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Posts: 401
Joined: Mar. 5 2010
From: Caves Beach Australia
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
I started with making African style drums, Amadinda(ugandan Xylophone) then Native american Flutes, Kora, electric and steel string guitars, weissenborns, Ukuleles and finally classic and flamenco.
The selmer/maccaferri gypsy jazz guitar is on my to do list and the best plans and book seem to be by a fellow by the surname of Collins?.
I follow this programme called "Americana" on BBC Radio 4 (and World Service) and last week there was a bit about a guy who made a violin out of a "Louisville Slugger" baseball bat!
Sounds actually surprisingly good compared with his 400 year old Amati violin..
Posts: 597
Joined: Jan. 14 2007
From: York, England
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
quote:
Just curious if any luthiers here have tried making other instruments than the nylon string guitar.
I made a violin long ago, under the guidance of a very old violin maker. He taught me a lot about wood and we did everything with handtools as far as I remember.
In the last few years I've been asked to make a few steel stung martin style guitars Its been useful experience but I don't want to make anymore.
Its a very satisfying thing to make an instrument that you can play yourself, so I'll be sticking to flamencos in future (and maybe classicals if pushed)
Violin Making, a Practical Guide by Juliet Barker. Loads of measurements, user friendly for a builder, and a Hardanger model if you want to go down that route.
My journey has gone violins, violas, bows with a few adaptations and a roumanian cimpoi (bagpipe) before Flamencos.
If there is time (fingers crossed) a uke or 2, revisit fiddle land, a lute (nice to see the oud link) and the cherry on the cake would be a hurdy gurdy.
Check out the Heart and Hands book of all the weird and wonderful creations of makers from across America.
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
quote:
and the cherry on the cake would be a hurdy gurdy.
Oh yeah, and be able to play the thing really well.
The violin making book is added to my wishlist in Amazon. (Together with a book on how to make trad. Clinker (lapstrake) boats with "real" wood and copper rivets. ) Christmas is close and winter time is for dreaming
Currently i'm also working on a violin although i've got the thing on hold for the sake of the Juan Moreno replica that i'm building at the moment as well.
For the furture i want to build a George Benson Jazz guitar. I've got the hardware parts ready since years but i just didn't found the time to start building.
Oh yeah, and be able to play the thing really well.
I'm not sure that the hurdy would be as hard to play well as flamenco guitar, but if I could knock a couple of tunes out, that would do. Lets get the beastie together first.
Another book for your wishlist, although you may have it, is the Violin Varnishes book by Josef and Reiner Hammerl. It's got loads of recipies for varnishes, stains and info relating to this. Some of this is equally transferable to guitar making. I'm talking staining and soft internal varnishes as the general varnishing procedure for violins is different. I know that french polishing is pref for guitar, but a good spirit violin varnish would probably do well too. Maybe someone has exp. of this??
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
I'm building a cello right now. I also recommend Richard Hankeys book on oud building. In fact it the only book on oud construction. We're lucky he wrote it. I also have a few other projects going a uke and a cello bow. I've built bows before too, but it's my first cello. I'm very excited because I'll get to carve arching in stead of dome it with fan braces.
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to Flamingrae)
You could probably make spirit varnish for a guitar, but you would want to apply it very thin and not expect to build it up until it's super glossy like a guitar finish.
Spirit varnish is really cool you use hard and soft gums or resins like mastic and sandrac to make it harder or softer. And you add oil of lavender usually so it smells heavenly. Problem is if you build it too thick it will dampen the guitar too much and there will also be longer period of drying while the varnish changes and gets harder. The guitar will open up more after that. So you're stuck with making a finish more guitarists will see as rough and unfinished because the guitar world likes to fetishize slickness. If you can get past that an you go thin it would work, but I would formulate the varnish to be on the hard side not eh sticky side.
The standard recipe for spirit varnish is in Alberto Bachmans Encyclopedia of the Violin. and several other places, even on the internet.
You can color spirit varnish with lakes like one made with Saunders wood for brown and pernambuco for red a also red madder lake. You boil pernambuco shavings for an hour and then let the water boil out, then you let the pot dry and the residue left over is the lake (color). Madder is more difficult. You also have the choice of using garnet, yellow or other shellac as the base color for making the varnish.
So this means you could make a guitar with beautiful red finish which will freak everyone out.
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
Has anyone perused the book, The Art of Violin Making? It gets higher ratings than other violin-making books, so I figure it might be something good for a dummy like myself to start out with.
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
You boil pernambuco shavings for an hour and then let the water boil out, then you let the pot dry and the residue left over is the lake (color).
Just a question here Estebanana,
If you had to mix the residue (lake) with wine and drink it, do you think you could dye grey hair from the inside rather than using these false looking "surface colouring" products on the market?
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
Ron,
If you drank pernambuco lake ( which is not a true lake pigment because lake are precipiated into a salt.... another story) you would probably get the most amazing farts known to man followed by intestinal swelling and finally purplish red poop.
Kevin, a lake pigment is a dye that's been extracted usually from a plant like Woad or madder. But many wood species make a dye if soaked in water or alcohol. The lake family of pigments are usually fugitive unless they are fixed with a salt. The main reason for using them in varnishes is because they have molecular structures which can attach directly to the molecular structure of the varnish materials and create a more transparent colored varnish. Some other pigment would make the varnish more cloudy because they have bigger particles that don't bond at a molecular level.
Lake pigments can be artificially made now since the 19th century when the invention of making coal tar pigments was invented by the French. The Rose Madder you get now in a Windsor Newton artists pigment is probably not made from the madder plant. That means if you want to color varnishes you need to acquire true lake pigments by making them or buying them from someone who does.
I've made spirit varnishes in the past and it's totally doable if you have the patience to experiment for a few weeks. I've never used on on a guitar, but I would if guitarists would allow it to be super thin.
Personally I'm growing ever more disinterested in the guitar world aesthetic of making the guitar look shiny like a new car. I feel it's waste of my life to work for that shallow surface effect which in the end does not really matter. It's only in our modern times that we've come to fetishize that level of finish on guitars and the violin world has along been keen on the varnish looking hand done.
I came from the violin world before getting interested in making guitars and I need a rest from the guitar world so I'm going back to my roots for a time to refresh my enthusiasm for instrument building. I get so burned out on some of the myths and regulations involved in what satisfies guitarists; and I had to make myself except those things in the beginning of making guitars. The super fetishized finish was hard for me except and I find myself longing to make those mysterious varnishes with beautiful rich red and orange pigments. So I'm gonna.
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to kovachian)
The types of woods which make the best dyestuffs are usually full of toxins. So yeah, don't drink any exotic plant extracts unless a person with qualified medical training gives them to you.
The entire Amazon Basin is filled with plants that harbor a wild pharmacology of remedies and cures for many human medical issues. Only Big Pharma does not want you to know that. Medicines first came from plants and they are powerful. My other interest in life which I did not follow completely is anthropology. I did a semester of field research in Micronesia in college, the people in that culture still know how to use the plants on the island for wide variety of medical uses. They have tea they make to induce an increase lactation for women who have trouble making milk after pregnancy they also have plant medicines to induce labor. They also make powerful love potions, stupendously deadly poisons to kill enemies.
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
If you drank pernambuco lake ( which is not a true lake pigment because lake are precipiated into a salt.... another story) you would probably get the most amazing farts known to man followed by intestinal swelling and finally purplish red poop.
RE: Making other instruments (in reply to estebanana)
I agree with the overall thread with making a spirit varnish thin and with hard gums.
I'm not totally convinced that I'll go down that route but why I mentioned it was that by adding a few stains or additives, you could get an alternative colour to those offered on the commercial market. I'm probably going to stick to cellulose for the back and sides and french for the front, but I've got a hankering to pop a tiny bit of dragons blood in there - and you dont need much - to warm it up. This has become more difficult as in the uk it seems difficult to get industrial alchohol since the recent - ish terrorist ploys. I'm almost toying with the idea of getting the home brew bin and water jacket out - unless anyone knows any different. I've cooked up my own oil varnishes for violins and they work well - but for guitars this would not be practical.
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