Browse This Site. Major Areas Include:
- Lutherie Info Home PageHome page of the Liutaio Mottola Lutherie Information website.
- General InformationThis page includes FAQs, information for first time builders, book recommendations and links to other lutherie resources.
- Technical Information Formulae (some with javascript calculators) and data for instrument designers as well as articles on technical topics.
- Materials, Parts and Supplies Information on the materials used in lutherie.
- Construction TechniquesArticles on various aspects of instrument construction are in this section.
- Tools, Jigs and Shop TechniquesArticles on lutherie tools and jigs and shop techniques are here. There is also a section on CAD, CAM and CNC, which includes download-able CAD drawings of various parts and other CAD tools.
- Instruments and Plans Descriptions of my original instruments, some with download-able plans and details of their construction.
- Pickups and ElectronicsArticles on the construction of pickups, transducers and electronic circuits are here.
- Lutherie Myth/ScienceVarious articles on lutherie mythology and, in the cases where there is any, the science behind it.
- Research AbstractsAbstracts of some of my published research papers on lutherie topics.
- Contact How to contact the author of this site.
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Tips on Using Robert Benedetto's Book:
Making an Archtop Guitar
Here are some tips that folks attempting to use this book to build a first instrument may find useful.
A lot of users get stymied when attempting to implement the arched plates. In my experience first time builders have a lot of problems wrapping their heads around the process of converting a rectangular block of wood into a gracefully arched plate without some intermediate step(s). More experienced builders tend to just do this automatically. Planing the blank into a rough trapezoid shape or routing contour steps seem to work well as intermediate carving steps between the raw blank and the finished plate. For information on the former see the nice article by Graham Caldersmith entitled Arching and Voicing in Violin Plates that appeared in American Lutherie #60. For info on the latter see my article A Method for Specifying Contours of an Arched Plate.
Last updated: Wednesday, March 04, 2009