Luthier's Forum ( luthierforum.com)
The Luthier's forum consists of a diverse group of people of many talents
and skill levels, drawn together by their love of the stringed musical instrument
in all its different forms.
There was a need for a place like this, and Mario DaCosta created
luthierforum.com to meet that need. Other web sites and musical instrument maker forums exist,
but none which allow participants to freely exchange ideas, materials, and products in a
way that stimulates the community of stringed instrument makers to build more and draw in
new people to the craft. This place is a learning environment where everyone has
respect for other participants, and knowledge, ideas, skills, and experience are free for
the asking. You might be surprised who is on the forum, and there are lots of pictures!
There is no prohibition against buying and selling materials, instruments, and tools.
Good quality and fair prices will determine the number of buyers, and there are a number of
forum members and vendors who sell here. Mario is the primary supplier of tops, and
his production of Kermodie tm spruce out of B.C., CA is some of the best in the world,
and he has proof!
Opinions are truthful on the forum, so if your stuff is good everyone will know.
Luthier Library ( luthierlibrary.com)
Once luthierforum.com got cranking, some very high quality material about building guitars and
other instruments was posted. Material on a forum is transient, and we did not want to
see learning material of this caliber get lost in the archives.
Once again Mario DaCosta of sprucetonewoods.com stepped up and created luthierlibrary.com where
we could showcase the best of the forum and preserve and catalog as much essential information
about musical instrument making in all its forms as possible. The idea was to organize
(as in edit) as much original information from the forum so as to cover all aspects of lutherie
without repetition.
There is some excellent material in the library now; a tutorial by Steve Stevens on the cutting
and fitting of a dovetail neck joint, and an essay and guitar build tutorial by the master
luthier, William Cumpiano.
The building of the library came to a standstill when one of our contributors objected to having
his material edited, and communicated his displeasure in no uncertain terms in the workingman's
vernacular. This person had given permission for his material to be included, but objected
to the striking of duplicate information.
We are still in search of original material for the Library that is not already presented there,
but the editors of the web site will probably have to research and write it ourselves to avoid
offending others.
Instrument Makers ( instrumentmakers.net)
Luthierforum.com has some very skilled and experienced luthiers participating, and regardless of other characteristics, the knowledge and skills shared in the forum are worthy to be preserved, and some of the instruments produced by these craftsmen are among the finest.Instrumentmakers.net has been created to provide email accounts and subdomain web sites for luthierforum.com members.
A member who wishes to have an affinity email address can purchase accounts for a small annual fee. Also, members who wish to present their own material can purchase a subdomain on instrumentmakers.net and sell their product and present their own tutorials on how they build instruments without having to expose their material to luthierlibrary.com editing.