A Guitar Maker's Manual [Plastic Comb]

Jim Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1987

Written by one of Australia's foremost luthiers, this manual is a straightforward, profusely illustrated guide to constructing nylon-string classical and steel-string guitars. Includes a useful section on creating the jigs necessary to make the job easier and more accurate, along with full size template diagrams to assist in cutting out and marking the body shape and soundboard bracing patterns. A Guitar Maker's Manual lists all of the materials needed, where to get them and what problems to look out for during the construction.

Product Details

• Plastic Comb: 112 pages
• Publisher: Hal Leonard (April 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0958907501
• ISBN-13: 978-0958907507
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 9.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #851,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars You'll need more than Jim William's book to build a guitar.., January 4, 2000

By 

David Jaques (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Guitar Maker's Manual (Plastic Comb)

This book doesn't really provide enough detail to allow you build a guitar, without having either prior guitar building experience, or a good teacher to assist you. The diagrams and photographs are not particularly clear, and the book generally glosses over the fine details of construction. The section on finishing is quite good, and will be of some use if you're intending finishing the guitar yourself. Be carefull if you intend using the templates in the back of the book - specifically the fingerboard template, which on my copy had all the frets spaced incorrectly when compared to a standard fret rule for a classical guitar. I suspect the photocopying process has enlarged the scale by a small but significant amount...

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quite a few important areas are glossed over, October 17, 1999

By 

Mark Krebs (Phoenix, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Guitar Maker's Manual (Plastic Comb)

This manual may be of some limited help to a beginning guitar maker. I found quite a few areas that needed to be expanded upon in order to be useful. The book, "guitarmaking", by Cumpiano is much more comprehensive and is highly recommended. Williams book may give you a few good ideas, but that's about it.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars WOULD be great, if edited properly!, July 25, 2002

By 

Adam Weber "shopmeister" (Toda-Shi, Saitama-Ken Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Guitar Maker's Manual (Plastic Comb)

I must have owned Irving Sloane's "Classic Guitar Construction" since about 1970. It was probably the only thing around, in English, back then. Although it has a few quirks, it is still a great read and reveals a no-nonsense approach.

Williams' book tries hard to emulate Sloane's, but fails in the most important department--TRUST!

There are simply heaps of little errors, some of them common to many modern woodworking and lutherie books, as well as a few individual howlers that just make an old-timer suspicious.

Anthony Burgess once remarked [on spelling]: "A guage works as well as a gauge". We know what he means, and we know what Mr Williams means, when he mis-spells this basic item. However, he also goes on to mis-spell, mis-use and mis-name another dozen or more common woodworking tools and concepts that make one wonder if he really knows what he's talking about. [It confuses those of us who DO.] Tri-square, sash cramp, swooge, guages, annular rings[!], jointing vs joining...I believe it's just as easy to get these little things *correct* before publication. If not, at least before the reprint(s)!

There are still, after 3 or more editions, plenty of unclosed quotes--No, on second reading, those are actually *inch symbols* with no figures before them...There are suggestions that 1"= 12.5mm...on a drawing, 3/16" is called 5mm, but 3/32" [exactly half!] is called 2.2mm. What's going on??? I grew up with both systems, but I can't really trust my cuts to these kinds of little blunders.

Way too often the text refers to classic construction, but the illustration shows a steel-string dreadnought...There's actually no problem, but it makes me wonder why there isn't just a bit more text to explain the discrepancy. A clever symbol next to paragraphs to distinguish the classic from the steel-string acoustic parts would also assist the reader greatly.

Most of the photos and illustrations are clear, but some just defy interpretation until the text has been read 10 or more times.

If I were Mr Williams' editor, before any reprints, I would insist on a simple, but apologetic foreword, and review and extend the text to make this "almost-good-enough" book into a great book. If you know a bit about making guitars, however, you'll find some really thought-provoking ideas here. Beginners beware!