Our plans cover a wide range of instruments, but they are neither comprehensive in scope nor uniform in presentation. They are reflective of what individual GAL members have drawn and submitted over the years. Our plans originally appear (in reduced form) as articles in American Lutherie, and in the Big Red Books of American Lutherie. There may be additional information about the instrument (restoration or building process, photographs, etc.) that appear in American Lutherie that is not included on the full-scale plan, so you may want to obtain a particular back issue or book to have all the information we’ve published on a particular instrument. This will be noted on the individual plan description.
We are always adding to the list of available plans as they appear in the current issues of American Lutherie. If you are interested in seeing a plan of a particular instrument, and especially if you have an instrument that could be used to create a new plan, please contact Tim.
Caveat emptor: Beware of instrument plans sold on ebay, as fraudulent copies of our copyrighted instrument plans are occasionally sold there. Besides being illegal copies, these forgeries are often unusable or incomplete. If you see a suspicious sale, please contact us. Thanks.
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Our lute plans were originally prepared by Robert Lundberg for the Erlangen Lautenbaukurs, an annual seminar presented in Erlangen, Germany, beginning in 1978. These plans are intended to accompany the theoretical information presented in the Lautenbaukurs, available in Mr. Lundberg’s book Historical Lute Construction.
These plans are not necessarily exact replicas of existing instruments. Components missing in the original instrument may be projected from available evidence. Some latitude has been taken to make them practical, workable instruments suitable to modern players.
The uninitiated should not attempt to make a first lute from one of these plans until they have read Mr. Lundberg’s book. The drawings present only the essential information needed to make a particular model of lute. There are a number of details that will not appear on the drawings, because they are developed from understood principles and relationships. Some of these missing details are: the outline of the cap, the juncture of the ribs and cap, the way the ribs flow together at the neck, the pattern of the rosette, details of the treble and bass bars, fine points of bridge construction, pegs, construction of forms, materials, thicknesses, and finishes.
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