Hi Bill,
I know of at least one very well known and respectable luthier who does
indeed glue the blocks on and doesn't see the sense in them not being
glued.
My hire lute was recently under repair for two loose bars, while it was
under repair, the luthier, whom the Lute Society trusted with the
repair, as well as re-gluing the bars, he glued the blocks too and
blamed the unglued blocks as the likely cause of the failing of the
bars.
When I got the lute back, I would swear it sounded better than it did
before the failure of the bars. Although a little adjustment was done
to the action while it was under repair, but I don't know how much that
would affect the sound. My point being, gluing the blocks didn't have
an adverse effect of the sound.
I'm convinced it's the best way to go and I'm going to take a page out
of his book and glue mine when I get to that stage.
James.
On 6 February 2013 13:01, William Samson [1]willsam...@yahoo.co.uk
wrote:
Dear Collective Wisdom.
I have never understood why luthiers have never got around to
gluing
little blocks to the inside of the edge ribs in way of the ends
of the
bars.
Throughout history one of the commonest faults in a lute has been
the
ungluing of a bar end causing the soundboard to sag and creating
buzzes. Thomas Mace has a lot to say about this along with full
instructions to the owner on how to fix the problem themselves if
they
don't live near a luthier.
It seems to me that a simple preventative measure would be to
glue
little blocks or props inside the edge ribs for the ends of the
bars to
rest on. I've noticed that some early guitars have such props,
so why
not lutes?
Would the addition of blocks/props kill the sound of the
instrument? I
very much doubt it. Any ideas why such an obvious remedy to a
common
problem was ignored by the old ones? Built-in obsolescence maybe
;) ?
I look forward to reading your hypotheses.
Kind regards,
Bill Samson
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References
1. mailto:willsam...@yahoo.co.uk
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