Siminoff's Luthiers Glossary Paperback – December 1, 2008

An excellent reference for wooden acoustic stringed instrument materials and lutherie techniques. Since it is set in a dictionary format, you will find many aspects of the same subject spread out all over the book based primarily upon subject spelling. Wood sawing extraction formats would be an example of this, but it's not a huge problem. Again - it's a dictionary and exquisitely comprehensive. The author addresses these issues in a more "subject oriented" manner in his wonderful book, The Luthier's Handbook: A Guide to Building Great Tone in Acoustic Stringed Instruments. (Note: this is not a "tools in the hand how to build" book but rather a synopsis on how to produce great sounding instruments by understanding the basic principles of how wood, the physics of pressure and movement, glue, finishes, strings, etc all play an important role in quality tone and amplitude.I can only speak for myself as an amateur luthier at best, but these 2 references are some of the most informative and easily comprehensible resources I have found on the subject of wooden acoustic stringed instruments.

This is a very excellent Glossary. However, the Paperback First Edition does not have color plates of the tone woods, the plates are black and white photos. So a change needs to be written into the product description so as not the mislead buyers.

I also have "The Luthier's Handbook: A Guide to Building Great Tone in Acoustic Stringed Instruments. which is great. This has good pics of common tone woods. and a glossary of luthier's terms.

good book