One of the most helpful articles I've read was the transcript from Lawrence Smart's talk at the 1995 Guild of American Luthiers convention. I've read it dozens of times since I first found it in 2003 or so. In that article, he provided a lot of the general ideas that helped me figure out how to improve the tone I was getting from my instruments.
I'm going to my first GAL convention the week after next, and one of the things I'm looking forward to most is the talk Andrew Mowry and James Condino are giving on essentially the same topic, "Constructing and Voicing the Modern Mandolin".
Both James and Andrew have told me a couple things about what they have planned. Both gents are detail-oriented in the extreme, and it sounds like this talk will be full of nitty-gritty details about the classic instruments they drew inspiration from, instruments they've designed from scratch, tools and techniques they use, how to incorporate new technologies into a good build process, etc.
Should be a blast. I'll take notes for all you unfortunate folks in Australia that can't make it, Pete.
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