You’re reading an issue of The Luthier’s Letter . Every Saturday morning I share practical tips, techniques, & lessons from my guitar-building bench to help you grow as a luthier. Join thousands of guitar builders learning the art of lutherie: Subscribe free → Hey, it’s Tom. I want to tell you about the two battles every builder has to win to make their best guitars. The second one took me years…
You’re reading an issue of The Luthier’s Letter . Every Saturday morning I share practical tips, techniques, & lessons from my guitar-building bench to help you grow as a luthier. Join thousands of guitar builders learning the art of lutherie: Subscribe free → Hey, it’s Tom. Before we jump in, I have to take a moment to say thank you. Last week’s letter about the pickup brought in more replies…
You’re reading an issue of The Luthier’s Letter . Every Saturday morning I share practical tips, techniques, & lessons from my guitar-building bench to help you grow as a luthier. Join thousands of guitar builders learning the art of lutherie: Subscribe free → Hey, it’s Tom. I want to tell you about the single biggest shift in my thirty years of building guitars. It didn’t happen at the bench. It…
The guitar truss rod is one of the most important parts of any acoustic or electric guitar because it enables us to adjust the guitar neck accurately for comfortable playing and long-term stability. Not all truss rods are created equally, though, and having the right type of truss rod can give the luthier significant advantages in adjusting the neck while building the guitar and doing the initial…
You’re reading an issue of The Luthier’s Letter . Every Saturday morning I share practical tips, techniques, & lessons from my guitar-building bench to help you grow as a luthier. Join thousands of guitar builders learning the art of lutherie: Subscribe free → Hey, it’s Tom. A few weeks ago during one of our monthly Q&A sessions inside Luthier’s EDGE, a member asked a question that sounded simple:…
You’re reading an issue of The Luthier’s Letter . Every Saturday morning I share practical tips, techniques, & lessons from my guitar-building bench to help you grow as a luthier. Join thousands of guitar builders learning the art of lutherie: Subscribe free → Hey, it’s Tom. Over fifteen years ago, I got a phone call from a guitar shop in Italy that I’ve never forgotten. There was a collector over…
You’re reading an issue of The Luthier’s Letter . Every Saturday morning I share practical tips, techniques, & lessons from my guitar-building bench to help you grow as a luthier. Join thousands of guitar builders learning the art of lutherie: Subscribe free → Hey, it’s Tom. For the first twenty years I built guitars, dust collection was not really on my radar. I knew I should deal with it. I had…
In this guide, we will look at dust collection as a system. We’ll then discuss each individual component of the system and how it can help
Yesterday I was carving the top of an archtop guitar I’ve been working on, and somewhere in the middle of the work, I caught myself listening. Not the kind of listening I do all day at the bench, which after almost thirty years just runs underneath everything like breathing. This was different. It was more like watching myself listen, the way you notice you’re in a dream while the dream is still…
I’ve been thinking about constraints lately. Not the real ones — the ones we don’t even realize we’ve created for ourselves. It started when I came across an old puzzle. You might have seen it before. Nine dots arranged in a square — three rows of three. The challenge is simple: connect all nine dots using only four straight lines, without lifting your pen. Most people can’t do it. They try every…