The Art of Lutherie: The Process of Crafting a Classical Acoustic Guitar

for Professor Ellen Franklin Technical Writing Instructor Washington State University Vancouver Vancouver, Washington

by Aaron Sparks ENG402: Technical and Professional Writing Student

December 12, 2007

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.. ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION...... COLLECTED DATA. Introduction to Lutherie....... History of Lutherie...... Composition of the Classical Guitar Tools of the Trade The Crafting Process The Soundboard........... The Rosette.. Soundboard Bracing Bridge and Saddle The Sides. The Back.. Back Bracing

ii iii 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 4 4 5 6

The Neck.... 7 Closing the Box............. 9 Attaching the Neck.. 10 Purfling and Binding 10 Finishing.. 11 Conclusion. 12 GLOSSARY........... 13 APPENDICES 15 WORKS CITED. 18

TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 Figure 18 Figure 19 Figure 20 The Rosette..3 Soundboard Bracing.4 Bridge and Saddle4 Bending Jig..5 Back Preparation..5 Back Inlay Strip...6 Back Bracing Struts.6 Peghead with Tuning Machines...7 Unfinished Neck and Fretboard...8 Fretwire Installation.....8 PVA Side-Neck Markers.....9 Tentallones on Completed Sides...10 Attaching the Neck10 Soundboard Binding..11 Oil Finishing..12 Appendix A: Anatomy of the Classical Guitar..15 Appendix B: Inside View of Soundboard with Alternative Bracing Pattern.....16 Appendix C: Bridge With Saddle and Harness......16 Appendix D: Concept of Bookmatching....17 Appendix E: Quartersawing Process.............17

ABSTRACT Lutherie is the art of creating and repairing stringed musical instruments. Classical acoustic guitar lutherie is a complex and demanding process, requiring both years of knowledge and expertise as well as hands-on experience.

The process of crafting a handmade guitar can be long and challenging. Luthiers are aided in this process by many custom made and common woodworking tools. These tools help them create pieces of art using rare and exotic materials.

The lutherie process can be broken down into four distinct categories. These are: Crafting the body of the guitar Creating the guitars neck Attaching finishing touches and aesthetics Applying a wood finish

Lutherie is the art of guitar craft that can be traced back to sixteenth century Europe. During the sixteenth century, many exquisite guitars were created and sold to rich Europeans aristocrats. But, even before the sixteenth century, luthiers were busy making lutes, harps, and other predecessors of the guitar. Some of the earliest guitar predecessors are: the Samarian Lute (2400 BC), Indian Ravawastron (1000 BC), the Turkestan Capuz (500 BC), and the Chinese Tuen-Kin (300 BC) (Rodriguez 13). Because this ancient art has been practiced for so long, it has seen numerous changes and evolutions in process and design. This report will provide readers with a breakdown of a guitar itself, as well as highlight the entire process of crafting a handmade classical guitar. The buildup of the guitar itself is very important to luthiers. Crafting guitars, especially classical acoustic guitars is an intensely complex and precise skill. Without a doubt, the guitar that we luthiers build is the instrument with the most pieces of all stringed instruments (Rodriguez 10). The classical guitar consists of many different materials. In some cases these materials are imported to luthiers from all over the globe. A true luthier scours the world, spending much time and money in effort to unearth the right piece of wood for each section of their guitars. Some handcrafted guitars incorporate increasingly rare woods which cause them to become extremely expensive. The main sections of the guitar are the belly, or soundboard, the neck, the sides, and the back. The instrument has a waist and continuous sides from the bottom block to the neck block (Buchanan 179). Two things are vital to classical guitar connoisseurs: the wood and the tone. Luthiers use the finest woods available in an attempt to create lush tone and elegant construction combined with resilience. Just the wood alone the most important ingredient of all accumulates a whole series of complexities in its density, hardness, and elasticity

(Rodriguez 10). Each piece of wood used in the crafting process has its own identity and, therefore specific characteristics. Even the cutting of trees for guitars requires a special process. The body of a classical guitar is made out of timber cut in a special way. The log is cleft into segments which are then sawn radially so the annual rings cross at right angles to the faces of the boards (Doubtfire 22). Even more complex is the actual woodworking and the tools required for crafting pristine guitars. The list of tools required for building classical guitars is long and sometimes obscure. Some of the major tools used in lutherie are: cabinet scrapers, backsaws, Stanley knives, calipers, 30mm and 10mm gauges, dividers, sanding blocks, pencil compasses, steel measuring tape, purfling cutters, fret-wire clippers, spokeshaves, 11mm and 16mm drill bits, various chisels, block planes, circle cutters, hammers and wooden mallets, large and small screwdrivers, carpenters squares, marking gauges, carpenters bench vices, two large and four small G cramps, bending irons, seven types of saws, and at least five different types of files (Doubtfire 14-16). Because some of the tools that are required in lutherie are not able to be purchased in popular stores, most luthiers make them by hand. Some of these tools are quite easy to make, others take much practice Now that you have been introduced to the history, composition, and tools of the classical guitar trade, I will now walk you through the crafting process. First, the soundboard of mastercrafted guitars is usually made out of spruce (Picea excelsa). It has a high sensitivity to vibrations so that it resonates with a clear note when struck, and provides a fair amount of strength provided with elasticity (Doubtfire 22). The two pieces of the soundboard must be quarter-sawn and bookmatched. Quarter-sawing requires cutting a log into quarters and then resawing boards from each of the sawn faces. This yields wood in which the grain is close to

vertical (Williams ii). Bookmatching is a method by which a single piece of wood is sliced into two sheets, each the same length and width as the original but only half as thick. This gives the sheets a symmetrical grain pattern. The two sheets are matched to ensure continuity in the grains and glued together (Acton 2). The minimum dimensions necessary for the soundboard are 51cm x 20cm x 4mm. After the pieces of wood have been glued together and dried, the excess glue is stripped off using a cabinet scraper and the board is planed down to a minimum of 4mm thickness (Williams 9-10). Next, the chosen guitar template is traced onto the face of the wood and, using a pencil compass, the sound hole and rosette lines are drawn. The rosette is a circular pattern that adds an artistic touch as well as strengthens the perimeter of the soundhole. There are countless patterns that luthiers have created throughout the years for their rosettes. The edge of the sound hole is one of the weakest parts of the classical guitar because it alters edge-and-end grain. The rosette reinforces that area, acting like a belt to strap together and protect the exposed fiber ends (Cumpiano 114). For hundreds of years, there have been several different
The Rosette

techniques used to create rosettes. Some of these are soundboard piercing, parchment roses, incrustation, and mosaic marquetry (Cumpiano 114). The materials used for rosettes are usually combinations of veneer lines and contrasting marquetry or shell inlay (Cumpiano 115). On a classical guitar the rosette is made up of slivers of wood or sticks formed in mosaic fashions.

The perimeter of the soundboard is now cut out using the band saw, followed by cutting out of the sound hole. The band saw is one of the only instruments capable of cutting out such harsh curves. The luthier commonly cuts the tracing out leaving an excess one inch perimeter to allow for trimming and finishing later on. Next, the luthier forms the bracing of the guitar out of the chosen wood with chisels and files. Bracing is commonly shaped from spruce. When gluing on the braces, there are many different pattern variations to choose from. Mainly, the bracing needs to support the guitar and not hinder its tonal abilities. After the sound hole bracing has been completed, luthiers
Soundboard Bracing

focus on finishing the soundboard. In order to do this, a 2.5mm

bridge plate is made and mounted on the bottom end of the soundboard as well as a saddle (Williams 13-15). The bridge dimensions call for 20cm x 3.5cm x 12mm pieces. The saddle is where the strings actually lie as they pass over the bridge, and it is extremely important in the transferring of string vibration to the guitar top (Acton, 3). The bridge can be made out of either the traditional quarter-sawn rosewood or ebony, while saddle and nut require ivory. However, because this material is so scarce
Bridge and Saddle

these days, bone is used in its place on many cheaper guitars. After the bridge and saddle have been shaped and glued to the face of the soundboard, the neck nut is fashioned to be used later in the process. The soundboard is finally complete and the luthier can now move on to shaping the sides of the guitar.

The sides and backs of most guitars call for rosewood. There are two different types of rosewood that master luthiers use: Brazilian and Indian. Brazilian is very scarce; large pieces are extremely expensive and virtually impossible to find (Doubtfire 11). Luthiers buy the sides in matched sets so the grain pattern of the wood is uniform on each side. Along with the great tone found in rosewood, its rich black shade contrasts well with the bright spruce soundboard. The dimensions needed for the sides are two pieces cut to 81cm x 10cm x 4mm. The sides are bent to shape on a bending-iron after being reduced to the correct thickness by planning and scraping (Doubtfire 11). But first, the two rosewood pieces are planed down to a thickness of 2.3mm using a smoothing plane and then sanded with eighty grit sandpaper. A mark is now made to signify the waist curve of the guitar, generally measured at nine-teen
Bending Jig

inches. A bending jig that is hand made by the luthier or a

bending iron is used to make the curves of the sides, but before this the two pieces are moistened. This is a tricky operation and the bending of the sides could take two days (Williams 28). Lastly the sides are checked for accuracy using the soundboard curves as guides. As stated above, most luthiers use rosewood on the backs of their guitars as well. Guitar backs necessitate two rosewood pieces with matching grain that runs from the bottom to the top that have been book-matched and jointed. The dimensions for the two pieces must be 51cm x 20cm x 4mm. The back of the guitar is prepared and cut out using the same techniques incorporated in the soundboard; however the excess diameter is not included. While the back
Back Preparation

does require bracing strips to be fashioned and glued to its inside face, it is somewhat simpler than the soundboard because it does not require as much complex bracing patterns. When using rosewood, the pieces need to be wiped with a paper towel soaked with acetone where the boards where jointed, in order to improve the durability of the glue. After the glue has dried the board is planed down to around 3mm and sanded with eighty grit sandpaper. Next, the luthier usually adds a touch of class by making an inlayed center back piece out of binding material or wood marquetry strips. To do this, the router is used to cut out the groove down the middle of the back, where the inlay strip will fit. After the back strip and the
Backside Inlay Strip

groove for it are made, the strip is fitted and glued into place and then

leveled to the surface of the back (Williams 31-32). Next, the braces for the back are made out of strips of mahogany, one-half inch high and three-eighths inches wide with vertical grain. Each brace will need to be around sixteen inches long. Because each brace needs to be curved a certain way, all four pieces are glued together and then the curve is cut, so that all four pieces receive the same curve. After the pieces are curved, they are separated using a razorblade or scalpel (Williams 33). In order to correctly position the braces, a formula is used. The upper bout brace is in the relative position as the upper bout brace on the soundboard; the next is 113mm from it and the remaining two are located by dividing the remaining distance
Back Bracing Struts

by three (Williams 33). The braces are set in place using a set square to create the ninetydegree angled that is required. When all of the braces are glued in place and dry, they are cut to length so that they overhang the sides about 3mm. Finally, the braces top edges are rounded

and the ends scalloped. These two strut sets create an endoskeleton-like cage inside the guitar, providing support and durability. Now that the soundboard, sides, and back are finished, the luthier needs to construct the neck and put together the body of the guitar in a process called closing the box (Matsushita 9). Before the luthier can close the box, the neck needs to be created. There are several popular wood choices when considering necks. Three of these are straight-grained mahogany, Honduras Cedar, or maple. The finest wood for necks is straight-grained Honduras Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla). This wood is located only in Central America and the West Indies due to the climate that is needed for the trees to flourish. The first step in making the neck is leveling and truing of the boards, this is especially important because all of the neck measurements rely on these steps. The neck dimensions should be 107cm x 7.5cm x 23.5mm. Because classical guitars require eight-teen-degree-angledpegheads, a line is cut across the board five inches from one end at an eight-teen degree angle. The remaining five-inch-long piece when flipped around and glued onto the neck board forms the guitars peghead. Next, the neck taper is planed down to the correct dimensions with eighty grit sandpaper and the truss rod slot is cut down the center of the neck, measuring 5.5mm x 10mm. Now, the peghead veneer, or top is glued to the peghead and marked off with a tri-square. After that the luthier begins to shape the peghead with files and
Peghead with Tuning Machines

chisels, drills the holes for the tuning machines, and cuts the two

slots that will house the tuning machines. Because classical guitars use a different type of string material and diameter, they require unique sets of tuning machines. The tuning machines are precision made, with large diameter rollers for nylon strings (Doubtfire13). Next, the heel of the guitar is cut out of the bottom block, so the bottom end of the neck will fit into the area on the body of the guitar. After the heel is cut, it is shaped with sand paper and files to be able to fit onto the body and glued to the neck. The neck is now ready to move on to the assembly stage. Final shaping is left until the guitar is assembled and the fretboard glued in position (Williams 24). The fretboard (fingerboard), which contains the frets is another piece of the guitar neck. This area is the roadmap of the guitar, where musicians place their fingers in order to create notes and chords. The most popular woods used for fingerboards are maple, rosewood, and ebony, but fingerboards on the finest guitars are made of
Unfinished Neck and Fretboard

ebony (Doubtfire 12). The finest ebony comes only from India and Ceylon and only the heartwood of the tree is used in the fingerboard crafting process. The first step in making the necks fingerboard is to plane the piece of ebony down to correct thickness using a smoothing plane and then level the board with sandpaper. The end that will house the nut is then chosen and the frets are marked down the board with a pencil. Next, using a saw square and a dovetail saw that can cut an accurate 0.6mm kerf, each fret slot is sliced. A kerf, or kerfing, is a groove or notch made by a cutting tool, which is cut only part way
Fretwire Installation

through the thickness of a board. A band saw or coping saw is now used to cut away excess wood and then the board is re-sanded and planed. For a classical guitar the fretboard is usually tapered in thickness on the bass side to compensate for the fact that the bass strings have a wider arc of vibration (Williams 56). Afterwards, the circle that was cut out of the sound hole is used to create the arc on the bottom of the neck, so the sound hole curve matches the curvature of the bottom of the neck. The necks side markers are made out of P.V.A. glue beads and are applied at this time. Next, the fret-wire is inserted into the kerf cuts using hammers, glue, and clamps. The fret-wire should be made from 122cm of Nickel silver with studded tang. After the fretboard is finished the back of the neck needs to be shaped with a chosen curvature that provides comfort and playability. A line is made down the center of the neck and the width of the neck is measured at the first through eighth frets. The thickness is now measured and boxes are drawn on the first and eighth fret positions. Then,
PVA Side-Neck Markers

using a French drawing curve, the shape of the neck is drawn in each box and forty-five-degree tangents to the neck shape curve are drawn at the first and eighth frets. Subsequently several measurements are made to ensure the correct neck curvature. A spokeshave or drawknife is now used to form the curve of the neck. It is absolutely critical that the correct curve is achieved because of the adequate difference in neck curves of classical and steel-string guitars. The neck curve of a classical guitar is flat and wide, while a steel-string curve is C or even V shaped. In order to close the box, luthiers fist start by sanding the sides until they correspond with the neck slot. The sides are clamped in position and a line is made parallel to the soundboard

using a compass. They are then glued to the soundboard with small blocks of spruce or mahogany called tentallones which are made by cutting up strips of kerfed lining into individual segments and cleaning up the rough edges with a file (Williams 39). The tentallones are
Tentallones on Completed Sides

glued in place around the sides, one at a time with smeared

glue on both sides of their surface. Afterwards, the back is bent to shape so a smooth curve is created and the back is glued to the sides. After the pieces are glued together, large rubber bands are used to clamp the guitar together while it dries. The excess perimeter initially left on the soundboard is now trimmed away to create a flush curve with the sides. After closing the box the luthier focuses on attaching the neck to the body. The first, critical step in this process is lining the neck up with the soundboard. The heel of the guitar, also known as the Spanish Foot needs to be rebated to accommodate the soundboard. The rebate is chiseled and sanded to the correct depth and the progress is frequently checked using a twelve-inch ruler to ensure that the neck and the soundboard are kept in the same plane. Once the soundboards upper bout is sanded to its final shape, the center is marked at each end and is placed face down (Williams 37). Next, the neck is jointed to the body and checked accurately due to the importance of this step with the finished symmetry. When
Attaching the Neck

the neck is finally glued to the body, the neck is clamped down and the clamp remains there for the rest of the assembly process.

Now that the guitar has been assembled, several finishing processes must be performed. Two of these steps are adding binding and purfling. Binding can either be made out of wood or
Soundboard Binding

materials like mother of pearl or abalone. Strips of the material are cut using a router with a ball bearing guide that will. The guide allows the luthier to cut exactly around the guitar body and not damage it. The router is moved along the curve of the guitar, creating a channel along

the curves where the strips of binding will fit (Williams 45). This procedure is used on both sides of the guitar. The binding strips are now taped into place and checked to fit perfectly before glued in. After all of the binding is finished and glued to the guitar, another channel is routed around the guitar for the purfling. When combined, the purfling and binding creates an eye-catching effect and smoothes out the guitars curvature. Purfling requires two strips of black/white/black wood and eight strips of white/black/white wood for a guitar with rosewood sides. To add definition to the shape of the guitar it is preferable to use purfling of some description around the soundboard, especially when using white coloured binding (Williams 5). The verb purfling means finishing or decorating the boarder or edge of a piece of woodwork by means of thin bands of contrasting material (from the Latin prfilum, meaning threading forth) (Cumpiano 238). The final step in building a guitar is finishing the woods. There are several materials that can be used in this process. Some of these materials are: nitro-cellulose lacquer, polyurethane lacquer, French polish, spirit and oil varnish, or acrylic lacquer. Finishing requires intense training and practice in order to achieve a beautiful outcome. After the final sanding is complete, the guitar is brushed with compressed air to rid it of as much dust as possible and then the fretboard is masked with tape. The guitar is then sprayed with a mixture of thirty percent

sanding sealer and seventy percent lacquer thinner and allowed one hour to dry. Rosewood grain filler is now used for rosewood guitars. The filler is worked into the grain using the fingertips and then the excess is wiped off. The guitar is then sprayed with sanding sealer and three double-coats of another mixture, comprised of forty percent nitrocellulose lacquer and sixty percent lacquer thinner
Oil Finishing

(Williams 65-68). Finally, the guitar is buffered and the beauty of the finished work can be seen. With the crafting process, the history, and the training required, it is no wonder that the American Guild of Luthiers and other luthier organizations are so prestigious. For hundreds of years unique and beautiful guitars have been made in Europe and the Americas by master luthiers that have dedicated their lives to the trade. Throughout all the years guitars have been created they have seen much evolution in technique and design. The true luthiers of the past and today hold famed legacies within the trade and constantly chose to update and innovate their styles. Master luthier Manuel Rodriguez states, The artistic luthier, who in the past constructed guitars with great artistic skill, but today neglects innovation or has simply lost the skill, will find it quite impossible to make a value judgment, or to feel that the instrument constructed on their premises is an art piece (Rodriguez 11). Without a doubt the work of lutherie can be considered one of the most complex art forms that person can create. If art is mans capacity to create beauty, then there should be no doubt in anybodys mind that musical instruments in general, and the guitar, in particular, are beautiful (Rodriguez 12).

GLOSSARY Acetone: a colorless, volatile, extremely flammable liquid solvent that evaporates quickly; used in lacquers, paint removers, and thinners. Band Saw: a power saw used in woodworking, consisting essentially of a toothed metal band coupled to and continuously driven around the circumferences of two wheels. Bookmatching: the process of matching the grain of wood so that the lines of the grain meet one another on ornate objects such as violins or guitar. It is done by splitting a piece of wood in two so that the horizontal grain appears to create one continuous line when matched up against one another, and so that the lines are perpendicular to the seam, similar to a book. Dovetail Saw: a short stiff saw with a thin blade and fine teeth; used for accurate woodwork. Fretwire: the raised metal wire that is used to divide the frets. Fretwire is usually made of nickel or other stainless metal. Lutherie: the art of making and repairing stringed instruments. Machine Head: a tuning device located on the sides of the peghead on guitars that uses mechanical advantage to tune or maintain the pitch of a string. It dates back to the sixteenth century. Marquetry: material such as wood or ivory, inlaid piece by piece into a wood surface in an intricate design and veneered to another surface. Nitro-cellulose Lacquer: a clear or colored synthetic coating made by dissolving nitrocellulose together with plasticizers and pigments in a mixture of volatile solvents and used to impart a high gloss to surfaces Nut (neck nut): thin strip of ivory, bone, plastic, or ebony located where the base of the peghead meets the top of the guitar neck. It is notched or grooved to maintain even sting spacing. The grooves are designed to lead the strings from the fingerboard to the peghead in a smooth line in order to avoid damage to the strings or their machine heads. Peghead: the top end of a guitar also called a headstock. The peghead houses the machine heads and anchors the strings to the top of the guitar, as opposed to the bridge, which anchors the strings at the bottom end of the guitar body. P.V.A.: polyvinyl acetate. A vinyl polymer used especially in paints or adhesives. Rosette: an ornamental band made out of small chips of wood or marquetry strips that surrounds the sound hole of an acoustic guitar. Router: a hand-held power tool that is used for milling out surfaces or shaping edges of wood.

Set Square: a square with a metal ruler set at a right angle that is attached to another straight piece with a adjustable head. It is commonly used for providing a straightedge in technical drawing. Spanish Foot: the heel of a classical acoustic guitar. It is the area on the back of the neck that attaches to the body at the neck cavity. Spokeshave: a drawknife of a design used for making rounded edges Soundboard: a thin sheet of wood coupled to the strings of various instruments that serves to make the sound of the strings more audible and helps to form the instruments characteristic sound. Veneer(ed): to glue together layers of wood or overlay a surface with a thin layer of a fine or decorative material.

Appendices

Apendix A: Anatomy of the Classical Guitar (Siminoff 9)

Appendix B: Inside View of Soundboard with Alternative Bracing Pattern (Siminoff 44).

Appendix C: Bridge with Saddle, and Harness. (Siminoff 38).

Apendix D: Concept of bookmatching. (Siminoff 10)

Apendix E: Quartersawing Process (Siminoff 10)

Works Cited Acton, Jim. How a Guitar is Made. How Products Are Made. How Products Are Made.com. accessed 10 Nov. 2007 <http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Guitar.html>. Buchanan, George. Making of Stringed Instruments: A Workshop Guide. London: B.T. Batsford, 1997 Cumpiano, William R. Jonathan Natelson. Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology. Amherst, Massachusetts: Rosewood Press, 1987 Doubtfire, Stanley. Make Your Own Classical Guitar. New York: Schocken Books, 1983 Matsushita, Kathy. My (Somewhat) Tradition Classical. Notes from an Amateur Luthier. Kathy Matsuchitas Amateur Luthier Page. July 2007. <http://pweb.jps.net/~msmatsus/htmlpages/c1.html>. Rodriguez, Manuel. The Art and Craft of Making Classical Guitars. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Publishing, 2003 Siminoff, Roger H. The Luthiers Handbook: A Guide to Building Great Tone in Acoustic Stringed Instruments. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corp., 2002. Williams, Jim. Guitar Makers Manual. Dudley, Australia: Guitarcraft Publishers, 1990