by johndosthoff | Apr 10, 2026 | Shop Notes
Updating this website has been a project that started more than five years ago and somehow kept drifting to the back burner. I’ve always preferred building guitars over building web pages, and writing about either isn’t exactly my natural habitat. But eventually the...
by johndosthoff | Apr 5, 2026 | From the Archive
Most people stop at the tap. They hear a ring, or they don’t, and they make a judgment. But for me, tapping is just the beginning — a quick first impression, not the verdict. Once I get the wood back into the shop, the real evaluation starts. I take each plate and...
by johndosthoff | Apr 5, 2026 | Shop Notes
I don’t know for sure if I wrote this but I found it in my archives and sure sounds like me. Either way I totally agree with it: As for its effect on the “tone”, I can only comment that there is just no way to ascertain how changing any single element on a...
by johndosthoff | Apr 4, 2026 | Design & Research
My approach to compensation has evolved over the years as I’ve focused on stability, predictability, and the ability to fine‑tune intonation for each individual player. Today, I compensate both the nut and the saddle, but the geometry I use is different from what many...
by johndosthoff | Apr 4, 2026 | Design & Research
This is a post I wrote back in 2007, I cleaned up some of the grammar but otherwise left the technical details alone as I still agree with what I wrote back then. Compensation is what allows a guitar to play in tune as you move up the fingerboard. When a string is...
