Renaissance Lute, chapter 5 - The soundboard

March 2012

Things are getting serious now, time to work on the actual sound-producing part...
I ordered some nice spruce online, coming from the french Jura mounts.
It's a special thing to count the growth rings on one of the two thin planks.
Even with the sides cut straight, the number was about two hundred...

It's time to spread out the plan.

The two planks are roughly planed to get to the same thickness. It seems to make the glueing alignment easier.

The join is prepared. Yes, that's a brick, I don't have a proper bench with holdfasts...

The excess is cut off.

So, the two parts are joined using the "nail" technique. The nails are to be oriented with the head pointing towards the center, don't ask how I found out... 

I'm using the drawers of my black chest (in the background) to press down while the glue sets.

Now the planing of the outer surface can be done.

And that's the (bad) result that I managed to get with my smoother plane -- I've learned since then, that a low angle block plane is much better for the task...

So I turned to dusting sanding.

Aaaaaah... much better.

On the inner side, the board is thinned to the approximate final thickness. I keep track with caballistic signs of how much is yet to be removed.

It's surprising how much space the shavings quickly take.

Cut to the pear shape, now it's looking like something...

And the box is (temporarily) closed !

And that's how thin it gets...

Ready for the next step, with the reinforcement paper glued on the rose underside, and the same paper on an offcut for rose cutting practicing...

Next post : Carving the rose

Renaissance Lute, chapter 4 - Cleanup & reinforcement

February - March 2012

When the happiness of having completed the bowl assembly has settled, work can move on.
The next steps take the bowl to a more presentable robust state. The sellotape is removed, glue excess is washed away, the spacers are scraped flush, the false soundboard is cut and a set of clamps for the endliner are prepared. The endliner is also made and glued to the bowl.

 

 

 

I found it handy to actually use the planing desk to cut the edge of the bowl to its final line. By pressing the sides, the bowl takes up a different shape that allows to plane the slight recess that eventually causes the soundboard to be cupped longitudinally.

 When all of that is done, the reinforcement stripes of paper are glued on the inside.

Finally the endclasp can be cut, bent and glued to the bowl. Some little adjustments must be done to close all the little gaps that can remain. The travel iron is the right tool for that.

I decided to add an extra fillet to the endclasp, for a nice contrast and to conceal the little gaps that would not go away, even when asked politely. I bent the fillets over a soldering iron.

Read next post : The soundboard

Renaissance Lute, chapter 3 - The shell

December 2011 - February 2012

While moving away from the parents' house (with a workshop in the basement, garage, &c.) into a city flat, I had to rethink my way of working, more quietly and using less space. Fortunately Roy Underhill &Al. crossed my path on the web and taught me the power of unpowered tools. So now, I can happily work with a baby sleeping in the next room.

Here's an example of space management, taking advantage of the third dimension, and multiple-usage devices. I stack up workbenches. The planing desk sits on top of the saw bench (which serves as a simple bench as well) that stands on the table.

The spacers, thin fillets of contrasting wood between the ribs are cut by hand out of solid maple, planed to the correct thickness.

My planing desk is made out of a thick slab of particle panel wood, so that it's not likely to move when humidity changes, and remains flat. The plane is a Lie Nielsen 62 simply inserted upside down into the slot.

Rosewood bends easlily and regularly. Here the nearly finished rib lays on sanding paper, which is used to remove the planing marks.

Assembling the shell, glueing the ribs and fillets takes ages, when you only have a couple of hours per week at hand… Here's the 'traditionnal' sellotape method. No doubt it was used by the early lute makers.

Here's a rib marked for sawing.

My hot-glue setup. Hide glue, of course. I'm using a little travel iron placed upside down to heat the water in the metal cup, whose temperature is monitored by a cook's digital thermometer, and the glue is melting in an espresso cup. I'm only preparing very little quantities of glue at a time, as I can't manage to find time to work every day.

Finally, after over a month, the shell is assembled. That's a significant step in the build :-D !









Read next post : Cleanup