This site can go in different directions for folks interested in various bowed and fretted instruments, maintenance and repair.
Not to mention music and other such things.
For example:
My
work with bowed instruments
Some of my thoughts on bowed instrument
care My
work with plectrum and other instruments
Violin related:
Violin
and bowed instrument care
And a page about the files I use
to do that with
Here's more than you
cared to know about the
provenance of spruce, particularly the celebrated
and somewhat mythical German spruce.
Herewith, a couple of approaches to
repairing broken scrolls and necks on bowed
instruments, mainly basses and cellos.
This is banjo-specific,
but it explains the general concept of afterlength
An historical review of
important violinmakers
A bit about plywood in acoustic
instruments.
What is grain runout, you
ask?
violin bridge wood grain
orientation (someone thought this was really
important)Fretted related:
Here's more than you
cared to know about the
provenance of spruce, particularly the celebrated
and somewhat mythical German spruce.
Saddle angle, intonation and
compensation in steelstring guitars.
And the files I use to do that
with
A chart the main available
fretwires in the US
Scales, bridge placement, and
so on and so forth.
Tuner maintenance -
reviving old ones and new ones too
About certain Gotoh
mandolin gears
About
problematic Gotoh guitar gears
On how the 14-fret guitar
evolved from the 12-fret ancestors
Gibson bridges with
the dreadful adjustable saddles.
Here's a piece on
replacing the bridge with a better one.
How cam
clamps on old Gibson pickguards are supposed to work
On fitting and adjusting
two-piece mandolin (and archtop guitar) bridges
How I fixed a Favilla uke that
didn't play in tune one bit
This is banjo-specific,
but it explains the general concept of afterlength
A bit about plywood in acoustic instruments.
On
neck straightening with heat (which is a method I
don't endorse except in rare instances)
About some resophonic
mandolins I made some years back.
What is grain runout, you
ask?
This leads to Michael
Simmons's excellent piece on the twelve-string guitar
The SCGC Model H
This link (click on the photo) leads to a cluster of pages about one of my favorite guitars.
Selmer guitars
Those marvelous Franco-American things
that get used for Gypsy Swing and more.
