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Rating: 
Summary: True to it's title
Review: I have several books that explain how to build guitars, but this one finally explains how to build a great sounding guitar. The detailed information on tap tuning is worth the price of the book alone. While the book started out a little dry, it quickly delved into many details about the little things that can make the difference between building a good sounding guitar and a great sounding guitar. I cannot wait to apply some of the techniques and pay more attention to the little things when I build my guitar. For some this may be more detail than they want to know, but if you truly want to build a guitar and get the best sound out of it then this is the book for you. Thank you Mr. Siminoff for sharing your years of experience, knowledge and the many hours of experimentation.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat less than I hoped
Review: I'm kind of puzzled by the exuberance of the previous reviewers. This isn't a bad book, but it certainly isn't a wealth of information on building instruments with fabulous tone. What I mean is, it's an 89 page booklet. 70 pages are devoted to a very general (read "vague") summary of instrument making.If you are a novice, this information is completely inadequate. If you already have even a very basic understanding of stringed instrument making, you've read it all before. The section on necks, for instance is barely more than a 1/4 of a page. How much can you say in a 1/4 of a page? Well, frankly, not much more than to describe what a neck does in extremely broad terms. And while none of what he says about necks is wrong, what he says is just sort of obvious. I mean, don't you already know what the neck of a stringed instrument does, generally speaking? That leaves 19 pages for the discussion on tap tuning. The message in this section is, get yourself a Peterson 5000 strobe tuner (only 5000 bucks) and you're off to the races. Oh, and once you get a perfectly tuned top, you can throw away the strobe tuner and use this top as a model for future tops when you employ Siminoff's "deflection" tuning method. There are a couple interesting paragraphs here and there, and I'm sure that the guy knows what he is talking about...his reputation would indicate that he does. And for the price, I suppose you can't ask for too much more. Nevertheless, I'm left thinking this booklet is more like an outline for the book that he could have written. Consequently this is similar to those Time-Life books that explain how to build a Chippendale High Boy in 6 pages: It doesn't get you any closer to actually building a stringed instrument, but reading it isn't unpleasant.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite what it says, but interesting
Review: It's unfortunate the author didn't choose a better title. You'd probably expect THE Luthiers Handbook to be a how-to, but it's nothing like that. Actually it reads more like a college-level textbook. Engineering/techies will probably love it, as will anyone seriously interested in the how & why of fine instrument architecture. There's a lot in here about the tonal properties of various woods, bracings, etc. Even if you never figure out the author's 'tuning' method (or don't have your own home physics lab) you still might find yourself tapping on soundboards and thinking about such things. For the beginning luthier sticking to the tried and true, it's not essential reading however.
Rating:
Summary: A "Must Have" for Any Stringed Instrument Builder
Review: Mr. Siminoff's book addresses the the critical information of how the various components of a stringed musical instrument function. He also explains why certain elements (bracing, truss rods, etc.) are designed in a given arrangement to accent different tonal qualities. Armed with this information, a builder should be able to make informed and more successful decisions on modifications to existing designs, or on new instrument designs. The differences of how fixed and movable bridge systems function was very informative and useful.
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