Alabaster Handcrafted Instruments: Recent Episodes
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I visited Steffen Nowak down in Bristol again to choose some viola wood. His selection was a little limited due to Covid but still had some lovely figured sets to choose from. This what I ended up with. Well seasoned Bosnian maple from 2011 and Alpine spruce from 1992.
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Design I decided to have a go at another cello because I enjoy building them so much! Of course I also wanted to improve on the cellos built so far by making a few judicious design changes and tweaking the build process based on experience with the earlier builds. The key design changes were: Sight … Continue reading Making Cello No.4 →
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Just finished building my first electric guitar. I can’t believe how quick that was – just 3 weeks from getting the wood to first play compared with months to build an acoustic! I only got into this because a friend asked me to design him a travel guitar so he could take it with him … Continue reading Travel multi-scale electric guitar completed →
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Following the successful build of my first parlor guitar I decided to build a second one (P02) for myself with a few design tweaks based on lessons learned from the first one. The main changes were to: Make the body 12mm shorter, 15mm wider at the waist, 5mm narrower at the bottom bout and 15mm … Continue reading P02 Parlor Build →
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Following on from the successful build of my second parlor guitar (P02), I decided to build a left-handed cutaway variant on the P02 body design as a gift for my son’s birthday. Design I chose a conventional 650mm scale length compared to the 635mm on the P02 which resulted in the bridge being pushed a … Continue reading OM1 LH Cutaway build →
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I finished building my new workshop a few weeks ago – something I decided to start building to get me out of my super-cramped garage as soon as the Covid-19 lockdown was announced back in March. I went for a simple wooden framed design on a concrete base with a flat roof to give me … Continue reading New Workshop Completed →
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I have just finished a new project to build a small steel string guitar (Parlor guitar). This is mainly because I hadn’t built a steel string before and also because I have a friend who may be interested. The Design I looked at a variety of commercial designs and listened to lots of demos before … Continue reading P01 Parlor Guitar Build →
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After 6 months of work my first viola is now finished and my client has decided to call her “Carice” after Elgar’s daughter. It is copy of a 15.4″ Guadagnini and weighs in at just 512g (without the chinrest) 575g with a Kreddle chinrest compared with 565g for the original. Sounds rich and responsive (when … Continue reading Viola “Carice” finished →
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So I have just started with my new viola build based on a late Guadagnini from about 1830. This is a small instrument with a body length of only 390mm (15.4″) but it is remarkably resonant and a joy to play. Design I started by measuring up the Guadagnini in great detail and then transferred … Continue reading Viola build →
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I am very excited to have received a commission to build a copy of a beautiful Guadagnini viola. I can’t wait to measure up this gorgeous historic instrument and expect to start working on it in the new year. Read more about it here.
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Having just retired I recently started my 3rd cello build. I think this is going to be a real pleasure as I no longer need to burn the candle at both ends to find time for the luthiery.
The mold I started by building a new mold that I can leave in place whlle rough fitting the back and belly to enable the overhang on the edges to be set really accurately. It is designed so that it can be taken out easily after the linings have been fitted.
Inner part of new cello mold New cello mold bolted up The ribs I cut blocks from willow for the corners and spruce for the ends and glued into the mold before shaping with chisels and files.
Blocks glued into mold Blocks carved to shape Then I scraped the ribs and sanded down to 1.4mm on the drum sander before cutting to size, bending and glueing to the blocks.
Gluing in the c-bout ribs Then I could remove the outer parts of the mold to fit the linings which I mitred into the corner blocks.
Top section of mold removed to allow fitting of linings Linings fitted The plates I had some lovely pieces of book-matched spruce and maple from David Dyke which I cleaned up and carefully planed the edge square and true. This takes a lot of time (for me) to ensure an absolutely perfect fit ready for the rubbed joints. Once dry I then flattened the back surface with the jack plane.
Book-matched back planed flat Then I used the rib assembly to mark out the outline on each plate allowing 3mm of overhang (using a pencil and washer) before cutting out on the bandsaw. (Post build note – should be more like 4.5mm).
Then onto the lengthy process of carving the outside profile of the plates.
Rough shaping of the back with a chisel Top after starting to rout shelf all round the edge Back after starting to rout shelf all round the edge Once the plates outer profile had been carved to match the templates I assembled the plates onto the ribs (with the form still in place) and then used a file with a 3mm wood off-cut attached to file the overhangs to an exact 3mm all round and also set the final rib thicknesses (5.2mm on the back and 5.6mm on the belly).
Plates temporarily assembled onto ribs and overhang set ready to do purfling Then I marked the purfling channels set in 5mm from the edge and cut out using a scalpel and a fine chisel.
Purfling glued in on back plate Purfling channel cut and faired in to back profile Next I dismantled the back and front plates from the rib assembly ready to carve out the inside profiles.
To make this quicker I first drilled holes to a depth a few mm shy of the finished thicknesses.
Back plate drilled to give rough thicknesses Then a lot of elbow grease with first gouges and then thumb planes to get to the starting profile where I start exciting the plates with a loudspeaker coupled to a variable frequency oscillator.
It turned out that the spruce for top had a very low transversal thickness making it very difficult to maintain the x-mode frequency. I ended up having to fix a patch using some wood from a good stiff guitar top to bolster the transversal stiffness and even after that I had to accept an x-mode frequency more than an octave below the ring mode. This meant trying to keep the back’s ring mode about a semitone higher.
Final tuning was done after cutting the f-holes and fitting the bass bar to the top.
Gluing on the bass bar I ended up with the following mode frequencies and plate weights:
| Mode 1 | Mode 2 (x-mode) | Mode 5 (ring mode) | Weight | | Top | 26.5Hz | 52.6Hz | 119Hz (A3 +36cents | 488g | | Back | 31.2Hz | 63.2Hz | 127.5Hz (B3 +55cents) | 785g |
Assembling the box I started by roughly trimming the ends of the blocks before gluing the back on carefully. This was much easier with the rib form still in place.
Gluing on the back Then I removed the collapsible rib form, finished shaping the blocks and drilled the pilot hole for the endpin.
Corner and end blocks shaped and inside cleaned up ready to glue on top plate Finally I glued on the top plate which fitted pretty well.
The neck & fingerboard Firstly I planed and scraped the fingerboard blank to size and set the string relief to half the diameter of the strings.
For the neck, I started by squaring up the maple blank and carefully marking the outline in pencil. I had previously made a template from perspex to make this easier – particularly for the scroll where I marked through guide holes with a pin.
Squared up maple neck block marked up ready for cutting on bandsaw Then I used the bandsaw to cut out the outline shape and a handsaw to cut down the neck which I then trued up with rasps and files.
Cleaning up the rough outline of the neck While the scroll was still a square block I drilled the pilot holes for the pegs and then cut the scroll-box cheeks with the bandsaw.
Cutting the cheeks on the bandsaw Then I sawed the scroll profile a segment at a time before using gouges and scrapers to reach the finished shape.
Sawing the scroll outline Scroll nearly done Assembling the box Before shaping the heel I temporarily glued on the fingerboard and fitted the neck joint using chalk and going slowly so that I achieved:
- A fingerboard projection at the bridge of 83mm
- An up-stand of 23mm
- A neck stop of 280mm
This is probably the trickiest bit and absolutely key to playability so worth spending the time to get it right.
Having fitted the neck joint I than shaped the heel and neck with rasps, files and sandpaper before gluing up the neck joint.
Getting ready to glue on the neck Neck glued on Then I trimmed up the heel, cleaned up any surplus glue and sanded down the whole instrument with 600 grade emery paper. Then I wetted the whole instrument to raise the grain and sanded again ready for finishing.
Cleaned up and ready to go in the fuming cabinet Finishing I started by darkening the instrument with a few days in the fume cupboard with a bowl of ammonia and then sealed with a few coats of shellac, rubbed down with 600 grade and then a final shellac coat.
After sealing with 2 coats of shellac After sealing with 2 coats of shellac Then I mixed some artist paints (2 parts burnt sienna, 1 part burnt umber and 1 part alizarin crimson) with a few drops of linseed oil and rubbed in evenly with a rag.
After 1st application of artist colours After 1st application of artist colours Following drying in the UV cabinet the colour was way too light so I repeated the exercise and then gave it its first coat of colour varnish. The back is looking particularly pleasing.
After 1st coat of colour varnish After 1st coat of colour varnish The colour is still a bit on the light side so I gave it another coat of artists colours with more burnt umber and less red and then another coat of varnish.
After more artist colour and another coat of varnish After some more artists colours and another coat of varnish Then I left it in the UV cabinet for 2 weeks before cutting back, polishing and finishing with a wiped on coat of linseed oil.
Then I re-fitted the fingerboard and finished the neck with a couple of thin coats of linseed oil and burnt sienna artists colours burnished to a good shine.
Gluing fingerboard back on cello #3 Then I shaped and fitted the saddle, nut and bridge before stringing up with a set of larsens.
Finished Instrument The finished instrument weighs in at 2940g, sounds wonderful
With Larsens
https://guitars.davidalabaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Elgar-Clara-Larsen-Feb-2018.mp3
With C/G Spirocores
https://guitars.davidalabaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Elgar-Clara-Spirocore-Feb-2018.mp3
and looks like this:
Cello #3 front view Cello #3 back view Cello #3 side view Cello #3 ff holes Cello #3 peg pox Cello # 3 scroll The post Cello build #3 appeared first on Alabaster Handcrafted Instruments.
This week was the first of a new chapter in my life where I will now have the time to focus properly on building musical instruments. Last week I started building my next cello (my third).
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