Category Archives: instrument building - Page 7

putting the “lut” back in luthier

Posted by on December 7, 2008 No comments

i spent no time in the studio due to having removed the callous from the middle finger of my left hand via chef’s knife this week.  the cut is exactly where my finger hits the string on any given stringed instrument.  this is not conducive to making tunes.  so the order of the day (or weekend) was sawdust.

the flat back lute is coming along.  i did more instrument building this weekend than i have in the last nine months.  i would say that’s sad, but i got a lot done today so i’ll simply celebrate that.  with the linings in i got the back braced and ready.  with the braces in place, i mounted it to the sides.  for the record, i have never heard anyone who does any kind of woodworking ever say “ya know what?  i have too many darned clamps!”

   

while the back was setting up, i got the soundboard braced and got the rosettes installed.  they really are pretty.  again, no such thing as too many clamps!  and here’s a tip:  never buy spool clamps.  build them yourself.  i made about 40 clamps and in materials they were about fifty cents a piece.  total time was under two hours to build them all.  save the cash.

  

i tucked my name away inside it before i clamped the top on just to make sure that no one tries to pass it off as some kind of precious object from antiquity!

i’m hoping to install some binding around the top and the back this week, if i can steal time from the lil’ beast!  then it’s a matter of getting the fretboard together and sanding my life away until it is powdery soft.  finally, the french polish and some old school dowland tunes.

more soon!

too much slacking

Posted by on December 4, 2008 1 comment

ok.  wow.  november disappeared!  some things happened.  i remember having a birthday and going to oklahoma for thanksgiving.  i’m pretty sure we went on vacation to west texas and did a lot of hiking aroud the davis mountains and enchanted rock but i know there was very little time spent in the studio doing the things that need doing.  creative work is sometimes the victim of trade-offs.  it happens.

the world has finally cooled off enough temperature-wise to allow me to get out and use my new birthday drillpress.  i’m back to building instruments.  i whipped together a ukulele from a kit that i’ve had lying around for a couple of years and i started a flat backed lute. 

i’m going to test my french polish skills on the both of these so that i won’t screw up my guitar that i’m also building in the background.  moving my production for gluing and simple work inside allows me to get stuff done during the week.  i can’t really sand in the house but with the few hours i can sneak off into the garage on the weekend i’ve been making some real progress.  i also get a lot of help from the dude and that makes it double fun.

my album has been simmering.  i’m listening and re-listening to tracks that i thought were in the can and deciding that they still need work.  better now than after a release, but it is still frustrating.

i spent some time in the studio working on some music for a theater production up in the great white north.  who knew that covering stevie wonder could be so much fun?  certainly not i!  of course i cut my finger rather badly while cooking tonight and as a result didn’t get things done up as neatly as i would have liked, but this is the way of things.  i got a lot of help from my new production assistant.  he’s really good at finding keyboard shortcuts in applications and discovering midi functionality that i didn’t know existed in logic.

more frequent posts will be forthcoming.  i’m actually back to doing things again, so let’s see if i can’t make a go of this blog.