On Mon, Jan 26, 2009, Brod Mac <in_brod_we_tr...@hotmail.com> said: > hello, everyone > > what would be the most difficult part of building a six course lute.
I think that varys for each of us. The bowl is certainly one major challenge, getting the ribs to thickness; bending them to about the right shape without singing the wood (or your self); getting just the right angle on each edge as well as making it fit its partner; glueing it up ... lots of fiddly work there. Another issue is lining up the neck with the body so that the action works out and the strings end up over the fingerboard ... - getting the angles right on the neckblock and heel of the neck while also having a good glue joint. A good assembly jig helps here, but you also have to anticipate the bending moment of the strings. Third challenge is thicknessing the top, fitting and shaping ribs to it so the assembly has a uniform frequency response and decent projection. Fourth, carving the rose, shaping the bridge, decorativly carving the pegbox sides and back, purfling, inlay and other decoration (much of which should probably be defered until you have other basics down). If you dont already have experience working with highly-figured woords using hand-tools you will need to develop that as you work, both sharpening skills and how to angle the plane/scraper/chisel/gouge to avoid tear-out is what you need to master. Thin stock is difficult to work with. DOuble-sided sticky tape, vacuum table hold-downs, neither were used by historical luthiers, but both are used today. Two thick boards of not exactly the same thickness can be fastened to your workbench to act as a long bench-stop. Many other jigs can be improvised, all can have difficulty when working with thin stuff that wants to curl or is otherwise ornery. Sandpaper as we know and use it was invented fairly recently; natural substances with abrasive propertys (sharkskin, sawgrass, leather and felt loaded with loose grits) were used, but more for polishing than stock removal. Cabinet scrapers are less used today than sandpaper, but were much used historically, especially for moulding and other small work (scratch stocks for example). Planes arent always held in the hand whe used, coopers formed the edges of barrel and bucket staves on a long bodyed plane that was fixed with its iron face up, the work was drawn along the body to take a shaving, and could be rocked to make a long sweeping curve. Smaller planes can be clamped sideways to the workbench for edge jointing. A solid-body mould with facets carved/scraped/planed onto it can be used to guide files/planes that edge each stave in place on the mould; the mould can also help you to acheive correct edges when the staves have complex curves (as many bodies will require, shallow or deep non-circular sectioned bowls for example). Lots of material to be read up on in the Galpin Society Journal, the Journal of the Lute Society, the Journal of the Lute Society of America (and other lute societys), FoMRHI, Early Music, Robert Lundbergs book on Historical Lute Construction, Douglas Alton Smiths book on the History of the Lute. Welcome, and good luck! -- Dana Emery To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
