Luthiery

Nicolas Prichard
TECM 2700
Table of Contents iii
Table of Contents

Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iii
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... v
Equipment ..................................................................................................................................... vii
Safety .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Guitar Maintenance ......................................................................................................................... 4
Materials ..................................................................................................................................... 4
String Replacement ..................................................................................................................... 4
Instrument Cleaning .................................................................................................................... 9
Action Adjustment .................................................................................................................... 11
Mandolin Maintenance ................................................................................................................. 14
Materials ................................................................................................................................... 14
String Replacement ................................................................................................................... 14
Instrument Cleaning .................................................................................................................. 18
Action Adjustment .................................................................................................................... 20
Index ............................................................................................................................................. 22
Introduction v
Introduction
Luthiery is the art of creating and crafting wooden instruments such as violins, guitars and
mandolins. There are many aspects and sub-fields in the art of luthiery, but for the sake of
brevity, we will only be covering the maintenance of two types of wooden instruments.
Throughout this manual, the basics of stringed instrument maintenance will be explained.
It is important to note that whereas luthiery is most known for creating instruments, it includes
most aspects of acoustic stringed instrument making and repairing. If you need adjustment to the
action of a guitar, or bridge or tuning key adjustments, you would generally take the instrument
to a luthier.






























Introduction vii
Equipment
There are numerous pieces of equipment that are required and useful for luthiery. Because
luthiery is such a varied and complex process, there are thousands of tools that could be useful or
helpful in miniscule ways to build an instrument. Fortunately, instrument maintenance is the
least intensive area of luthiery. Some of the following tools are more for luxury and may not
necessarily be required, but it would be very convenient and helpful to have them on hand

String Winder
This tool is used to quickly wind the strings of a guitar or
mandolin. Some varieties come with addition features
such as a built in end peg remover and a wire cutter. It is
highly recommended that you pick one of these up in
order to make the string changing process quicker and
more efficient.


Cleaning Cloth
Any form of cloth or rag will do. Just be sure to keep it
clean and soft. The picture to the right is just a piece of
an old shirt that I had cut up and have been using to
polish guitars for the past few years.




Allen Wrench
This tool is used to tighten or loosen the truss rods of a
guitar. They are most often included with starting guitar
packs. For most guitars a 3/16 inch allen wrench will be
the correct size.






Wire Cutter
This tool is used to cut the excess wires from a guitar
string. You could use small cutters from craft stores, but I
would highly recommend you buy a string winder that
has a wire cutter built in. Do not under any circumstances
use large wire fence cutter. That is an excellent way to
destroy your guitar.


Polish
The picture on the right shows a standard wooden
instrument polish. Most polished state not to get them on
any raw or exposed wood. Dont forget to shake the bottle
before applying and always apply onto a rag instead of on
the instrument directly. This is to guarantee you have
more control over application.






Safety 3

Safety
Luthiery is potentially a very dangerous
hobby. There are many dangerous tools and
many potentially dangerous situations that you
could find yourself in. In order to make sure
that you are taking the greatest precautions
possible, please read through the following
precautions and warnings. Please note that
these apply at all times when wood-working.
There is not picking and choosing. You never
know when something unexpected may
happen.
ALWAYS be aware of where your
fingers and hands are in relation to the
tool
ONLY use tools on a flat, steady surface
REFER to instruction manuals for more
information














4 Maintenance

Guitar Maintenance

Materials
You will need several tools in order to maintain and carry out minor repairs on a guitar:
Small Wire Cutter
String Winder
Cleaning Cloth
Guitar Strings
Small Phillips Head Screwdriver
3/16 Allen Wrench

String Replacement
This section will cover how to replace strings on an acoustic guitar. You will need to use the
string winder, small wire cutter, and guitar strings.
1. Lay your guitar down on a flat surface.











2. Unwind each guitar string one string at a time.















3. Remove each guitar string from the tuning pegs.


4. Take out the end pegs from the bridge. These hold the guitar string in place. Usually you
can remove them by hand with a bit of force, but some string winders have an area you
can use specifically to remove end pegs.

5. Remove old strings from holes in the bridge.




6 Maintenance

6. Realign holes of the tuning pegs to face the bridge.


7. Insert the low E string into the leftmost hole of the bridge.


8. Thread the string through the left tuning peg closest to the nut.









9. Insert the end peg into the hole with the E string in it.


10. While holding down the end peg, attach the string winder to the corresponding tuner.


11. Before the string is too tight, make sure the string is in the correct slot on the nut.






8 Maintenance

12. Wind up the string until the E string is moderately tightened.


13. Repeat steps 6 through 10 going from the lowest (thickest string) to the highest.

14. Tune each string to E-A-D-G-B-E going from lowest to highest.


15. Using wire cutters, carefully cut the excess string from the tuning keys.


16. Retune the instrument.


Its important to note that because of the nature of strings, you will probably need to tune your
guitar often for the first day or so of switching out your strings.

Instrument Cleaning
This section will instruct you on how to clean your acoustic guitar. You will only need a cleaning
cloth. Some guitars are able to use certain types of polish, in order to create more of a shine in
the finish of a guitar, but I try to stay away from using polish on my acoustic guitar. Cleaning
your guitar is important in order to increase the life of strings. All of the oils in your hands as
well as dead skin cells from your finger wear down strings.




1. Lay your guitar down on a flat surface.


2. Using your cleaning cloth, wipe down the top of the strings.





10 Maintenance

3. Proceed to wrap the cloth around the six strings entirely and wipe along the underside of
the strings.


4. Wipe the fingerboard, paying close attention to cleaning the frets.


5. Wipe the head of the guitar, in between the tuning keys.








6. Continue by wiping the face, back and sides of the guitar.

Action Adjustment
On a guitar, the action is how high off of the fret-board a guitars strings are. This can determine
how much pressure is needed in order to fret an instrument, it can increase the volume of the
guitar and in some cases even effect the tone. This manual will instruct you on how to reduce the
action of your acoustic guitar by loosening the truss rod. You will need your 3/16 Allen
Wrench.
1. Lay your guitar on a flat surface.


2. Unwind your strings. You will want there to be little to no tension in the strings because
any change in the truss rod could potentially snap the strings.

12 Maintenance

3. Look for the Allen Wrench socket in the sound hole of the guitar. It should be very close
to the face of the guitar.


4. Insert Allen Wrench into the socket.


5. Turn wrench left, if youre holding the neck of the guitar, you should feel the truss rod
loosening and the tension of the neck loosening as well.




6. The height of the strings when retightened should be lower on the fret-board. If you wish
to raise the action, simply turn the wrench right instead.




















Figure 2 before Truss Rod Adjustment Figure 1 after Truss Rod Adjustment
14 Maintenance

Mandolin Maintenance

Materials
You will need the following tools to maintain and carry out minor repairs on a mandolin:
Small Wire Cutter
String Winder
Cleaning Cloth
Instrument Polish
Mandolin Strings

String Replacement
This section will review how to change the strings on a mandolin. You will need a set of
mandolin strings, your string winder, and a wire cutter.
1. Lay your mandolin on a flat surface.


2. Remove the faceplate of the mandolin tailpiece. Use a cloth because some tailpieces will
cut you if you use your bare hands.





3. Unwind one pair of mandolin strings at a time. This step is very important because the
bridge of a mandolin is not glued down or permanently attatched in any way. If you
release too much tension in the strings, the bridge will fall off and the intonation will be
ruined.


4. Remove the two strings from the mandolin.


5. Take out new strings with the same tone as the ones you just removed.




16 Maintenance

6. Loop one string into the string post on the tail-piece.


7. String the other end through the tuning peg.


8. Using your string winder, slowly tighten the string, making sure to keep a clean wind.









9. Make sure the string is in the right groove before tightening further.


10. Repeat step 6 through 9 for the second string in the set.


11. Using your wire cutters, cut the extra wire from the string.


12. Repeat step 3 through 11 for each set of strings.



18 Maintenance

13. Tune the instrument to G-D-A-E.


14. Slide the faceplate back onto the tailpiece.


Instrument Cleaning
This section will review how to clean your mandolin. You will need your cleaning cloth, and
instrument polish. Remember, cleaning your mandolin is functional as well as aesthetic because
you will be removing any dead skin cells on the finger board.
1. Using your cloth, wipe down the strings on your mandolin.




2. Slide the cloth in between the finger board and strings and wipe the fingerboard down.


3. Wipe the head of the mandolin, be careful not to accidentally stab yourself with the ends
of the strings


4. Shake the polish bottle and spray polish onto cleaning cloth






20 Maintenance

5. Apply polish and wipe down the face, back and sides of the mandolin.

Action Adjustment
Adjusting the action on a mandolin is even easier than adjusting the action on a guitar, you will
not need any tools, but you will need to be much more careful. You will only be adjusting the
height of the bridge.
1. Loosen strings a generous amount. You dont want much tension but they should still be
able to make a tone (though horribly out of tune).


2. Turn the screws at the middle of the bridge left to raise the bridge (raising the action and
increasing the tension), or turn the screws right to lower the bridge.




3. Retighten the strings and tune the mandolin to G-D-A-E.





















22 Maintenance

Index
action, v, 11, 13, 20
bridge, v, 5, 6, 15, 20
intonation, 15, 20
truss rod, 11, 12