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george wilson
04-16-2012, 11:27 PM
I made this theorbo for a music conservatory. It is the only one I ever made. It is a rather strange instrument in that its neck has to be built out of line in order to get the bridge better centered on the body. But,this is how they were made. It was still a bit of a compromise,as the bridge is still never centered on the top on these theorbos anyway.

They must have been a handful to play! There are many open bass strings that are not fretted,but just plucked with the thumb for extra deep bass notes.

The boy is curly maple,as was the neck. There are inlaid ebony lines between the staves of the back.The neck and peg head are painted black,as were several of the surviving original examples. The top has a typical knot for a rose. Leonardo daVinci designed a knot of considerable complexity for the logo of his Academy.

The fingerboard is ebony,and you can see the usual tied on gut frets.

This was all completely hand work,except for the pearwood tuning pegs,which I turned on the automatic tuning peg lathe which I built from scratch,and will someday post pictures of.

These knots are made by punching them out. O made a chisel from 1/8" square W1. The last 1/4" was filed down very thin. As thin as I thought I could get away with pushing it through the spruce top without snapping it off. The area near the cutting edge was nearly as thin as a razor blade,tapering up to about twice as thick where it stopped being filed down. It was made as sharp as a razor,and only inserted into the spruce top enough to penetrate to the other side-about 1/10". The spruce top was laid upon a cutting board of poplar,and after the design was drawn on the top,was pushed through the spruce successively along the lines it had to follow. As each individual area was completely punched,it was pressed out of the top and discarded. The harder wood of the cutting board told me when the chisel had fully penetrated the top.

After the chisel had fully punched out the rose,little cuts were made on the surface of the rose,making it look like the elements wove over or under the other elements where they crossed.

This was a standard way of making these roses,and was MUCH better than trying to saw them out. When trying to saw quartered spruce,the hard and soft grains are difficult to keep from producing a wavy line,followed by MUCH needle filing.

I DID saw out some of these roses before discovering this old technique. The job became MUCH faster!

I cannot recall the length of the strings,or their number by now. It was a special order,as I said,and I only made 1.

I no longer have the little chisel,having left it at work when I became the toolmaker(from the musical instrument maker). It only takes a little while,and a file to make one anyway.

Chris Vandiver
04-17-2012, 12:22 AM
Really exquisite work. So skillfully done! Beautiful!


There are so many strings it could almost be a hammer dulcimer.

David Weaver
04-17-2012, 8:03 AM
It is bizarre how the strings create the unbalanced body. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. It looks very cleanly made, of course.

It's a lot bigger instrument that I would've guessed (after looking it up on youtube).

Jessica Pierce-LaRose
04-17-2012, 8:35 AM
Crazy cool. Is there a lot of tension on that, with all those strings? I'd be paranoid of it snapping like a twig - well, I would be if *I* made one; obviously not for one you made. I remember my heart stopping when I strung up the first electric guitar I made and something made a little bit of a groan. It's still going as far as I know; but that always sort of made pay a lot of attention to how everything went together.

Thanks for sharing the rose making technique. That makes a lot more sense . . . And certainly the work speaks to it! I've actually got a little 2mm chisel hanging around not getting a lot of use; it seems like the perfect use of it. Of course, I'd need to find a reason to make a rose on something. And about a bunch of practice pieces to get the technique down!

You don't have any close pictures of the rose, do you? I like this one a lot.

The ebony lines in the back are a nice touch. I think working ebony and maple in close proximity was one of the things that first turned me onto hand tools - sanding that combination just makes a mess of the maple. I discovered card scrapers and smoothing planes and a lot of things "clicked".

I really like this one a lot, George.

Jessica Pierce-LaRose
04-17-2012, 8:36 AM
It is bizarre how the strings create the unbalanced body. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. It looks very cleanly made, of course.

It's a lot bigger instrument that I would've guessed (after looking it up on youtube).

Yeah, I just did the same; I didn't expect that size either!

Matthew N. Masail
04-17-2012, 8:42 AM
the pegs are especially unique, don't think I've ever seen them like that before. I am mostly a classical guitar player, light years away from my woodworking skills, and seeing somthing like this always makes me think how wonderful it might sound with baroque music.

David Weaver
04-17-2012, 9:02 AM
It sounds a lot like the lower register on a harpsichord, almost like a strummed harpsichord maybe leaning a bit toward piano tone.

george wilson
04-17-2012, 9:21 AM
I forgot to mention the size. It has been many years,but I guess the instrument must have been about 4 feet long. Curiously not extremely neck heavy though. The peg boxes are not very thick,just heavy enough on the sides to not split.and with very thin backs,about 1/8" thick.

The backs of lute pegheads are great places for piercing and carving. I got the job as instrument maker by just making a pierced back for a lute peghead. The boss was impressed enough with it to offer me a job,rather than just offering me a commission to make instruments,which is what he originally intended to do.

I guess there was a deadline on delivering this instrument,or some reason that I didn't embellish it.

I actually have a left over lute top with pierced rose in the shop that I could photograph close up,Joshua. I'll try to get to it today.

Chris Vandiver
04-17-2012, 9:45 AM
It sounds a lot like the lower register on a harpsichord, almost like a strummed harpsichord maybe leaning a bit toward piano tone.

That's why I mentioned the hammer dulcimer, it is a precurser to the harpsichord.

george wilson
04-17-2012, 10:12 AM
Actually,lutes had gut strings,which do not have the brightness of metal harpsichord strings. In the 17th.C.,someone invented putting a choir of gut strings on a harpsichord,and a blindfolded lute player was fooled into thinking he was hearing a lute play. It must have been a BEAR to keep tuned. Harpsichords are very light weight in construction( I could carry the single keyboard English harpsichord under 1 arm for short distances when I was young(I have long arms!) They need frequent tuning like guitars. No cast iron frame to stabilize tension,AND the strings were soft iron or brass,not spring tempered music wire. The gut strings would have been MUCH stretchier than metal ones. But,that was the technology they had,and musicians were prepared to tune their harpsichords,make plucking quills for them,and do general maintenance unlike todays keyboard players who have to call a piano tuner. You'd have had to have a live in tuner back then!

Joe Cunningham
04-17-2012, 11:29 AM
As always, stunning craftmanship. I'm planning a mongrel guitar build using a baroque rose, so this is well-timed to get an idea of the technique you used. From what I understand (and I am early on in research), usually Baroque guitars use pearwood and parchment paper for the rose and attach under the soundboard rather than being an integral part of the soundboard as seems to be the case here. I think I'll make quite a few practice roses before actually getting to the guitar build.

george wilson
04-17-2012, 12:51 PM
Joe,you are correct. Guitars used glued up parchment roses of often very ingenious designs,and stepped interiors that sometimes are in 3 or 4 layers,going way down into the guitar body and nearly touching the back.

There is a Japanese maker doing some very nice work along these lines. Somebody posted a link to his work some time ago,but I cannot recall who he is. Perhaps Googling Japanese baroque guitar maker will get results. I'll try it myself,but I don't know how to post a link.

Don Orr
04-17-2012, 12:55 PM
I'll say it again-you're amazing George. Thanks for another look into your incredible body of work.

Johnny Kleso
04-17-2012, 10:06 PM
George that looks great..

Jameel Abraham, The guy that owns Bench Crafted Vises makes Oud's, they look a lot like lutes...
http://www.khalafoud.com/instruments.htm

Niels Cosman
04-17-2012, 10:29 PM
Really cool George, thanks for posting pictures!
My one criticism is that I think you got a little carried away with the number of strings :)
On the other hand, it might give the musician something to do with their toes when they perform!

John Coloccia
04-17-2012, 11:01 PM
What's the neck joint on something like that? Is it like a Spanish heel? It looks like the neck just comes out of nowhere with no support. Obviously that's not true because it's got 5 thousand strings on it!

george wilson
04-17-2012, 11:13 PM
There is no heel on any lute. On this theorbo,there is a sliding dovetail that slides right straight into a female dovetail about 2 1/2" wide in the neck.

Believe it or not,on many old luted,the neck was glued right onto the body with no joint at all,but a long,tapered nail driven through the neck block into the mitered end of the neck. Lutes do not have the string tension of guitars,but this theorbo has so many strings,I felt it needed a decent joint. Especially with the carelessness I saw Williamsburg musicians handle the instruments that we made for them.This one went to a conservatory,and I hope they were more careful.

Johnny,I was wondering if you were o.k.. Ouds were the ancestors of lutes.

Brent VanFossen
04-18-2012, 1:34 AM
Thanks, George, for the photos and for the description of cutting the rose. Beautiful instrument.

Sam Takeuchi
04-18-2012, 1:48 AM
Really beautiful piece. Theorbo was "the" reason I wanted to make musical instruments in the first place, but I haven't dipped my hands in it thus far. I only make classical guitars so far.

If anyone wants to see more pictures, check here (http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/). I have no connection with these luthiers, but it's the place I go to find some inspiration and simply admire. Wonderful stuff.

Chris Vandiver
04-18-2012, 2:11 AM
Really beautiful piece. Theorbo was "the" reason I wanted to make musical instruments in the first place, but I haven't dipped my hands in it thus far. I only make classical guitars so far.

If anyone wants to see more pictures, check here (http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/). I have no connection with these luthiers, but it's the place I go to find some inspiration and simply admire. Wonderful stuff.

Oh yeah! There's a lifetime of dedication there. Wow, I'm awestruck. Thanks for the link, I guess.:)

John Coloccia
04-18-2012, 3:14 AM
Johnny,I was wondering if you were o.k.. Ouds were the ancestors of lutes.

Just busy busy busy, sucking sawdust. This week is especially busy. Yesterday was my wife's birthday, and today's our anniversary. I've got so many ways to screw up this week that I really need to pay attention. :)

When I first saw that picture I wondered if that was huge dovetail or just a decorative detail.

george wilson
04-18-2012, 8:35 AM
I'm not sure what you are looking at,John. The dovetail is not visible externally. It is under the spruce top,and cannot be seen outside the back. By the way,I forgot to mention that the dovetail,which is shaped like a tenon with beveled edges,is also tapered some,so that as the neck is driven home,it becomes tight. It is glued,of course. The dovetail is about 2" long. It goes through the neck block,depending upon how thick that is.

P.S.: I was writing to Johnny Kleso. Sorry John C.. I hadn't seen a posting from Johnny Kleso for some time. I was wondering if he was o.k..

I have seen the site linked by Sam. They are doing a lot of work,it looks like.