serious, this is what he told me. And I was and h e ’s been a guiding light to try to keep the business on track. like, “yo u ’re outta your MIND, man!” So wherever I knew I was deficient I went to get the best help I was still having this problem. And...do you remember the that I p»ssibly could gel. I encourage you to work with your guitar I made for Carlos Santana with a real nice abalone inlay strong ptoints and get help where you need help. I’m deficient in down bet .veen the joint’ I put that thing in there 'cause that joint so many areas and I just knew that when I needed beautiful ads SUCKED! I mean, I had no choice, right? And everybody calls

20 H The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans me up, they say, "kin we have the abalone inlay down the joint?” The other thing is that I try to keep the tables as close together I’m going, "no-o-o:” I finally figured out the problem, right? as possible, so that there's as little tendency to dip down. D o n ’t So how do you do it? Well, I found a book that said what you EVER put short piece through the jointer. EVER! I had a shop do is turn the jointer on and you run a stone over it while its on. teacher once. He said, this guy put this little piece through the And I thought, “this is crazy.” But, basically what it does it is jointer, and points over about fifty feet to a little hole in the wall. turns the shaper into a scraper. And I want to draw what T h a t’s what happens. And it d id n ’t lose any altitude. happens, OK? My guys have since decided that I’m crazy about holding on so I think everybody could use this in their shop. You can run they built a big fixture to hold the stone. It's made out of wood, any piece of wood over my jointer, it cuts clean as a whistle, it with two handles, like this...so when they run over, th e r e ’s no cuts easy, with no chip-out. You can run the burliest, worse real danger. The most dangerous thing about it, really, is your piece of wood that you would never be able to do anything with shirt-cuff catching as you go across it, so please, I’m talking about it. a very dangerous thing, if you have questions, give me a call, I ’ll [Draws] OK, what happens is that you have your back table... talk to you about it. and you have your jointer blade... The cutter-head used to be square in the old days. But "D o n ’t EVER put short piece because if somebody put their fingers in it, it used to take off too much. I ’ve seen advertising: "Our new round cutter-head only through the jointer. takes off the TIPS!” EVER!" Anyway, y o u ’ve got your jointer blade sitting up here, and what you do is you make this other table dead level with it, okay? But if y o u ’re doing woodworking and y o u ’re having problems You lay your ruler on it so the infeed table and the outfeed table with grain going off in different directions, this will solve your are exactly the same. And you have this blade sticking up no problem. Could we have questions on this one issue? more than .010”, maybe .005": If you mount the stone on it, and turn it, it ’ll move the stone maybe l/l6th of an inch—maybe 1/ QUESTION SESSION: 8th inch. You d o n ’t want it to hardly move at all. Check it in all Q: How coarse a stone? places. A: The fine stone has a real hard time. I use a coarse stone First time I did this, I was scared to death. I turned the that is about [ten inches] long. You can use a fine stone or a machine o n — I ’ve got like a twenty inch, five horsepower coarse stone, depending on how much you want to take off. monster-jointer, right? You know: HARR-RROO-OO-OO-OO- Usually the people who sharpen jointer knives have absolutely OO-OO...everyone’s looking at me, but th e y ’re covering their no idea of what th e y ’re doing and th e y ’ll go up and down twenty eyes...[shrieking noise]... or thirty thousandths. You need to find somebody who sharpens jointer knives and does PAPER-cutting knives, because they "Well, I found a book that said know exactly what th e y ’re doing. Thais 'cause the paper industry has tolerances higher than the woodworking industry, which what you do is turn the jointer on says, “it ’s to the nearest inch, it ’s good enough." You know, I ’ve and you run a stone over it while its on. gotten jointer blades back, you put them on a table and they go And I thought, this is crazy.” like this...[motions with hand]...Make sure th e y ’re straight and make sure they d o n ’t stick up very fa r— it ’s almost impossible to make a jointer work right if they are. Curly maple crossed it: NEE— EE-EE-YUPPP! Perfect! Q: Do you find that t h e r e ’s NOT a problem with it heeling on the Get the books that show you how to do it. T h e y ’re out there: back part of that flat’ d o n ’t take my word on how to do th is — it ’s very dangerous. But A: No, because as long as [the fiat] is [no more] than 1/32" I’ve it’s wonderful if you can work it out. 'Cause I don't change had absolutely no burnishing problems whatsoever. It has saved jointer blades anymore. I just lower the tables by .005", do this, our lives. and its sharp again. So what happens is the blade sits here, like Q: T h e r e ’s one other approach—and that is put the jointer blades this, and what that stone will do is put a flat on it. But once this in BACKWARDS. fiat becomes 1/32 of an inch you need to get the blades redone. A: I ’ve heard of that done. But it only needs to be a couple of thousandths off of it, and it Q: It works beautifully. works like a CHARM. I t ’s an old process called “jointing the A: It ’s called reverse angle. blades.” I h a v e n ’t had the nerve to do it on my planer yet. Turn Q: It acts like a scraper on the machine with one of those things in it’ Oh, man, I just A: I ’ve heard it works. It’s almost like a negative cutting angle. d o n ’t know about that. Its used on aluminum a lot. IEd. note: Jointing the blades will also true them relative to the Q: Yeah. tables. The tiny "flat" that is form ed is variously called the land, A: I was told about it. I tried it on my shaper...and it d id n ’t work. the joint or the heel. My wood machining textbook suggests that a wooden stop-block be clamped onto the outfeed table, parallel But . whatever works. IF IT WORKS, DO IT!! to and about two inches ahead o f the blades. Cover all but about But this works also. You can put the worst piece of anything one-fourth o f a large abrasive stone with a single layer of wax into it and no chipout whatsoever. If you guys have the nerve, paper. The exposed portion w ill contact the blades, it's end do it on your planer: give me a call about it. steadied by contact with the stop-block. The wax-papered portion The NEXT problem is with a planer. You know how, it goes will slide more easily across (andprotect) the infeed table. While through the planer....eeeeeeEEEEEEEEE....and drops off the front the cutter-head is spinning move the stone from one side to the other. Hold the abrasive stone firm ly and don't let it slip out o f roller....eeyoooowww!...at the very end, right’ your hand! The heel should not be under that 1/32" on a freshly- I had the blessing of getting a machine that had no front ground blade. The blades should be reground when the heel roller—probably because they were trying to cut costs. And I approaches 1 /16 " width.1 spent a lot of time making the planer have absolutely a glassy i 21 The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans surface. You know, planers come impregnated with grease. I [Where the neck bends right where it meets the body?] I want to must have spent four days with Red Devil Lye trying the take the show you w h a t’s going on. Basically w h a t’s going on is that grease off of it. It rolled down the sides, took the paint off, y o u ’ve got the mast on a boat...[draws on the blackboard] okay? everything else...I got all the grease out of it and was sanding the and you got the shrouds on the boat, okay? And what they do on plate dead flat with a surface plate. I took a surface plate and a boat is that th e y ’ll put this here on one side of the boat, and taped fine-grit metal sandpaper to it and levelled the entire table. they'll put this here on the other side, right, and finish the boat And what happens is, if you use a little bit of lubricant, you know and put it in the water. Okay! What Fender does...is they d o n ’t [beeswax], it w o n ’t affect the glue joints but it will make the thing do this. What happens is, this is the strings, and it ’s compressing slide a little easier...If you set the back roller about a thousandths the fingerboard. This is the truss rod, and they put it in curved. If high and if y o u ’ve got the front roller gone, or set dead level, the I put a boat mast up like that, w h a t’s going to happen? I could planer goes...eeeeeeyupp...and you get a perfect surface. keep it straight, but as you crank down on it ’s going to bend, and Where I used always used to have a problem with the thing bend, and w h e r e ’s it going to bend? It’s gonna bend right here, where you take the fingerboard and it would take the last little bit right where the body attaches. You pul that rod in curved, for a off the fingerboard after it drops off the planer, and y o u ’d ruin while it works ok. but once the strings are stronger than the neck, your stuff! So, try lowering your roller dead level with your table the thing starts to bend at the body. Because this is also and use a lubricant. It will make all the difference in the world. compressing, I mean, it ’s not doing anything but trying to stick Does anybody have any questions about that? About the planer- its knee in the back and go like that. But it ’s gotta give roller thing? For those of you familiar with planers and all the somewhere, so it gives right there. nightmares that they have, it ’ll help. I had an engineer, I asked, “all my basses are bending at the body, w h a t’s the problem?” I was, like, in tears. “I put in a truss "...try lowering your roller rod, nice and curved, just like everybody else.” He said, “well if you do that, its going to bend right...there.” And I went, “why?” dead level with your table He says, “well, you know, 'cause y o u ’re compressing the and use a lubricant..." fingerboard and rod and what do you expect? Its gonna ’s’.”

Q: Can I ask, getting back to the jointer, once y o u ’ve done that stuff with the stone, can you take a normal cut then? a full-depth "We started glueing our fingerboards with cut? epoxy that had no water in it, A: What do you consider a full-depth cut? and all our problems Q: You were just talking of taking off a few thousandths... went away like that." A: That how much of the BLADE I took off. And you have to play with how high that blade is in relation to the back table. I thing it has to be about a thousandth and a half above the back And I went, “Oh my God, F e n d e r ’s been doing it wrong for table when y o u ’re done. I always end up re-adjusting the back thirty years!” It works fine on a guitar, because a g u ita r ’s got not table but...w hat’s a normal cut? as much tension. But on a bass, you got a problem. So we put Q: A thirty-secondths of an inch? our rod in a little bit different, you know I started building A: No problem. It just slides through. I t ’s an old art. T h e y ’ve Fender-style bass necks with the rod in a little different, and it been doin’ it for years. We just quit doin’ it as woodworkers, a made all the difference in the world. I kinda wanted to tell while ago. I just h a v e n ’t run into anybody doing it...except the everyone that because y o u ’re not crazy. The reason the thing moulding industry takes a grindstone to the shape of the bends at the body is 'cause they built it wrong, not because of moulding cutter and turns the machine on and some humidity wierdness. Just a little tidbit. goes...eeeeeaaaaaaa... [laughter]. Q: How DO you put the thing in? Anyway, I also want to talk about pin routers. We d o n ’t use A: STRAIGHT, close to the back of the neck. My rod compresses any pin routers in our factory—I think pin routers are incredibly the back of the neck, and the strings compress the fingerboard. dangerous. We use a machine I think is safer than anybody T h a t’s the way Gibson did it in 1910. In 1950, 1965, when Ted else...we use shapers. When I was in Japan they were making McCartney [?] left, they said “Oh that d o e s n ’t work, you gotta fix guitars with these pin routers. They had their thumbs on the it, you gotta change it.” I had an old Les Paul Junior that had a thing, it missed by...[holds fingers close together] that much! I headstock had broken off of it, I had taken a spokeshave and I’d asked these production managers, “ar e n ’t you afraid he's going to taken the rod out of it, it was straight. I said, “that w o n ’t work." I cut his thumb off?” assumed that because it was straight and close to the back of the “Baah, h e ’s been working at that for fifteen years, h e ’s fine.” neck it w o u ld n ’t work. But th a t’s what you do: you put it in very I’m goin, “and with the pot-smoking kids I got working for me...” straight and very close to the back and it compresses the back of [laughter] the neck, and the strings compress the fingerboard and it works I d o n ’t know man, I d o n ’t use pin routers. I think th e y ’re perfectly. incredibly dangerous. Onsrud has a new thing called an inverted T h e r e ’s a lotta ways to put truss rods in. We could spend pin router that I highly recommend, which is much safer to work hours talking about the two rod version and the three rod version on: all your hands are above, the bit comes up from above and and the reason Rickenbacker rods do what they do, and, we you never see it, its not right in front of you. could have some fun with that, but 1 just want to kinda pass that The other thing I wanted to mention is that I recommend that along. people work with S Alloy Cutting Tips and use stagger-tooth The only other thing I wanted to pass along about straight-up heelpro cutters on your shaper. It works wonders for us. All our guitarmaking is that we use epoxies to glue the fingerboards on. jigs will go around end grain in either direction, except, god, We use Geugeon B r o th e r ’s West System [epoxy], and just as a knows, d o n ’t climb-cut, 'cause y o u ’ll send the jig against the wall. guitarmak>ng tip, it seems to me if you spend months getting the How many people here have worked on Fender Bass necks? water out of the wood, why would you want to glue the •* • • • • ..-.y.v.-: 22 The Association Of Stringed Instrumeju ^ ^ ^ ^ fingerboard back on with water glue? It just gets wierd again. It takes months to get straight. We started glueing our fingerboards with epoxy that had no water in it, and all our problems went away like that, because after I glued my fingerboard on the neck d id n ’t go wierd on me. I d o n ’t know if a n y b o d y ’s had that experience. I know I always had that problem all the lime. I spent all these months getting the neck dead level and just right, and I'd glue the fingerboard on and it would go..gggjjjjjtttg...I’d scratch my head and go, “why?”

And I say, “well, if you get it all right the first time, you h a v e n ’t got a problem.”

“The reason we glue it on with that is so you can heat it up and take it off when it goes bad.” And I say, “well, if you get it all right the first time, you haven't got a problem.” Besides, you find the best thing to do if you got a bad neck, when you get to become a guitar manufacturer, usually a refret takes much more time than just replacing the neck. Which is the reason most Paul Reed Smith: mathematician to guilarmaker manufacturers, when you send back a warped neck, th e y ’d just cut it off and put a new one on. of invention, or something like that. Nitro lacquers are very Q: How do you achieve the unusual colors in you finishes? difficult to work with in a production environment. You get a lot A: We use a variety of dyes and a variety of...we use acrylic of problems with sinking, and, God, th e r e ’s so many things w e ’ve urethanes, we use polyesters, we use acrylic lacquers, we use gone through. W e’ve got fifteen people working in the finish other kinds of urethanes, and we use aniline dyes. The trick with room and we have a lot of cumulative experience since we our dyes is mixin’ them right to come up with the colors. T h e y ’re started four years ago. It's an art form. not commercially available and there's only two companies in the Q: Are your pickups and switches available? world that make anilines. Y o u ’ve got water-solubles, y o u ’ve got A: We sell our pickups. We d o n ’t sell the rotary switches or the lacquer-solubles, you got alcohol-solubles, and basically in order wiring diagrams. The other thing w e ’ve kept are the nut material to get those colors w e ’ve mixed our own dyes and spent long and the tuning pegs. There is a guitar company in this country times coming up with the right formula. In the old days I used to that sold a tremolo with a guitar attached. It made a LOT of mix a jug of Vintage yellow. And then the jug would be gone, money. And then they licensed the tremolo and nobody had a and I’d never write down what I put in it so I’d have to figure it need to buy a tremolo with a guitar attached anymore. And I out all over again. But basically it ’s going for a color that kinda know th a t’s the same thing for me, I ’ve held dearly on to the looks good to you: I d o n ’t know how else to pul it. There are tuning pegs and nut and rotary, and the bridge is not available for really only three colors: red, yellow, and blue with dyes, and then sale because I think it ’s good business sense not to do it, just to it’s any mixtures of those three. It’s very different than with light. make sure I’m shipping guitars every month, and I can pay If you understand light it ’s not those three combinations at all. e v e r b o d y ’s salaries. , I just want to say one more thing before I go. Before this^ ^ ^ never really felt honored to talk in front a group of people^ ° a "By the way, lot of seminars, sales seminars, like I ’ll go to Norway to ta an^ a lot of the colors we came up with talk to all the salesmen there, and teach them about I RS 8*^*^ didn't com e from and such, but for me, this was a real honor to come here, especially with the speakers sitting here today, I fce' ''e r ^ ^ wanting to make them that color." humbled by it and I wanted just to say thank you f°r havin8 /Much applause/ So get dyes and start m ix in ’. I’ve got so many old cans of aniline dyes around it ’s unbelievable. And I finally got it down to where I like it, you know? By the way, a lot of the colors we came up with didn't come from wanting to make them that color. Tortoise-shell came from the fact that all the wood was dyed brown from the beginning of spalting, and Grey-black came from the fact that I had wood with black stain in it, and Esmerald Green came the wood had Esmerald Green in it and Whale Blue came from Whale-Blue stain and Scarlet Red because I had like an orange slain in the wood and Black Cherry because I had big red stains and black stains in the wood. So all these came because I was throwin’ curly maple out, and I c o u ld n ’t throw it out any more. So we invented these "new colors” and they said, “do n ’t you like that new color?” and I’m g o in ’,”se ll this shit, we ca n ’t get it outta here!” So, th e r e ’s an expression, something about the need is mother The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans JOBS WANTED OR OFFERED COMING EVENTS______

Michaeal Dresdner is still seeking applicants for instrument Guitar Federation of America Festival fabrication positions at the Hydrocote Supply Company in The 1990 Festival of the Guitar Federation of America (GFA) will be hel August 14th through August 18th on the campus of the Perkasie, PA. You can contact him by phone at (215) 453-8663 California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. The or write to: five day festival will attract guitarists and enthusiasts from around The Hydrocote Supply Company the world. The primary emphasis is with players of the classical 217 South 5th Street guitar, drawing high caliper performances from Sharon Isbin and Perkasie, PA 18944 David Starobin, among others. As a result, the GFA Festival is a Peter Sittler, an accomplished professional classical guitarist, good prospect for classic makers to meet the key musicans (potential buyers) in that Field. For more information contact: has taken an interest in guitar setup and repair, but needs training The Guitar Federation o f America and hands-on experience. He would prefer something in his P. O. Box 1090 A general area, since he has musical obligations to consider. If you Garden Grove, CA 92642 have a need for a helper or if you feel you could be of help to Pete, please contact him: Petfcr Slttlcr Peter's Valley Basic Guitarmaking Course 16 Price Street As mentioned in previous issues, Dick Boak will be offering West Chester, PA 19380 an 8 day intensive course called "Making An Acoustic Guitar" at the Peter's Valley Craft Center in Layton, New Jersey starting on Jobs wanted or Jobs available? Send your inquiries to ASIA August 24th and concluding on August 31st. Tuition for the course is $210.00 and the materials fee is $350.00 (East indian Jobs, 14 South Broad Street, Nazareth, PA 18064 rosewood back and sides) The course is geared toward the beginner. Due to time restrictions, some pre-fabrication of parts FREE CLASSIFIEDS will be necessary. A complete listing of course offerings has now been published by Peter's Valley and is available by writing to: LIMITED SUPPLY of German Spruce tops and struts, Indian Jeanic Ebcrhardt; Director Rosewood and African Mahogany back and sides, maple billets Peter's Valley Craft Center for electric bodies, from: Don Alfieri Guitars P.O. Box 2132, New Layton, r>U 07851 (201) 948-5200 Hyde Park, N.Y. 11040(516) 437-1377

GERMAN SPRUCE Guitar Top Sets, Selected Best "la” Quality, Violin Craftsmanship Institute 1990 “Bearclaw” (Hazelfichte) grain; extremely limited supply: $100. The series of intensive violin making and repair seminars Very few Mesquite Guitar Back & Sides; flame grain: $80. John and workshops as mentioned in A.S.I.A. #6 will run from June 4th Decker, 307 South Alu Road, Wailuku, HI 96793; telephone/fax through August 17th. For further information and course listings: (808) 244-9486. UNH Violin Craftsmanship Institute; Continuing Education Brook House, 24 Rosemary Lane DICK BOAK INFORMS US that a gentleman named Charles Durham, NH 03824 Barth, Sr. wrote to Mike Longworth at the Martin Guitar Company (603) 862-1088 hoping to have Martin construct an unusual instrument in the "custom shop". The instrument was outside the realm of Martin's "construction desires", and as a result it was suggested that perhaps an individual artisan might want to tackle this one. Mr. ASIA BUSINESS Barth wants what he refers to as a five-string “Barth-O-Lin". Needless to say, this contraption is a bit out of the ordinary. I you SADOWSKY ELECTED TO A.S.IjV. BOARD want to go out on a branch, we hope it doesn't break: An election was recently conducted in accordance with the Charles D. Barth, Sr. bylaws of the Association. A nominating committee was P. O. Box 2481 appointed (comprised of members Michael Dresdner, David Clarksburg, WV 26301 Sheppard, and David Wren) with the specific task of finding prospective and willing nominees to run for one seat on the VIOLIN WOODS; A NEW LOOK is a new 68 page reference A.S.I.A. Board of Directors. That seat, which had been occupied manual for violin builders by Karl Roy and Alex L. Shigo. by Dick Boak expired on March 15th, 1990. Dick Boak will Photocopies of the original booklet are available at a cost of $10. continue to put his full efforts into the association serving as Make checks payable to "The University of New Hampshire" and editor of publications and exectutive director. mail to: The three nominees for the board position were Ed Britt, UNH Violin Craftsmanship Institute Ken Donnell, and Roger Sadowsky. All three are highly qualified Continuing Education; Brook House, 24 Rosemary Lane and the Board wishes to thank all of them for offering to serve. Durham, NH 03824 These elections will be happening every year, so there will be plenty of opportunity for new blood. Election ballots are on File We will accept limited free classified ads from members. This for inspection by any member at any time. area is not, however, intended for regular listings of in stock sale Roger Sadowsky received the majority of the vote and will items. Address your listings to: ASIA Classifieds, 14 South Broad assume the position immediately. Roger will be coordinating Street, Nazareth, PA 18064 Public Relations for the Board. The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

With this reassurance, and with the proviso that the editor SYRACUSE BOARD MEETING HELD would place a prominent notice in the next issue that the new masthead represented solely a graphic change, rather than a THE BOARD REPORTS: change in the focus of the association, the board accepted the On 3/3 and 3/4/90, the ASIA Board met in a modest Syracuse, new masthead (which appears on this issue). New York motel. This peculiar venue was chosen because it was Jim noted the numerous complaints from mis-served or non- the geographical “center of gravity” for the majority of board served members who had applied to our group insurance carrier. members. A great deal of work was accomplished, and we had a I le described how these problems were directly related to our good time, besides. tiny size, and thus recommended that we not be involved with The decision-making technique that developed was that each group insurance at this time. So resolved, until we get a little item on the agenda (proposed by the President) was first bigger. discussed in an open, free-wheeling style and then a motion was The board resolved to begin a new award category: proposed to decide or resolve it. The proposed motion was then Prom ising New Artisan, and that there be presented no less reworked until it finally emerged in a form that was agreeable to than one award pier category p>er year. all. Thus all motions were almost invariably passed unanimously, Finally, the board resolved that the offices of this new y e a r ’s since they had been a result of a previous consensus. board be filled as follows (Addresses on inside front cover): The meeting began with a discussion regarding the PRESIDENT: Jim Rickard relationship of ASIA to Dick Boak and his upxroming Symposium VICE PRESIDENT: William "Grit” las kin '91. Except for the first, all Symposia had been private SECRETARY: Bill Cum plano commercial ventures of D ic k ’s “Church of Art". The board agreed PUBLIC RELATIONS: Roger Sadowsky with Dick, however, that Symposium '91 would be a cooperative TREASURER: Duane Waterman venture: In exchange for promotional assistance, the coordination of logistical personnel and the organizing of additional activities, ASIA will receive 25% of ail profits from the event. The latest membership tally is 166 paid members. Dick reminded us that the first membership renewals should start to arrive in three months, in June. We all realized that this will be crucial point in our history, and the number of renewals will indicate how much confidence and enthusiasm there still is out there for ASIA. This sobering thought helped clear our minds for our task of persuading the membership that ASIA is important to them, and that it is indeed growing, in measured stepjs, towards becoming a vital and viable organization. D ic k ’s term as Board President has expired, and he does not wish to be reconsidered for the post: "I will not seek, and if nominated, I shall not run...” In recognition of D ic k ’s pivotal role in the organization, the board resolved that Dick be hired under contract (until June 1991) as the Executive Director of ASIA and Editor of the ASIA newsletter. As Director, his responsibility will be the handling of all day-to-day organizational duties, and as Editor, the publication of at least six issues of the newsletter. The board resolved to make the Education Committee an ongoing, permanent committee and directed it to to propose categories in the instrument repair trades, propose testing requirements for each, and corresponding standards criteria, and submit them to the board for further action. The committee’s report is found elsewhere in this publication. Many on the board agreed that “the ASIA journal” was confusing and misleading, since there was very little truly asiatic about our group. It appeared to us that the masthead promoted the acronym, and that was undesirable. The fact that fully 95% of ASIA members are involved in or interested in the guitar gave weight to those on the board who advocated for GUITARMAKING or GUITARMAKER. That such a masthead change would alienate the affections of the several violin, banjo and mandolin makers on our roster gave argument against changing the masthead in such a way. Those advocating the Past-President, Execlutive Director, and Editor: Dick Boak ( le ft) change, however, persuaded those opposed by emphasizing that chum s with old frien d an d newly elected member o f the A.S.IA. the name of the association (distinct from the masthead of the Board o f Directors: Roger Sadowsky in this rare T-Shirted pose publication) would remain the non-exclusionary “Association of taken during the sweltering exhibition at last year's successful Stringed Instrument Artisans”, and that we intended to Symposium '89 held in Boston, PA. Though there will be no specifically highlight, as a matter of p>olicy, articles by and for Symposium in 1991, a m ajor ASIA, gathering is being planned non-guitarmakers in every issue. for the early summer of 1991. 25 The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

made his collap>sable guitar for this competition and that, on the BOOK REVIEWS______appointed day, he presented himself at the palace where the competition was to take place. Wrapped in his long black cloak Antonio de Torres, Guitar Maker: he introduced himself as a guitar maker wishing to participate in His life and work, the competition but as the organizers could see nothing by Jose L. Romanlllos. resembling a guitar on his person, they raised the objection that A Review by William “Grit” Laskin he had not brought a guitar with him and barred his entrance into the palace. Torres requested that he be left alone in a room from It would take a lengthy shelf to hold all the books about where the guitar would be produced. The organizers complied Stradivari. The violin world has successfully immortalized their with Torres’ request, and five minutes later Torres appeared with instrument's supreme maker, and rightly so. His work pushed the a guitar, much tot he amazement of everyone present. He was instrument very near to its potential. judged the winner of the competitions and when the Queen was So w h a t’s with the guitar world? informed of the sentence hanging over Torres she exonerated The guitar in all its various styles is indisputably the most him of all blame, conferring on him the title of don, and the popular instrument in the world today. But have we even one privilege of being a Caballero cubierto ante el Key— a great book about the true father of the modem guitar, our Stradivari? honour indeed, allowing him to keep his hat on whilst in the Until now, believe it, the answer was no. company of the King.” At long last there has emerged a book about the master As I could not help reading the book with a guitar m a k er’s builder, and we should all be thankful that a guitar maker wrote eyes, I found the most meaningful and absorbing information to it, for the meticulous detail would not be as present or set among be the discussion of construction techniques. For the first time, such insightful observations were it not a fellow craftsman doing and p>erhap>s more so even than in typical guitar construction the viewing and assessing. texts, we are given validated reasons for why Torres did things Jose L. Romanillos' Antonio de Torres. Guitar Maker: His life the way he did. The cause and effect between alterations in and Work is an immensely valuable and fascinating achievement. dimensions, thicknesses and angles are clearly put. There are no I cannot imagine a more thorough study. Romanillos gives the vaguaries here. As much as was possible, Romanillos applied his context of Torres' times, the politics, the musicians, the social own guitarmaker’s skills in accurate measuring of the crucial mores... in order to better understand the m a ste r ’s motives. elements. He then ties these physical properties to the resulting Every aspect of Torres' work is examined and analysed: his known or recorded impressions of sounds. choice of woods, soundboard bracings, construction methods, When I read Romanillos’ clear evaluations I was in heaven. I successful and unsuccessful innovations. An entire chapter is was reading something tangible, something I, as a guitar maker, devoted to the m a ste r ’s labels. This is not only for the truly could integrate into my own work. innumerable clues they offer in understanding Torres' Additionally, I was astonished to discover the generally p>oor movements and progression but as much to make recognizable quality materials Torres had to work with: Unmatched spruce the false labels paraded in imitation guitars— a surprising bit of pieces, backs with knots, three and four piece soundboards, as intrigue. examples, and despite such limitations Torres expanded the We hear the sound of Torres” instruments through the words g u it a r ’s sonority far beyond his contemporaries. of such guitarists a Francisco Tarrega and Miguel Llobet, My only criticism of the book is its somewhat dry tone. In themselves legendary. Indeed, it is the wonderful quotations the hands say, of a historical novelist, Torres’ life and times could gleaned from letters and writings of prominent contemporaries of well have swep* us away in a flow of natural drama, and Torres that Romanillos most clearly indicates the dramatic impact reconstructed dialogue. But I criticize lightly. Romanillos’ love of the sound of Torres’ guitars had on the players and appreciators his subject is evident and his chronological thread, p>epp>ered of the form. with quotes and anecdotes, is successful in its own right. Capping the book is an exhaustive catalogue of all known On balance, I consider this book so important, on so many extant Torres guitars. Romanillos’ extensive travelling in search levels, that I feel it should become a required reading. In fact, if I of these 65 instruments has paid off. He provides us enticingly hereafter meet a guitar maker, player of collector who does not detailed descriptions and measurements of both the exterior and own this book, I’m afraid I may have trouble taking them interior of each, in addition to their histories. seriously. Throughout the text Romanillos valiently explores every known and uncovered rumor or story, paraded as fact, about Torres and his instruments. The book delves into the question of THE LAST WORD just who or what truly influenced Torres to become a guitar maker. Why did he cease his cabinetmaking and, later, cease his “Now that your are the proud possessor of this instrument, learn guitarmaking to sell china? Y o u ’ll find the answers here. Was to love it. Remember it is one of your most intimate Torres really a counterfilter? Did he truly participate in a p>lot to possessions— closer to you p>erhaps than anything else you may assassinate Queen Isabel II of Spain? Why did he sp>end time in own. For it is the voice of the music within you, singing or prison? Romanillos lets pass none of these questions. These and sighing with your mood, and forever faithful to your innermost many others are examined and weighed against available whims. So protect it from careless hands. Keep it clean and dry. evidence. At times the book becomes as much a piece of It is well made and rightly designed to stand constant use. Have investigative journalism as a historical document. faith in it to respond to your skill and magnify your best efforts. One of my favourite short anecdotes is one that arises during Give to it the best you have and the best will come back to you.” Romanillos’ discussion of the story of Torres’ collapsable guitar: "The Spanish queen wishing to find the finest guitar maker Part of the original literature warranty card included with an in Spain, organized a competition for guitar makers which Torres early 1941 Epiphone "Broadway" Guitar written by Epi A. attended after having obtained bail. The story tells of how Torres Stathopoulo himself, (courtesy Dr. Peter Weitzman) The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans 14 South Broad Street Nazareth, PA 18064 The Association Of Stringed Instrument Artisans, a non-profit trade organization under the provisions of Section 501 (c) (06) of the Internal Revenue Code, was established in 1988 to help provide a sense of community and professionalism to the field of stringed instrument making and repair. The goals of the association provide for but are not limited to: the establishment of a comprehensive database of resources, supplies and technical information; a means of providing multi-level education within the profession; assistance in marketing and promotion; health and insurance packages at group rates; a repair or service certification; an advertiser’s marketplace; and the publication of informative newsletters and journals.

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Check all appropriate boxes below: I am a: I am involved with: I am a: □ Builder G Acoustic guitars G Full Time Artisan □ Repairer G Electric guitars G Part Time Artisan □ Designer G Basses G Hobbiest □ Author G Mandolins □ Vendor of: G Banjos I derive __ .% of my □ Music Store G Violins income from this Held. □ Manufacturer G Dulcimers G Consultant G Harps For A. S.I.A. Office use only: □ Musician G Early instruments G Enthusiast G Accessories G O ther:______G Other:______Other affiliations include: Liu names o f partners, m usic storm, companies, ukib which you arm or have been directly associated

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More Great Inlays From Grit Laskin

Part Two of Yuri Dmitrievsky's December Interview With Mark Dronge v l if* # Fodera Guitars; An Interview

- _ f Roger Sadowsl Symposium '8< Transcription On Guitar Ethics Number Eight Is Coming Soon and much more...

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