Lute Progress -

[kiwigeo]

Found a bit of time this week to work on the lute in between hours spent on the bike training for the SA Police run ride this Sunday here in Adelaide.

Glued up the swiss spruce soundboard (from Tim..thanks) and got it rough thicknessed to around 2mm. Exact thickness was determined by flexing the board after each planing session as shown in the photo. Next step is working to final thickness with scrapers and the block plane. The top on a lute is thickest around the bridge area and thins down to around 1.3mm around the rosette area.

[Kim]

Lovely silky swiss spruce shavings coming from the L&N smoother Marty.

[kiwigeo]

Yeah I really love that plane.....ya cant beat a well made hand tool. I usually work with a toothed blade in my guitar tops but for the lute top I sharpened up the standard blade and had it adjusted so the shavings coming out of the throat of the plane were transparent.

[matthew]

We wanna see those microchisels you made

[kiwigeo]

We wanna see those microchisels you made

Oh yeah I forgot about them. Theyre not as pretty as the LN plane but theyre functional. Ill put up some pics tomorrow.

Cheers Martin

[kiwigeo]

Latest progress. The top has been worked to final thickness with a block plane and then scrapers. Thickness is around 1.8mm just south of the bridge and gets down to 1.3mm in the rosette area. The rosette pattern is glued on the front of the top and a reinforcing patch of fine art paper is glued on the underside. Pics of the tools Ill use to cut the rosette are pictured including the microchisels I made up from hacksaw blades. The handles are a bit rough but the blades are razor sharp.

[matthew]

Deep breath ... measure twice cut once etc etc

[Puff]

Sound advice - please excuse the pun - good luck, good sight and a steady hand be with you

[Nick]

For sooth good sir, tis a fine looking piece of wood thou duth havest for the top of this lute. Utmost good fortune in carving of the soundhole..........or you could get it laser cut .
Glad to see you've taken up the tools on this one again Martin, will you be cutting/piercing the soundhole before heading out to the rig or leave it until your return?

[matthew]

Seeing those chisels reminds me I have a few knives and thumb planes I must make for the next build. I enjoy making tools, but it always seems like a distraction from the main game.

[kiwigeo]

For sooth good sir, tis a fine looking piece of wood thou duth havest for the top of this lute. Utmost good fortune in carving of the soundhole..........or you could get it laser cut .
Glad to see you've taken up the tools on this one again Martin, will you be cutting/piercing the soundhole before heading out to the rig or leave it until your return?

Nick, it's cyclone season in the NW and the rig is currently demanned. Theyve still got a testing program to get finished so I dont think Ill be back at work till mid February.

[charangohabsburg]

[...] so I dont think Ill be back at work till mid February.

I hope this is good news for your swiss spruce lute top.
I see that you even use some swiss knives (Pfeil). It's really nice to see that we (swiss) have more to export than just perforated cheese.

OT: I have my own swiss spruce I planted as a seed when I was a child. The tree is now 40 years old. If it would be cut down now it would make some nice sopranino uke tops (or 3-piece soprano uke tops). For a fine lute top it had to wait at least some 150 years more...

[kiwigeo]

[...] so I dont think Ill be back at work till mid February.

I hope this is good news for your swiss spruce lute top.
I see that you even use some swiss knives (Pfeil). It's really nice to see that we (swiss) have more to export than just perforated cheese.

OT: I have my own swiss spruce I planted as a seed when I was a child. The tree is now 40 years old. If it would be cut down now it would make some nice sopranino uke tops (or 3-piece soprano uke tops). For a fine lute top it had to wait at least some 150 years more...

Swiss spruce...swiss violin knives......and Ive even got a Swiss brother in law.

That tree looks nice....how much do you want for it??

[kiwigeo]

More work on the rosette today. Got all the cutting/punching out done. It went pretty fast as Ive already done this pattern 5 times during the practise runs. From the arsenal of tools the ones that got the most use were two of the home made microchisels and 1.5mm and 3mm Pfeil microchisel. I would have got more done but the rest of the day was spent f******ng with the workshop dehumidifier....the thing finally choked up with wood dust and started overflowing into the shop.

[Allen]

I just showed the progress pictures to Karen and she said "Oh my Lord". Pretty well sums it up.

Does the Optivisor work well for this sort of thing? I had thought about getting something like that, but I'm worried that it's so bloody hot and humid up here that it would just fog up on me.

[kiwigeo]

Allen,

The Optivisor is useful for work such as a lute rosette where youre working small scale. There are only two negative comments I would make:

1. I often forget Ive got the Optivisor on my head and walk down to the shops wearing it. Not a huge deal as most of the locals know Im a nutter anyway.
2. the Optivisor leaves a big fat line around my head when I take it off......on my nearly nude nut it looks like someone has whipped off the top of my nut, extracter my brain and then popped the lid back on.

Cheers Martin

[Clancy]

Shit that did go quick.
I expected that to take a couple of days.
Nice sharp corners too.

[Allen]

I'm in the same boat as you Martin. About the only place hair wants to grow these days is in places that it didn't when I was younger.

[J.F. Custom]

1. I often forget Ive got the Optivisor on my head and walk down to the shops wearing it. Not a huge deal as most of the locals know Im a nutter anyway.
2. the Optivisor leaves a big fat line around my head when I take it off......on my nearly nude nut it looks like someone has whipped off the top of my nut, extracter my brain and then popped the lid back on.

Cheers Martin

At least the public are likely to step well out of your way in crowded areas; could be quite a handy thing. No queues, clear footpaths... I'll have to consider that in my town among the hordes of tourists of a weekend...

Lovely looking work there Martin. I'm really looking forward to seeing this one finished up.

As a side, you may be interested in this. I was given this guys (Joseph Tawardos) new CD for christmas. Jazz meets the Middle East?? I know it is an Oud, not a lute but still... Pretty impressive skills from this young aussie, not to mention his brother the percussionist. As are the instruments of the luthier that built his Oud too - Faruk Turunz - http://www.oudmaster.com/. Interestingly, he utilizes nomex double tops on some of his Ouds.


youtu.be/

Cheers,

Jeremy.

[Nick]

That came out well Martin, good job you'd done a few practice runs beforehand Should look sweet once you carve the 'under & overs'. My workmate quite often wears an optivisor with his own glasses & on occassion uses a magnifying glass as well! It was only ten years ago he was giving people who wore glasses a hard time, coming back to bite him on the bum now!

Thanks for the Vid Jeremy, very interesting....not to mention Patitucci is a monster! & of course Abercrombie & DeJohnette are no slouches either. Might have to keep an eye out for that CD.

[sebastiaan56]

Looking good Martin, lets hear it for extended breaks!

ABC RN did a couple of features on this album Jeremy, The Music Show I believe, its a great album!

[simonm]

Latest progress. The top has been worked to final thickness with a block plane and then scrapers. Thickness is around 1.8mm just south of the bridge and gets down to 1.3mm in the rosette area. ...

I built a 10 course renaissance lute a long time ago. If memory serves it was about 1.1mm at the edges and 0.9mm at the rosette. I was using someone elses for and I believe it was based on one by Frei in the the museum in Vienna. I found doing the rosette quite nerve racking.

[kiwigeo]

Latest progress. The top has been worked to final thickness with a block plane and then scrapers. Thickness is around 1.8mm just south of the bridge and gets down to 1.3mm in the rosette area. ...

I built a 10 course renaissance lute a long time ago. If memory serves it was about 1.1mm at the edges and 0.9mm at the rosette. I was using someone elses for and I believe it was based on one by Frei in the the museum in Vienna. I found doing the rosette quite nerve racking.

Hi Simon,

I could have gone a bit thinner in the rosette area but my thickness guage has a margin of error that made this a bit dangerous. Around the perimeter of the top I went down to 1.5mm. The top was starting to get a bit floppy so thats where I stopped.

[Dominic]

Nice work Martin. BTW, have you got the lights on your optivisor? I have found them really useful for this close work because you often cast a shadow when you get up close.
Keep at it.
Cheers
Dom

[kiwigeo]

No lights on the visor Dom but I have a crane lamp which hangs over the table close to the work and the shop has fluros and halogens.