Multi-scale Taropatch Harp Ukulele

[Dave White]

I've always been attracted to the unusual and people who plough their own furrows rather than following the mainstream. Since reading Gregg Miner's wonderfull article on Harp Ukuleles I wanted to build one of my own with "a tip of the hat" to Christopher Knutsen's creations, but not a copy - one in my own style. So I decided to make one using "bits and pieces" from around the workshop. The instrument is called Ferdinand as it's an arch-uke (that's a First World War European joke )

I decided on a multi-scale instrument based around a tenor ukulele scale and chose 424mm for the treble scale, 445mm for the bass scale with 13 frets clear of the body and based around my travel guitar body size. I wanted to make the bracing "interesting" so decided on a Taropatch with four sub-bass strings so that I could use mandolin tuners for the main neck and half a set for the hollow arm. The top was a £5 European Spruce mandolin top covered in bearclaw that I had joined and "rosetted" and then forgotten about in the workshop. The back, sides, neck and hollow arm peghead are sapele offcuts from a door frame being thrown out by a local architectural woodworking firm a few years ago. and the peghead veneers are East Indian Rosewood off-cuts. The fingerboard is a scrap of nice Macassar ebony and the bridge is English Walnut. The hollow arm is "joined" to the body on the front using an EIR strip, and to make it look "planned" rather than make-do, I curved the edges and cut an elliptical sound hole there. The binding is curly koa, and curly narra on the fingerboard. The tuners are Gotoh mandolin. The main neck is strung with Aquila nylgut Low G Tenor ukulele strings, and the sub-basses are D'Addario Classical guitar strings - 6th, 5th, 5th and 4th. I have the instrument in G C E F GG CC DD GG tuning.

Here's some pictures:





and I apologise for the one of ugly me holding it to show the size:



Here's the top bracing:




and the back bracing and spruce flying buttress braces. The top and back braces were all radiused to 10':



Well I'd forgotten just how hard Harp guitars are to play - working out where the sub-bass strings are and how to find them and then play them in time will take me a long time. I got some practice this weekend playing with my guitar buddy Bill Briscombe so here's a shot at a recording. There are two tracks on the Jukebox on the sounds page of my website. Click on the Jukebox icon and then scroll down to the last two tracks (38 & 39) and click on the track you want to play. Track 38 is just me playing each string in turn to demonstrate the tuning : G C E F GG CC DD GG. Track 39 is two pieces - the first is "The Waffen Waltz" written by Chris Wood and taught to me at Burwell by Ed Boyd, and this is followed by a piece of my own that "emerged" from Ferdinand over the last week (no title yet). This gives an idea of picking and strumming and using all of the strings. It's my usual recording setup - a single AKG C1000S microphone into a Fostex FD4, mixed down with flat EQ and no effects. I'm really pleased with the harp like sound and it holds it's own played in a duet with guitar.

Thanks for looking and listening.

[ozziebluesman]

Hey Dave,

Love everything about this project. Your innovation and craftsmanship is always enlightning. I was surprised by how much bass response this relatively small instrument has! The top looks good as dose the way you have appointed the mahog and rosewood. Is the rosewood around the bass soundhole for added strenght for the hollow neck?

Thanks for sharing a wonderful instrument.

Cheers

Alan

[DarwinStrings]

Lucky this isn't a competition, my hat is off to you Dave. As for the apology for the photo, you don't have to apologise for anything when you make instruments that are as individual as that and that sound like rain falling on a dry river bed. Inspiring.

Jim

[sebastiaan56]

Wow Dave, that is one cool looking axe. But you certainly didnt assainate the Arch-Uke joke! Lets hope the instrument doesnt start a war.

Im impressed with the sustain, is that the influence of the bass strings as drones?

[Allen]

Well Dave.....Wow!

You really stepped outside the square with this one, and I'll go far to say that this is my favorite instrument that I've seen you post.

I'm in the midst of building some ukes, and am doing my best at making the tops as light and responsive as I dare. It's quite a challenge when you're use to building steel string instruments. I'm wondering how you decide to build a top for an instrument that is suppose to be very lightly built, but now has the added string force of so many strings? Is it just a shot in the dark, or do you have some insight into your technique?

[Dave White]

Alan,

Thanks. I suspect the bass comes partly from the hollow arm and reasonably deep body (depth around 80mm and lower bout 280mm) but then classicals have bass - the trebles are the hard bit. The mandolin spruce top wasn't long enough for the hollow arm so a join of some sort was necessary. Just joining spruce wouldn't have been dramatic enough so I I used the EIR for this effect - adding the elliptical sound port made it look more deliberate too. On the back I had a longer length but still not enough for the full hollow arm length and so added a piece of EIR on the end. Both EIR pieces have spruce re-enforcement patches under them covering the joins. The one thing I contemplated and didn't do - but will do if I make another - is use carbon-fibre rod off-cuts as zig-zag stiffeners notched into the linings under the hollow arm top, like I did on my harp guitar.

Jim,

Thanks. I like using every scrap of wood that can be used and doing things like this is great for a number of reasons - it doesn't cost a lot, it makes you think and takes you away from set plans giving you confidence in your own skills and instincts, it teaches you how to create aesthetics from resourcefulness (you create your own bling rather than relying on just the wood to do this for you) and you learn a lot that you can take out into other instruments. I had no idea how this thing would sound but it is really great. My friend Bill's daughter has a harp and this weekend we checked out Ferdinand's sound against the same range of notes on the harp and the similarity was uncanny.

Sebastiaan,

Only if he gets shot I think the sustain comes in part from the top arching and in part from the bracing and top voicing - and yes the sympathetics of all the strings together helps too.

Allen,

Thanks. I concluded that for the small ukes there's very little you need to do bracing wise as the string pull is so small. So it's like homeopathy - more is less. That's why I wanted LOTS of strings on this one
I worked out that the 8 main neck strings took it into a 6 string classical guitar string tension territory and so had a base to work on there, and I know how to use hollow arms to support the extra sub-bass string tension. Slanted ladder bracing was the obvious route (as was using multi-scale to give the length in the lower strings) and I added the bottom brace initially in therms of the "balanced look" it gave in dividing up the top areas. Then it was the usual getting hands and ears on the top in the voicing (plus some praying and luck) Getting good trebles on a nylon string is the tricky part and I chickened out a little in going for double courses - plus the Aquila nylgut strings have a great sound too. The more you make different instruments, the more trust you put in your inate skills and your instincts kick in - I suspect it's the same for you. When it doesn't work, think about why and you learn just as much. As a famous American president said "The only think to fear is fear itself".

[Stephen Kinnaird]

Only you, Dave! Well, you and Fred Carlson. I'm constantly impressed and inspired by your creativity. And your playing ain't so bad either.
Beautiful sound on that little guy.
I particularly like your solution for extending the soundboard....
So much so, that one day I'll have to steal that. If you allow.

Steve

[Hippety Hop]

Brilliant contraption Dave.

Hey, you're not that bad lookin for a pom.

Good luck for the upcoming Ashes. You'll need it.

Hip.

[Bob Connor]

It sounds great Dave and must have been a lot of fun to make.

What can I say!!! It's very Dave White.

[Connor_the_builder]

I want, that looks great!

[Hesh1956]

Very cool instrument Dave mon as always from you.

I also like the size of it, pretty small but it sure has a BIG voice and a very sweet tone.

Outstanding Dave!