Book Review: Brian Forbes' Acoustic Guitar
Making - How to Make Tools, Templates, and Jigs
By Peter O'Connor
Brian Forbes is a successful luthier, woodworker and author. We're delighted that he has contributed the lead article for this issue and even more happy to note that he will be writing for us in the future.
Members that have been with the Guild for a while might recall that when I first built the Guild's website it was larger than it is today. I scaled the site down when I realized it was overkill and more than the Guild needed and more than the Guild could support. In addition to public events, articles, hints and tips, reference material, tools and jigs, useful links and more, one area provided a brief reference of lutherie books. The panel below is the text that accompanied the image at left in the original website reference of the book now being reviewed.
As the sub-title ("How to...") suggests, this book is not, for the most part, actually about making guitars but instead focuses on making your own specialist luthier tools, templates, fixtures and jigs. As such, it is an excellent reference since this material is so rarely covered, if at all. This book presents a lot of good ideas that might otherwise take years of trial and error to discover. Well organized, very comprehensive and lavishly illustrated with (black and white) photo's, this book is highly recommended.
It's important that a luthier knows his or her stuff. Without adequate knowledge, experience and the ability to execute certain actions well, a good instrument will never be designed or produced. But having the knowledge and the ability to craft a worthwhile instrument isn't all that's needed if you wish to pass that information and those abilities on to others. You need also to be an effective communicator.
If you have read Brian Forbes' article that appears in this issue, you should appreciate that Brian not only clearly knows his stuff, but that his easy, conversational writing style not only effectively communicates information but also helps the reader to be comfortable with the subject. His writing style is reassuring and inspires confidence. Every time you read anything written by Brian, you will feel as though you're sitting in a comfortable armchair, having a conversation with an old friend.
So, what's this book all about? First published in 2013, this is a large format, softcover book with 508 pages and over 1600(!) photographs and diagrams, and it covers a lot of subjects, and covers them very well and in great detail. You'll find information literally not covered in any other lutherie book that I know of, sprinkled with encouraging hints and tips, and nuggets of wisdom and advice, with Brian drawing on hard-earned experience that will, if you are close to the beginning of your lutherie adventure, help you to side-step some of the mistakes and pitfalls that Brian freely admits he made when he was starting out (I suspect he made some of these because he was not fortunate enough to have a book like his). And while this book is ideal for those new to building guitars, there really is something here for everyone, regardless of the readers' level of experience or expertise. And while we're considering applicability, although the emphasis is, of course, on acoustic guitars, there's a lot covered in this book that should be of interest and value to all luthiers.
When I became interested in lutherie, this is one of the first books I purchased, and I was very lucky to find it. It opened my eyes to a world of possibilities that to this day I might otherwise not fully have realized. This is not one of those books that takes you through every step of building your own guitar, and that is exactly what makes this book so valuable. Books that go through the process of building a guitar from start to finish typically make only fleeting reference, if at all, to the tools
SOLG Newsletter - Issue 2 - September 2020
Page 19