[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
that it was half the price of the Lee Valley one, and twice the price of the rosewood one from Japan Woodworking. Actually I know what I'm going to do with it - but that gets back to making harps and psalteries. It is too easy to make a mistake making the recess for the soundboard, and for the sides and back, with a router. I'd rather work and fit, work and fit. Enough for tonight, pardon the length of the message - but you should be used to Murph Says by now. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 9:19 AM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction Hi Dana, You can find nice planes in antique stores for about $25 or $30 --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: on long island the price is much higher in any antique store, and most of em would require serious work to be capable of making dust (rather than gathering it). Seems the interior decorators in these parts like old tools for atmosphere. Dana, I think hand tools become decorator items when the decorators' clients no longer use tools. I live in an industrial city where people use tools every day, so having one on your coffee table would just look like you were too lazy to put it back in the workshop. People here would think it was a little weird. I know of one guy whose last name is Stanley who has an antique Stanley plane on his mantle, but that's sort of a special case. I would have no trouble picking up a half-dozen old planes in decent condition for the prices I mentioned. When I refer to antique stores, by the way, I'm talking about glorified flea markets where you can find everything from your parents travel souvenirs to cookware from 30 years ago. I'm in the Midwest, where anything more than 50 years old seems to be considered an antique. We don't have much in the way of real antiques around here. Tim To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
Hi Dana, You can find nice planes in antique stores for about $25 or $30 --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: on long island the price is much higher in any antique store, and most of em would require serious work to be capable of making dust (rather than gathering it). Seems the interior decorators in these parts like old tools for atmosphere. Dana, I think hand tools become decorator items when the decorators' clients no longer use tools. I live in an industrial city where people use tools every day, so having one on your coffee table would just look like you were too lazy to put it back in the workshop. People here would think it was a little weird. I know of one guy whose last name is Stanley who has an antique Stanley plane on his mantle, but that's sort of a special case. I would have no trouble picking up a half-dozen old planes in decent condition for the prices I mentioned. When I refer to antique stores, by the way, I'm talking about glorified flea markets where you can find everything from your parents travel souvenirs to cookware from 30 years ago. I'm in the Midwest, where anything more than 50 years old seems to be considered an antique. We don't have much in the way of real antiques around here. Tim To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
Hi Dana and All, With all respect for Dana's woodworking skills, which must be vast to build pipe organs, I must disagree on the tools necessary to build lutes, even in some quantity. My shop is currently a corner of our basement and measures 10'x8'. The only power tools I use are, a Delta 14 band saw (for general sawing and re-sawing with a 1/2 wide blade), a table top drill press, a corded and cordless drill, a disk sander and a dremmel tool. The one other big power item is a Jet mini wood lathe for pegs. Everything else is done with hand tools. I prefer to get my chisels from eBay since I can find vintage socket chisels which make it easy to replace the handles. I sharpen with Japanese water stones. I have a collection of small planes, several of which I made for a specific task such as cutting the shelf for a binding on a lute top. My most expensive hand tools are a couple from Lie Nielsen, a small scraper plane and a low angle smoothing plane. Otherwise it's Stanley all the way. I built me first lute on a drafting table in my apartment in Portland. While I did some of the work at Bob Lundeberg's shop I did most of it at home, even carving the mould, making huge mess. It's not so much the amount of equipment you can gather that makes the lute. It's having the fire in your belly to do it and the guts to get about it. Best, Rob Dorsey http://RobDorsey.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 1:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction Sorry all, I should have waited to reply, my previous posting was incomplete because of time constraints. To build from plans and use wood bought from commercial sources (rather than as a kit) you will want access to a general woodworking shop - resawing bandsaw, ordinary bandsaw, table saw, jointer, planer. Many large cities have woodworking clubs. I build pipe organs for a living, and have permission to use the shops tools for small home projects (I pay rent when doing work for sale). Sometimes you can find a medium or small size cabinet/millwork shop that resells excess wood and does small-scale millwork for a reasonable fee, or one that allows employees to earn tips for small amounts of ad-hoc millwork on provided wood. Do you and the shop the favor of providing a sketch showing precisely what you want done; also, be careful not to impose, friday at closing is not the best time, tho a half hour earlier may have been ideal. For soundboard tuning you want cabinet scrapers and small planes, spokeshaves, and gouges, look to the ample violin making literature for details on use. Sharpening equipment for all your tools, and a reference book for sharpening angles (in metals) which you will augment for the woods you use. A plate of glass plus wet/dry paper (scary-sharp system), traditional european oil stones, traditional japanese water stones, each of these systems has some advantage, and there are machines one can invest in to help with precision and speed. Dont assume any tool fresh from the store is ready for use, plane soles are ground flat, but may have sprung, and usually are only sorta flat; frogs need adjustment if not reshaping; irons and cap irons need resharpening and honeing, then bedding. The proper cutting angle for a chisel/gouge varys according to the nature of the wood to be worked. Woods with diffuse small pores can tolerate a stronger angled edge which will last longer (Maple, Apple..) Softer woods with larger pores (diffuse or not) will be more air than cellulose and need a more acute cutting angle which is more fragile (pine, spruce..). Woods which are hard in places but also have rings of large pores (Jatoba, Oak, Ash) are a compromise, some cuts will need one tool, others a different one. Ideally you should have double sets of tools, but that is costly. Sometimes you must work with a tool not ideal but which will do the job with care. Manufacturors will give you a compromise angle which may not suit the work you intend. Minimal kit is a concept that is difficult to establish, so much depends on personal preference. Plan to spend time at yard and estate sales, tools are not always present, but when they are its often a good buy if only for the steel. Careful with complex pieces like a plain, often the sole will be worn out or split (wooden body), perhaps the iron is not original and wrong, perhaps a steeltipped iron has been oversharpened, perhaps a steel-bodied plane is warped, dented, or badly rusted beyond redemption. Still, old Stanleys, Records, and Baileys are worth $15-20 for you to experiment on tuning the plane up. Wooden bodied planes are easy to fabricate, if you have a usable iron, so even if the iron was wrong for the plane you have, you can make something to use that iron. A forge with anvils hammers and tongs is the ultimate tool, assuming you have a country place, tolerant neighbors and firecode. Most
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
attachment so my pegs are reasonably uniform. You really don't want to go the New Yankee Workshop route and buy thousands of dollars worth of tools just to see if you like lutherie. Start small and modest and buy good quality tools as you develop your skills and can foresee a continued need for them. If you go to Larry Brown's web site, you can see that he is working out of a pleasant room in his basement, and he's made something like 1200 instruments. So you don't need a big fancy shop to do quality work. Tim On Dec 8, 2007, at 3:06 PM, Rob Dorsey wrote: Hi Dana and All, With all respect for Dana's woodworking skills, which must be vast to build pipe organs, I must disagree on the tools necessary to build lutes, even in some quantity. My shop is currently a corner of our basement and measures 10'x8'. The only power tools I use are, a Delta 14 band saw (for general sawing and re-sawing with a 1/2 wide blade), a table top drill press, a corded and cordless drill, a disk sander and a dremmel tool. The one other big power item is a Jet mini wood lathe for pegs. Everything else is done with hand tools. I prefer to get my chisels from eBay since I can find vintage socket chisels which make it easy to replace the handles. I sharpen with Japanese water stones. I have a collection of small planes, several of which I made for a specific task such as cutting the shelf for a binding on a lute top. My most expensive hand tools are a couple from Lie Nielsen, a small scraper plane and a low angle smoothing plane. Otherwise it's Stanley all the way. I built me first lute on a drafting table in my apartment in Portland. While I did some of the work at Bob Lundeberg's shop I did most of it at home, even carving the mould, making huge mess. It's not so much the amount of equipment you can gather that makes the lute. It's having the fire in your belly to do it and the guts to get about it. Best, Rob Dorsey http://RobDorsey.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 1:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction Sorry all, I should have waited to reply, my previous posting was incomplete because of time constraints. To build from plans and use wood bought from commercial sources (rather than as a kit) you will want access to a general woodworking shop - resawing bandsaw, ordinary bandsaw, table saw, jointer, planer. Many large cities have woodworking clubs. I build pipe organs for a living, and have permission to use the shops tools for small home projects (I pay rent when doing work for sale). Sometimes you can find a medium or small size cabinet/millwork shop that resells excess wood and does small-scale millwork for a reasonable fee, or one that allows employees to earn tips for small amounts of ad-hoc millwork on provided wood. Do you and the shop the favor of providing a sketch showing precisely what you want done; also, be careful not to impose, friday at closing is not the best time, tho a half hour earlier may have been ideal. For soundboard tuning you want cabinet scrapers and small planes, spokeshaves, and gouges, look to the ample violin making literature for details on use. Sharpening equipment for all your tools, and a reference book for sharpening angles (in metals) which you will augment for the woods you use. A plate of glass plus wet/dry paper (scary-sharp system), traditional european oil stones, traditional japanese water stones, each of these systems has some advantage, and there are machines one can invest in to help with precision and speed. Dont assume any tool fresh from the store is ready for use, plane soles are ground flat, but may have sprung, and usually are only sorta flat; frogs need adjustment if not reshaping; irons and cap irons need resharpening and honeing, then bedding. The proper cutting angle for a chisel/gouge varys according to the nature of the wood to be worked. Woods with diffuse small pores can tolerate a stronger angled edge which will last longer (Maple, Apple..) Softer woods with larger pores (diffuse or not) will be more air than cellulose and need a more acute cutting angle which is more fragile (pine, spruce..). Woods which are hard in places but also have rings of large pores (Jatoba, Oak, Ash) are a compromise, some cuts will need one tool, others a different one. Ideally you should have double sets of tools, but that is costly. Sometimes you must work with a tool not ideal but which will do the job with care. Manufacturors will give you a compromise angle which may not suit the work you intend. Minimal kit is a concept that is difficult to establish, so much depends on personal preference. Plan to spend time at yard and estate sales, tools are not always present, but when they are its often a good buy if only for the steel. Careful
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
condition and the price is favorable, go for it. For sharpening I am quite iconoclastic; I use emery wet-dry sandpaper on a marble tile. You can find grits up to 2000 in the auto repair section of a DIY store; it's used between coats when repainting cars. With a 2000 grit sandpaper you can get an edge so smooth it looks like it was polished. Just put a little water on the tile and put the paper on top of it; the paper will stick and once you wet the sandpaper you can use it for sharpening. If the sandpaper loads up, just toss it and get a new sheet. I also cheat and use a honing guide. I didn't bother much with sharpening when I was younger and doing home repair work, but once I got interested in lutherie I realized what a difference it made. The power tools I would hate to do without are the little band saw and the benchtop drill press. With those in your shop and some basic hand tools, you can do almost anything needed in lutherie. I have even resawed ribs with the little band saw, although it was a slow process because it is very under-powered. If you are going to resaw on one of these, get a Timberwolf blade. The benchtop lathe is handy too, but as I said above, at first you can buy pegs made by others. I splurged and got a duplicator attachment so my pegs are reasonably uniform. You really don't want to go the New Yankee Workshop route and buy thousands of dollars worth of tools just to see if you like lutherie. Start small and modest and buy good quality tools as you develop your skills and can foresee a continued need for them. If you go to Larry Brown's web site, you can see that he is working out of a pleasant room in his basement, and he's made something like 1200 instruments. So you don't need a big fancy shop to do quality work. Tim On Dec 8, 2007, at 3:06 PM, Rob Dorsey wrote: Hi Dana and All, With all respect for Dana's woodworking skills, which must be vast to build pipe organs, I must disagree on the tools necessary to build lutes, even in some quantity. My shop is currently a corner of our basement and measures 10'x8'. The only power tools I use are, a Delta 14 band saw (for general sawing and re-sawing with a 1/2 wide blade), a table top drill press, a corded and cordless drill, a disk sander and a dremmel tool. The one other big power item is a Jet mini wood lathe for pegs. Everything else is done with hand tools. I prefer to get my chisels from eBay since I can find vintage socket chisels which make it easy to replace the handles. I sharpen with Japanese water stones. I have a collection of small planes, several of which I made for a specific task such as cutting the shelf for a binding on a lute top. My most expensive hand tools are a couple from Lie Nielsen, a small scraper plane and a low angle smoothing plane. Otherwise it's Stanley all the way. I built me first lute on a drafting table in my apartment in Portland. While I did some of the work at Bob Lundeberg's shop I did most of it at home, even carving the mould, making huge mess. It's not so much the amount of equipment you can gather that makes the lute. It's having the fire in your belly to do it and the guts to get about it. Best, Rob Dorsey http://RobDorsey.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 1:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction Sorry all, I should have waited to reply, my previous posting was incomplete because of time constraints. To build from plans and use wood bought from commercial sources (rather than as a kit) you will want access to a general woodworking shop - resawing bandsaw, ordinary bandsaw, table saw, jointer, planer. Many large cities have woodworking clubs. I build pipe organs for a living, and have permission to use the shops tools for small home projects (I pay rent when doing work for sale). Sometimes you can find a medium or small size cabinet/millwork shop that resells excess wood and does small-scale millwork for a reasonable fee, or one that allows employees to earn tips for small amounts of ad-hoc millwork on provided wood. Do you and the shop the favor of providing a sketch showing precisely what you want done; also, be careful not to impose, friday at closing is not the best time, tho a half hour earlier may have been ideal. For soundboard tuning you want cabinet scrapers and small planes, spokeshaves, and gouges, look to the ample violin making literature for details on use. Sharpening equipment for all your tools, and a reference book for sharpening angles (in metals) which you will augment for the woods you use. A plate of glass plus wet/dry paper (scary-sharp system), traditional european oil stones, traditional japanese water stones, each
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
I will compete for the smallest workshop - my 5' x 6' former walkin closet contained my entire shop (except for the hand work in my favorite arm chair in the living room). It has since expanded into my bedroom to avoid having to heft one tool off the bench and replace it with another. I do have a 10 table saw, but that is not used in luthiery (it was on sale, so I bought it - and it is useful for other things, although I could easily do without it). My main tools are a Delta midi lathe (also used for other projects) tucked into a small alcove, a Sears 10 bandsaw (relatively unique as I get a 4 5/8 depth of cut, enough for resawing rib stock). A 10 drill press, and a low speed water wheel grinder. There is also a router table (desk top) that was also an impulse at a sale - don't use it much as I prefer hand tools for sensitive cutting. And a combination 1 belt/6 disk sander - another auxiliary. I could get rid of several of them - the sanding could be done with the collection of discs for my drill press - and for thinning the Luthiers Friend concoction. I do like my Wagner Saf T Planer (fitted to the drill press, and with a home made jig) for nice cuts. None of this is relevant for the future, I hope. My lady and I may have bought a new place (she has been living in an apartment in the West Village of NYC for 42 years - and owned it as a co-op for the last twenty - and I've been here in NJ for the last 12 in a rather nice condo, but not well laid out for a workshop). In our declining years (read we ain't gonna quit) we have decided to combine expenses. The new apartment is a short drive from my current one (short for Tiger Woods, a driver and a five iron for me). My new bedroom will be 15 x 15, and with judicial alignment of my bed and whatever I'll be able to devote most of that to a workshop. She gets the living room, the 13 x 15 bedroom, the kitchen and such - I get my workshop and a small bunk to sleep on. If there is a heaven I think I'm about to enter it. I'll lay down masonite, or plywood, on the fully carpeted floor. I'll set all my tools on wheeled stands, except the lathe - that goes in front of the five foot wide window so I have great light (and room for the Delta extension). And we will have an attic, with a ladder (in my place I have one, but it is a crawl hole I can no longer manage). Wood supplies, old stock that one doesn't want to throw away. Old tools one really intends to refinish (I've a couple from the 19th C., and also my model of 1842 Springfield musket (1849) that I'd like to reconstitute). Should this come about I'll be able to be an exemplar of the bedroom workshop, and also probably produce production psalteries for the market while simultaneously making some rather decent lutes. I'm in love with the psaltery, but not in it's current incarnation that is more like a toy. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
Dana, I cut my rosettes with #5 scalpel blades. (A funny story. A medical supply house once said: You're an instrument maker. On query as to how he would know that he replied, Only two people buy these blades, instrument makers and Rabbis and you don't look like a Mohel to me.) The design is drawn on 100% rag, acid free paper and then glued to the back of the belly. Initial cuts, done mostly as piercing, are made through the back of the belly cutting along the drawing lines through the paper and wood. The area of the rose should have been thinned to 1mm or so or this process is very difficult. Final shaping and trimming, cutting of the facets etc. is done on the front of the rose having first stabilized the wood with a very thin, blond shellac wash. Different strokes, Rob Dorsey http://RobDorsey.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 8:53 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction On Wed, Dec 5, 2007, Troy Wheeler [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: So gentleman, if there is a minimum regarding tools needed to get started such as: work bench (any particular size?) I use a small carvers bench to produce componants, 24 x 4 ft, and auxilliary space on an old oks dinning table in the same room for staging parts. I recomend a larger workbench, 30 x 4 ft would do, more never hurts. carving tools Depends on what you are building, some lutes were heavily carved, others plain. The rose can be worked with scalpel and small drills, but some use punches which you would have to make. I have a small set of gouges and carving tools which ends up involved in most projects. measuring tools The usual, bevel guage, squares large and small, metric tapes and inch tapes. planes Block and something long for jointing. drills -- Dana Emery To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
On Wed, Dec 5, 2007, Troy Wheeler [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: So gentleman, if there is a minimum regarding tools needed to get started such as: work bench (any particular size?) I use a small carvers bench to produce componants, 24 x 4 ft, and auxilliary space on an old oks dinning table in the same room for staging parts. I recomend a larger workbench, 30 x 4 ft would do, more never hurts. carving tools Depends on what you are building, some lutes were heavily carved, others plain. The rose can be worked with scalpel and small drills, but some use punches which you would have to make. I have a small set of gouges and carving tools which ends up involved in most projects. measuring tools The usual, bevel guage, squares large and small, metric tapes and inch tapes. planes Block and something long for jointing. drills -- Dana Emery To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
Troy, It does depend on what method you will be following. If you do go with DvE's CDROM, he includes a whole section on the minimum kit you need for his method. He also give a lot of advice and hints on using various tools in various tasks. Getting and keeping your tools sharp is probably one of the key success factors, and he provides another section on this (including sharpening scrapers - although I have yet to master this!). Regarding a workbench, I think you need as much work area as you can get (but then I'm a messy worker!). In any case, you'll find yourself colonizing the kitchen table and other domestic spaces for various tasks... Hope this helps Din -Original Message- From: Troy Wheeler [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 05 December 2007 12:17 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Lute construction So gentleman, if there is a minimum regarding tools needed to get started such as: work bench (any particular size?) carving tools measuring tools planes what would that minimum be? Best Regards TW _ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sha relife_112007 -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
