Luthiery

This is NOT a definitive list of books about the classical guitar and how to make them. I have all of these books in my personal library and I find that they cover the best of what is the classical guitar. This list is simply a starting point if you are interested in the history of classical guitar and its construction methods. I highly recommend that you join the Guild of American Luthiers , here you can learn about all sorts of stringed instrument making, and you should visit Orfeo Magazine to learn more about the classical guitar of the 20th and 21st centuries. I started this list about the year 2012 after I gave a few lectures to classical guitar students at several universities in Colorado. Please feel free to share this list!

Books on Classical Guitar Construction

Courtnall, Roy. (1993) Making Master Guitars. London, England: Robert Hale.

Cumpiano, William. (1993) Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Doubtfire, Stanley. (1983) Make Your Own Classical Guitar. New York, NY: Schocken Books.

Middleton, Rik. (1997) The Guitar Maker’s Workshop. Rambsury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England: The Crowood Press Ltd.

Overholtzer, Arthur. (1974) Classic Guitar Making. San Francisco, CA: Brock Publishing Company

Romanillos, Jose. (2013) Making A Spanish Guitar. Guijosa, Spain: RH Publications.

Sloane, Irving. (1989) Classic Guitar Construction. Westport, CT: The Bold Strummer Ltd.

Books on the Classical Guitar

Bermudez, Egberto, et al. (1991) The Spanish Guitar. New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cleveland, Russell, et al. (2002) The Classical Guitar, A Complete History. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books.

Evans, Tom and Mary Ann. (1977) Guitars: From The Renaissance to Rock. Over Wallop, Hampshire, UK: BAS Printers Ltd.

George, David. (1969) The Flamenco Guitar. Westport, CT: The Bold Strummer Ltd.

Gordon, Stefano. (2001) Masterpieces of Guitar Making. Sondrio, Italy: L’Officina del Libro. 

Huber, John. (1991) The Development of the Modern Guitar. Westport, CT: The Bold Strummer Ltd.

Oribe, Jose. (1985) The Fine Guitar. Pacific, MO.: Mel Bay Publications.

Ramirez, Amalia. (2006) 125th Anniversary, Jose Ramirez. Madrid, Spain: Ediciones Casa Ramirez.

Ramirez, Jose. (1990) Things About the Guitar. Madrid, Spain: Soneto Ediciones Musicales.

Ray, John, et al. (2014) The Granada School of Guitar-Makers. Granada, Spain: Diputación de Granada.

Rodriguez, Manuel. (2003) The Art and Craft of Making Classical Guitars. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation.

Romanillos, Jose. (1990) Antonio de Torres: Guitar Maker-His Life & Work. Westport, CT: The Bold Strummer Ltd.

Urlik, Sheldon. (2015) A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars. 2nd ed. Salt Lake City, UT: Sunny Knoll Publishing.

Wade, Graham. (2001) A Concise History of the Classic Guitar. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications.

Periodicals on the Classical Guitar and Its Construction

American Lutherie. Tacoma, WA: Guild of American Luthiers.

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Guitar Review. New York, NY: Classical Guitar Society of New York.

I am very excited to announce that I have a new online storefront at Luthier Bench, a new Online Marketplace and Knowledge Base for Luthier Built Guitars! Please visit my store to see some of my latest guitars.

I will continue to sell guitars through Savage Classical Guitar! Rich Sayage, the owner of Savage Classical Guitar, is a great guy and an amazing guitarist! I am very fortunate to work with him!

I also updated Guitars Currently Available on this site.

Currently listed at my storefront are two guitars, a Western Red Cedar/Santos Rosewood double top classical guitar and a circa 1832 René Lacôte style European Spruce/California Laurel Romantic Era “guitare à la Sagrini”. Guitar specifications are listed along with sound samples.

 I posted on Substack yesterday, check it out!

 And here they diverge!

 I posted on Substack this afternoon.

Check it out!

Polished Work. - Joinery with its surface polished, by rubbing on shell-lac dissolved in spirit.

George Ellis, Modern Practical Joinery, 1902 

Yesterday afternoon, while I was level sanding the pore filler on the back and sides of my latest classical guitar, I had lots of time to think on the simple wood finishes that are being touted these days for those amateurs making stick chairs, staked stools and tables and any other form of home/workshop furniture that might be found in the old Foxfire books or a folk museum. You know what I am talking about: rub pure soap into that freshly adzed and scraped chair seat; buy some real linseed oil paint or milk paint; get real unadulterated linseed and use the heel of your hand to rub into the surface (I remember doing that on some very early wood working projects); and I am sure I have forgotten many more folksy, vernacular style finishes. These finishes are touted as being easy to apply, easy to repair and “good enough”, I admit that if the person is making their very first Appalachian style ladder chair they should stick with a simple finish. Yet, these simple finishes are just that, and if you want to create a great looking wood finish on your project you need to be willing to spend some quality creating that finish. 

I spend a lot of time creating a great French polish finish, probably too much time given the monetary return. So many guitarists today, young and old, are use to seeing shiny factory finishes on factory guitars (yes, I know that quite a few factory guitars today have a satin finish) and because of those shiny guitars, many guitarists believe their custom made guitar should have a similar finish.

I spend a lot of time creating a great French polish finish, probably too much time given the monetary return. So many guitarists today, young and old, are use to seeing shiny factory finishes on factory guitars (yes, I know that quite a few factory guitars today have a satin finish) and because of those shiny guitars, many guitarists believe their custom made guitar should have a similar finish.

Sigh.

That shiny finish takes time. At the moment, I am pore filling the wood on this guitar and last week I purchased a pore filler that according to the maker’s instructions the filler will not pull out of the pore and one application will fill all pores. The packaging also said that the filler won’t muddy the grain of the wood. I applied the filler, let it dry for three days and found out it doesn’t work as claimed. I ended up going back to the old tried and true method of pore filling with some alcohol, shellac, 2F pumice and a pad of cotton waste wrapped with Irish handkerchief linen. Now that I have level sanded using with 600 grit sand paper, there are very few open pores which can be remedied with several sessions of French polish, with a pinch of pumice, and some light level sanding. 

Then I will spend some quality time on the guitar, at least ten sessions of French polishing, that is a session every other day, or every two days, so the shellac can dry and harden, I will do that until I am happy with the looks of the finish. It takes time to make a world class finish. 

Here’s the next video update of the two mandolins that I’m currently working on. It was never my intention to build the two in parallel, that’s just a quirk of the timing! Sooner or later, they shall have to diverge!

However, I guess the video is already out-of-date………

My latest guitar is based on R.E. Bruné’s plans of Andrés Segovia’s 1912 Manuel Ramirez guitar, the guitar has the same plantilla (outline), headstock, headstock crest and binding scheme as the Ramirez and that is where the similarities end. The original guitar has a spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, I used a master grade old growth western red cedar with a Lorenzo Frignani style rosette, the back and sides are East Indian rosewood, and the back has an inner lamination of western red cedar. I took the idea of the lamination from a 1992 Manuel Contreras guitar that I worked on several years ago

Here are some photos of the guitar!

The bridge is on, you can see the fretboard is lifted above the guitar top.

In this photo you can see my bracing pattern.

The back has a lamination of western red cedar, the top is also made from western red cedar.

The back is made from some very old East Indian rosewood.

Here’s view of the fretboard while I was getting it all put together!