Build your own Baroque or Renaissance Lute!

Help Page

This is the page where you will find suggested solutions to various difficulties which builders of the lute have sent in. This page started out as a help page just for the baroque lute course so some do apply specifically to that but most will apply equally to the renaissance lute.


Hi David.
I have a rose-sized piece of spruce that I’m using to practice cutting the rose. After gluing the paper to the back, I noticed that it was warping. Not too surprising, since wetting the one side makes it expand on the wet side. I thought that it would flatten out as it dried, but it went the other way, and is now curved in the other direction, concave on the paper side. It’s bowed about 4mm. Is this going to be a problem when I cut the rose on the real soundboard? Hope this makes sense!

Regards, Dan

Dear Dan,
Yes, that’s quite a normal reaction but annoying. It’s hard to predict and allow for since it turns on how much the paper expands when soaked in glue, relative to the amount the wood expands. In your case the paper expanded more. You could try getting some different paper, I find watercolour 100% rag paper the best, get it from an art supply shop. Expensive but you don’t need much.

The glue itself shrinks considerably as it dries so the less glue you leave in the paper/wood joint the better, so do get a roller and use it to squeeze out as much as possible while gluing the paper on.

However all is not lost, even on your test piece. Make up about 10 or 12 “sticks”, square section rods of wood about 6mm x 6mm x 300mm and cover these with sellotape to prevent adhesion. Then place half of them equally spaced apart on the bench, damp both sides of your wood and paper assembly, place on top of the sticks then place the other sticks exactly over the first ones so the wood/paper is sandwiched between them. Them put a large piece of wood over the whole lot and press down with a heavy weight to hold the workpiece flat. Allow this to dry for about 24 hours and the curvature should have reduced or gone. You can repeat the procedure if necessary.

If you have the same problem with the real soundboard the same technique works well.
Let me know how you get on.

Best wishes,
David

Hi David
After many attempts to make ebony strips to put between the ribs I gave up on it - they kept cracking during the bending process and it was hard to get them really smooth. It was kind of disappointing and finally depressing, so I stopped for a while. I did learn that when you say 'sharpen your tools often' you REALLY mean to sharpen tools often, so maybe not all was lost, but still! Today i felt inspired to try something else. I changed to rosewood and changed the technique to make them, I made a simple drawbar - and finally : success! I just made my first bent strip, perfectly shaped without problem. Great! On to the next step.
yours,
Daan

Dear Daan,

Very sensible, ebony is much more brittle than rosewood which really bends quite nicely.

I think it might be an idea to alert people to using rosewood if like you they have problems with ebony. In fact some ebony is much more tractable than others and I reckon I can now tell which is which by looking at it carefully. There is a sort of gritty quality to the surface of the brittle stuff whereas the good bending stuff looks smoother. There may even be a sub-species involved.

For the moment I'll put this exchange up on the help-pages

Best wishes,

David

I have had a couple of enquiries about methods for taking glue joints apart if something has gone wrong or for alterations of any sort. This made me realise that I had not covered this aspect of lutemaking properly in the course.

I give the general principles first, followed by specific methods for regluing soundboard bar ends.

Briefly the need is to get moisture into the joint followed by heat. The moisture takes a long time to migrate through wood so the best way is to put wet tissue along the joint edges and to seal this from evaporation by applying cling-film over everything. Then you need to leave it for a long time, overnight for thin joints and two or three days for large joints, re-applying water as necessary. After the glue has been rehydrated you can start to apply heat, iron and damp cloth will easily release thin joints. Something major like a neck joint will probably need a thin table knife repeatedly dipped in hot water and worked in slowly. You can also apply steam to the knife as you work but this needs tubing and a source of steam, I have adapted an old Teasmade kettle! Difficult and takes time but can be done. Don’t skimp on the time re-hydrating though.
Dear David

My problem is that, having glued on the soundboard last winter, I noticed yesterday that on the treble side about half way down, there's a bit of give when I press down on the soundboard. It also makes a slight cracking noise and I suspect that one or more of the bars in that area has come unglued. If this is the case, do I just accept it, or is this likely to cause structural problems when the strings are on? Is it even possible to remove the soundboard for re-gluing, or perhaps just a the affected portion? I know this is standard practice with violins, but as the glue used for lutes is stronger, as I understand it, this makes for complications in lute restoration.

Thanks for your help

Regards

Sacha


Dear Sacha,

Sorry to hear of your problem but yes it is serious and you shouldn’t ignore it.

On the plus side it isn’t too much of a job to rectify. You're right it sounds exactly like the ends of one or more bars are loose.

You don’t need to take the whole soundboard off [though that is entirely possible] Put a damp rag over a portion of the soundboard edge near the problem and leave it for a couple of hours to get some moisture into the glue there. [unlike violins which routinely have their soundboards removed dry] Then warm the edge with a warm iron over the damp rag enough to soften the glue so that you can get the end of a table knife into the joint at a point between the bars. Use the knife and some hot water to open the joint between the bars, put a tiny wedge in to hold it open and then work outwards to open it over the bar ends. It is very useful to make up a thin stainless steel artist’s palette knife with a rightangle bend at the extreme tip. Heat it to red hot with a blowlamp and bend it with pliers or in a vice. You can insert this in the joint and use it to pull the rib away from the bar ends.

Work along until you have freed enough joint to allow the soundboard to be pulled up away from the rib to reveal the ends of the loose bars. The procedure MAY loosen more bar ends but that only means they were at risk anyway. But obviously try not to loosen more than you can help.

Then modify the little clips from lesson 17 by shaving the thin leg down until it will fit into the gap and allow you to clamp the bar end to the soundboard using a wedge.

When all is ready, just work some good strong glue into each bar end joint and clamp shut one by one. Make sure you work the glue right in by opening and closing the joint and applying hot glue, the movement will draw the glue in by capillary action.

Leave overnight, clean up carefully with warm water, allow to dry and then re-glue the soundboard in the normal way.

Do each side in turn if both are affected.

Good luck, it's not the worst mistake that could happen. Let me know how you get on. I'll put this on the help page in case others have the same problem in the future.

Best wishes,

David


New string sizes for nylon/carbon option on the renaissance lute

Several of the "carbon" string sizes have recently been discontinued and so this set of sizes has been revised to take account of the changes. This means that the tensions are not precisely the same as for gut and Nylgut; in practice the differences are negligible.

For A=440 Hz:

g'
d'
a
f
c
G
F
D
NR 5042
PVF 5045
PVF 5059
PVF 5072
VN 5108
VN 5136
VN 5050
VN 5180
PVF 5045
PVF 5059
PVF 5072 (oct. NR 5044)
VN 5108 (oct. PVF 5048)
octave PVF 5059
octave PVF 5063
octave PVF 5076

For A=415 Hz:

g'
d'
a
f
c
G
F
D
NR 5044
PVF 5048
PVF 5063
PVF 5076
VN 5112
VN 5140
VN 5160
VN 5190
PVF 5048
PVF 5063
PVF 5076 (oct. PVF 5039)
VN 5112 (oct. PVF 5048)
octave PVF 5063
octave PVF 5068
octave PVF 5079

For these strings email
Bernd Kürschner
Obere Waldstraße 20
D-65232 Taunusstein
Germany
Tel: + 49 (0)6128 6910
Fax: + 49 (0)6128 8207
Email: kuerschner@kuerschner-saiten.de
Website: http://www.kuerschner-saiten.de/



Someone has had difficulty with the paper pattern tearing while trying to cut the design for the back of the pegbox on the baroque lute. He said that his fretsaw cut well but the paper pattern kept tearing..

I know what you mean about the paper, it partly depends on what paper quality nd glue you use. I'd try a heavier paper, say 90gsm instead of the usual 80gsm copier paper. And recently I've found Prittstick glue rather good for such pattern adhesion. Put it on the wood not the paper and then press the paper into place rubbing it down firmly.

He also wondered if it was possible to print a pattern directly onto the wood.

Not really suitable for black wood, but on lighter wood I found out a month ago tthat you can transfer laser print directly onto white wood by printing the pattern in mirror image then placing the laser print on the wood and rubbing the back of the paper with an acetone-soaked rag. You only get one go before all the "loose" ink is used up but it’s amazingly effective and permanent.


Someone has just alerted me to an oversight in the third set of string options in the baroque course. I had missed out the second unison string in courses 3-5. I suspect I did this because they are a repeat of the other string but I did show them in the other tables so it seemed confusing and as if I was suggesting single stringing for these courses. So, to be clear, the third option tables should look like this:

For A=440 Hz:

f'
d'
a
f
d
A
G
F
E
D
C
B
A

NR 5042
NR 5048
NR 5064
PVF 5062
PVF 5074
VN 5112
VN 5124
VN 5140
VN 5150
VN 5165
VN 5185
VN 5185
VN 5210
NR 5064
PVF 5062
PVF 5074
octave PVF 5047
octave PVF 5052
octave PVF 5062
octave PVF 5066
octave PVF 5070
octave PVF 5080
octave PVF 5080
octave VN 5108

For A=415 Hz:

f'
d'
a
f
d
A
G
F
E
D
C
B
A

NR 5044
NR 5052
NR 5068
PVF 5066
PVF 5080
VN 5120
VN 5132
VN 5150
VN 5160
VN 5180
VN 5195
VN 5195
VN 5220
NR 5068
PVF 5066
PVF 5080
octave PVF 5052
octave PVF 5057
octave PVF 5066
octave PVF 5070
octave PVF 5080
octave PVF 5085
octave PVF 5085
octave VN 5108


Dear David,

Just some days ago I told you that I have just finished my lute and today as I was tuning it the bridge has suddenly come off. Now the question is very simple, what do I have to do? is it necessary to unglue the soundboard?

Thank you for you help


It does happen even to the best makers, so you mustn't feel too bad about it. If you have used hot glue, it is fairly straightforward to re-glue.

Clean the bottom of the bridge and the soundboard thoroughly with hot water and an old toothbrush. Leave both to dry. Check very carefully that the bottom surface of the bridge is perfectly flat from back to front. Any slight convexity here would lead to a slight loss of contact at the back edge, just where you don't want it. If not perfectly flat, put a plane, set VERY fine and VERY sharp, upside down in the vice and plane the bottom of the bridge by pulling it firmly over the plane. Hold onto the little ears very firmly as they pass over the plane blade. or they will be torn off. A slight curve over the length of the bridge is not too important if you can bend it flat with hand pressure.

Make up a secure "nest" for your lute with cloth padding arranged so that it sits front-up securely and so that you can press fairly firmly without causing it to roll about.

If there is any finish on the soundboard it is very important that the back edge of the bridge does not overlap with any of this finish. I'd probably use some masking tape to identify the correct position before you put any glue on because the shine of the glue will make it almost impossible to see where the finish ends. If in doubt, overlap the front of the bridge onto the varnish since that’s under just compression, never the back edge. But of course ideally it should fit exactly where it was before.

Then mix up some good strong glue, perhaps slightly thicker than you used last time, but not much, it must still flow out like varnish. Coat the bridge very generously and the soundboard, put the bridge in place and rub it from side to side until all the glue has squeezed out. Lift it off and put lots more glue onto the bridge. Rub it down into place firmly and then hold it there by hand pressing firmly for at least five minutes and better ten. This will be very boring, have some music on the radio!

And then leave it overnight before cleaning up with a gluebrush dipped in warm water..

It should be okay to string up the next day.


David

A quick question concerning the Baroque Lute Course.

I am just about ready to cut out the sound board, but I need to confirm one thing with you. In your description, you say make a 10mm line around the outline of the lute body and cut this (which would give a pure teardrop shape) but your photos show a rectangular finish at the neck end of the sound board. Is this necessary? And if yes, what dimensions should I give it.

Grateful for your advice.

Mike

Dear Mike,

Ah yes, I ought to re-write that bit in the baroque course (it is correctly put in the renaissance course). The pure tear-drop shape gives just enough space for the tongue of soundboard over the neck join, but only just. And I always draw mine with 10mm outside body AND neck, leaving, as you say, a rectangular end. This also has the effect of giving a bit more space to cramp the top end while planing.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Best wishes,

David


Andrea from Italy has sent these two helpful hints. I endorse both, though I will probably continue to use very weak hot glue for the rose design for myself. But even using the tiny amount of water I suggest to remove the design is a high-risk strategy and this suggestion would be safer. Even here though, be very sparing in your use of spraymount adhesive and do spray only the paper, not the soundboard.

His suggestion of a cheap source of high quality tool steel for the rose-cutting chisels is brilliant!

Dear Mr Van Edwards

I am going on with my test lute following your wonderful interactive course. I am now making my soundboard and maybe next week I will start carving the rose. I have two litte Hints for beginners.

The first one is about the 3 mm chisels we have to find and to modify in order to carve the rose pattern. In Italy is very hard to find a wood chisel smaller than 4 - 5 mm, and when you find it, it is very expensive. I have found an alternative source in a watch - jewel makers hardware shop. Jewelers often use chisels to engrave gold ; the steel suitable to make your own engraver is sold (without handle) in these shops at a very low price . You can buy a lot of these steel bars and can destroy them trying to make your wood chisel without looking at your pocket - wallet too closely.

The second hint is about the glue to use to fix the rose pattern on the soundboard . I have read in your lessons about the problems we can experience trying to clean the paper from the sound board using water or steam . I have experienced a frightening wood movement cleanig hide glue from the center joint with hot water and a tooth brush. I really do believe that steam on a carved rose is very dangerous and is a matter for skilled luthiers !!

But you say correctly that using a spray weak adhesive ( just like 3M spray mount ) can leave a tacky residue on the sound board.

I have made some test with 3M spray mount and I would like to inform all my collegues wannabe-luthiers that the tacky glue residue can completely be removed using some drops of acetone.This solvent, used sparingly, seems to not affect the centre joint glue and does not stain the sounboard.. I know that this is not the way used by ancient luthiers; but I think that using this method will save many roses from breakage. What do you think about ?

Ciao

Andrea


Hi David ,

A question. My father has finished the mold and we are getting serious about pondering wood for the back. We had a strange idea that we thought we'd run past you.

First some background. I own an old ~1900 Embergher mandolin with the most astonishing back. You've probably seen these instruments... the vault is made of heavily flamed maple... and is comprised of 30-40 tiny scalloped ribs. The interesting thing is that the figure pattern in the maple is continuous across the back.... that is to say, it looks as if the ribs were cut (side-by-side) from the same flat piece of wood, rather than being sliced off of a block and each pair book-matched.

So... assuming that my conclusion is correct (which it may not be)... we had the idea that we would order a thick sheet of some pretty veneer and cut the lute ribs out of it side-by-side. I have found places on the Web that advertise that they can cut veneers up to 3.2mm thick. Can you think of any reason that this approach would be problematic... assuming we can find a thick veneer that is large enough?

Thanks,

Eric

Dear Eric,

On the whole I wouldn't advise using veneer unless you can be absolutely certain that it is saw-cut veneer and not knife cut. The various slicing methods used to make veneer break a lot of the cross fibres and so make it very weak across the grain. Of course if it has been cut with a large circular saw then it is functionally the same as a normal lute rib, but I very much doubt that it will be saw-cut if the width is large enough to get all 11 ribs out side by side. Consider the size of the circular saw blade required and the consequent wastage of wood. Veneer production is all about buying premium wood and then minimising wastage.

However I strongly suspect that your mandolin has been made with normal wood sliced in consecutive slices from the block but then lined up as I suggest is possible in the second sketch in Lesson 7, IE lining up the grain features from one rib edge to the adjacent edge on the next rib.

Particularly if the figure is nearly at right-angles to the rib this will give the effect you describe of having been cut from one piece of wood.

By the way I hope I've made it clear that normally the consecutive slices are NOT book-matched but simply used one after the other with the same side out. If you book-match alternate pairs you will get a herring-bone effect. This is possible and not unknown in lutes but personally I don't like it and it is much rarer in historic lutes. Maybe I don't like it because it was used a lot for the German lute-guitars of the 19th and 20th century Wandervogel movement!

Best wishes,

David


Someone earlier in the course raised the question of the difficulties of choosing wood from among the many square billets primarily intended for turners. These are often a very useful source of lute ribs in interesting timbers but the needs of turners are not the same as lute-makers and so I thought you might like to consider the options.

Often these come in pieces taken from near the centre of the tree or from a small tree, where the radius of the endgrain is quite small so that you can't get quartersawn or slab sawn slices right through the piece of wood.

If you look through the whole stock you may find some pieces from a larger tree or from further out, where the grain will be more of a piece.

However there is no structural reason not to use this sort of wood. Lutes were made with rib wood in all directions of grain, it's not important at all, either structurally or tonally. The only question is appearance, if you take the slices in order across the lute back the changes will occur gradually and may well look fine. Lay them out on the bench to see. I know you're mostly worried about what to choose in the sawmill and really there isn't much guidance to offer except to say look at both sides of the block and compare the appearance and try to imagine a gradual change from one to the other and decide whether you can live with that.

The ideal though, is to have the grain running fairly straight through the block from one side to the other. This is known as quartersawn and gives the most consistency of appearance and the most stability in bending.

From this it follows that if you have the chance to buy a whole plank, you will get the most useful wood from the central plank that runs right through the centre of the tree.

However this layout is actively avoided by most sawmills since these “boxed heart” planks, as they are known in the UK, are less useful for the furniture making trades who comprise the most influential customers. More often than not the sawmill will try to cut straight down the centre of the log and you will get planks either side of the centre thus:

In these cases there is only a central section of the plank which can be fully quartersawn and it is anyway rather close to the heart of the tree and thus has rings of rather a small radius.

I hope this helps, it can be quite daunting when faced with a small mountain of wood to choose from.

It might be worth noting here that I have taken the initial picture of the log end from the Osage Orange site http://www.osageorange.com This is a timber unknown to me but it is used for longbows and thus looks as if it would make a good yew substitute for lute ribs especially in the USA where it is an indigenous species of tree. They did offer to send me a sample but I haven't seen it yet.



Robert from USA had a set-back!

I jinxed myself with that comment about the whole thing collapsing - it did just that, well not quite, but the bridge separated from the soundboard. I uttered a few choice words when I came home from work and found that: ( Post mortem on the bridge shows that the glue had not coated evenly so there were voids between it and the soundboard. I don't know how that happend, I used plenty of glue, and rotated it around and had good glue squeeze out. At least the soundboard seems undamaged. The bridge is cracked so I think it will be better to make another than to glue it back together. Any suggestions as to how to clamp the bridge to the soundboard while it's still on the body? I'm so disappointed, but we learn more from failure than from successes. I'm thinking the cherrywood I used for the bridge might have been too light, altho this is the same wood I used for the pegs and they're holding up to tuning stresses nicely. Robert

Dear Robert,

I'm so sorry! I'd been intending to write and congratulate you today or tomorrow. Sorry not to have responded earlier but I've been rather snowed under with work and feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Yes, make a new bridge, it's no good gluing that one together it'll never be safe. Cherrywood should be fine. The possible cause was the glue too thick or not hot enough, or perhaps the bottom surface of the bridge not entirely flat, especially at the back end.

Clean up the soundboard with warm water and allow to dry thoroughly overnight and make sure it's completely smooth. If you sand at all wipe off any dust with water and allow to dry.

The best way to cramp it is simply to hold it by hand!! Set the lute up in a stable position and set yourself with a watch nearby, and prepare to hold it for ten minutes. That will seem like an age, but in the great scheme of things it's not so long. It really does work, I've done it several times on repairs to [other makers'!] lutes.

Mix a new batch of glue, make sure the glue runs like varnish and is nice and hot. Coat both surfaces fully with PLENTY of glue and rub the bridge back and forth several times. lift it off [very difficult!] put more glue on the bridge, rub it back and forth some more, lift off a second time, coat with lots of glue for the third time, rub it fully down, slide it into position and hold it very firmly down in place. And wait and wait until the full ten minutes is up. If concerned make it quarter of an hour, but after that it will be fully stuck and you should be able to string up the day after next.

Best wishes, and good luck.

Let me know how you get on. I'll stick this text on the help page for future reference.

David



Follwing an email from Rob in USA, I've just checked the CD course and I see that I didn't really cover the need to check the height of the fretnut grooves properly. I deal with these checks in the "Care of Lutes" booklet so I'll just copy what I wrote there.

"Sometimes an apparently high action is the result of the nut being too high and this can be adjusted very quickly; though it is quite tricky to do properly. However there is a good test which will show you if your nut is at the proper height. Press one of the strings down behind the first fret and, looking from the side or using the taper gauge, carefully note the size of the gap between the bottom of the string and the top of the second fret. Now release the string and look at the equivalent gap between the bottom of the string and the top of the first fret. If it is noticeably larger, then the nut, or rather the groove in the nut, is too high and should be adjusted.

It might be helpful to outline the principles. The front edge of the groove must be the highest point and the last thing that the string touches before heading for the bridge (except for a very small radius to prevent cutting into the string) But equally this front edge should not cause a great change of direction in the string or it will not run smoothly when tuning. The ideal is for the string to be taken round the whole nut in a smooth curve with just the slightest hint of greater pressure at the front edge. Consequently the last part of the groove is nearly parallel to the final direction of the string and it is all too easy to make it curve down at the front so that the highest point is a little way back from the front edge. This is a certain recipe for buzzes. The tolerances are very small and difficult to see but if, in the final stages of filing the groove, you mark the bottom of the groove with pencil you can check that you are not removing material from the front end of the groove before the middle. It can be a help to do this final shaping on the instrument one groove at a time with the nut held in place by the other strings. This has the effect of making it more difficult to angle your file below a line parallel with the fingerboard, which is the cause of the problem. Finally polish the grooves with a piece of twine dipped in Brasso and lubricate with hard soap for bone nuts or pencil lead for blackwood nuts."


At 2:10 pm -0500 27/8/01, Robert Compton wrote:
I did ponder taking the neck off, and I do have a capuccino machine! but
we're not talking a lot of material, the straight edge lies flat on the
neck, we just need that little bit of clearance David specifies. Perhaps
adding tiny shims to the ends of the bars will spread the body a tad and
bring up the neck, too. I'll wait for more suggestions before deciding
which method to use.

Lesson for everyone: Make sure you're worksurface is FLAT!!


Dear Robert,

What a shame! We all still do these things though!

I'd be inclined to follow Chadwick's suggestion and do a little bit of everything to change the angle by increments and avoid taking the neck off. It's an astonishingly strong joint when done as I suggest. Certainly try adding shims to the bars to push the body wider, this may be enough on its own and fortunately the Hoffmann is a fairly narrow straight-sided shape that wouldn't show the distortion too much. Do be careful to keep a fair curve and do the same both sides. This will have the effect of increasing the lengthwise clearance curve as well, and this is no bad thing anyway.

Then a tapered fingerboard is a very good idea, you should be able to get rid of 0.7mm very easily by this means. If your fingerboard is already thicknessed and you can't easily get another piece of ebony, try making a softwood shim to go under it, with ebony edges so that it doesn't show. Glue these onto the shim each side before planing it down to thickness.

A little bit of planing of neck and neck-block will help too but this rapidly makes the neck narrower and thus pushes the bridge off towards the bass as Andres warned.

These three together should deal with the 1.5mm.

If you do decide to remove the neck, do as Andres suggests, but before that, lay some wet paper kitchen towel in a pencil thick roll all along the joint around the neck and block front and cover this with cling film to prevent evaporation. Leave it like this for a couple of days before moving on to Andres' steam. This is because hot glue needs both moisture AND heat to let go. The heat is more quickly applied than the moisture which takes time to work its way along the glue line. Wood is an astonishingly good insulator so the effect of steam doesn't actually speed up the moisture transmission very much, let time do this. Meanwhile get the thinnest stainless steel palette knife from an art shop and when the time comes put this in a kettle of boiling water and use it to work into the joint slowly and carefully. Hurry is the worst enemy of this kind of work.

Ken's alaming tales of violin repair just make me fearful of taking a lute to violin shop for repair! Our joints and use of glue seem to be quite different to theirs. They tend to use a lot more half-strength glue because the nature of the stresses on the instrument are quite different. If they did the kind of rubbed joint with full-strength glue that I recommend for the neck, Ken's trick would take away most of the upper bout ribs together with the neck! The other difference is the rigidity of the body. Ken's method relies entirely on the steepness or suddenness of the stress applied. But a violin body with the back on is a very rigid stable structure, whereas a lute body without the front is like a wobbly jelly and will absorb any sudden stress by distortion. Thus "protecting" the joint you are trying to break.


Chadwick from USA writes:

I have a very alarming problem with my soundboard. It started with gluing the circle on the back, into the hollow part of the soundboard. I prepared a piece of the paper soaked in glue for about twenty minutes but as my jar was rather small I had to roll my paper to get it in there. So I brushed some hot glue onto the soundboard, pulled the paper out and placed it onto the designated spot. I noticed that there was a tear in the paper and as I squeezed the glue out the paper began breaking down at this point. I decided to remove the paper and cut a new piece. I let that soak in glue for half the time. I was already aware that the area on the soundboard was swelling. But when I brushed some more hot glue onto the area, put the new piece of paper on, the board swelled to an alarming 4 mm bulge right in the middle. I put a straight edge and measured the the displacement was indead 4 mm. I almost ripped the paper off for fear that when the glue dries it may hold that shape. I refrained thinking that the soundboard is probably stronger and that It just needed to dry out. A couple of days later confirmed my fear. I readied my iron heated up the affected area and peeled the circle off. It seems to have gone down a little more but still it has two humps on either side of the hollowed area and a displacement of 1 mm in the middle. It feels like an oil can with a ding in the middle. You know how sheet metal is if you get a ding in it. you bend it and it pops. My soundboard feels kind of like that. My question is, Is the thing ruined.

I was going to try steaming the area lightly like you described for removing the paper. But I am really unsure. The whole ordeal began four days ago. I thought that when the wood expels the excess water that it would go flat again. But I am worried that the initial 4 mm bulge stretched the wood. Any suggestions? I have more spruce but my heart aches at the thought of just throwing this piece in the trash.

Dear Chadwick,

Don't despair. All should be well!

It's normal for the soundboard to swell up a bit and produce a slight dome, but yours does sound as if it's bit more than usual. To start with I would damp it slightly and then put a protective piece of plastic to prevent adhesion, then place the soundboard carefully onto a number of regular rectangular pieces of wood [like giant matchsticks], then place another set of these in the same positions over the soundboard and weight the whole lot down with something heavy to encourage the bulge back into flatness. Leave it like that for several days to give it time for ALL the moisture to evaporate from the centre of the wood. This is the same system as woodyards use to allow their timber to dry out thoroughly while holding it straight and is called 'sticking'. Then stick the pattern on the other side as normal, remembering to use VERY dilute glue.

Again, when the immediate wetness has dried out, place it under a heavy weight for several more days, until it is COMPLETELY dry.

It will probably still have a slight dome but this is not in fact terribly important because, by the time you have cut out the network of holes, the wood in the rose area will be so pliable and flexible that it will easily be pushed flat in the act of gluing on the bars and the bars themselves will hold it flat.

David
Rob from USA asks:
Dear David -

I am having a great time with your CD course! It is extremely well done and the work you do is a pleasure to watch unfold. I have come to somewhat of a dilemma in my choice of woods:

I have a nice piece of flat sawn walnut that I would like to use for the neck - is it absolutely essential to use quarter sawn wood? Also, do you think that walnut is a suitable choice for a peg box? I am thinking of not veneering the pegbox or the back of the neck - and if walnut is of suitable hardness I would use that. Please let me know what you think if you have the time.

sincerely, Rob

Dear Rob,

Flat-sawn wood is commonly used for the necks of violin family instruments and for guitar necks so it is going to be fine for your lute neck. And, as you say, it is going to make veneering unnecessary. The tied frets will tend to bite in and dent the edges much more than is the case with an ebony veneered neck so I would consider putting a strip of ebony down each side to prevent this. Glue the sandwich up before doing the neck/body joint and then treat it as one piece of wood.

Personally I have always used more or less quarter sawn stock but it is probably not that critical, especially as walnut is so strong.

On a related point, quarter-sawn ribs are not necessary. Original lutes have ribs sawn every which way. The only advantage of quarter-sawn ribs is a slight reduction in the tendency to uneven bending, and this too is evident in surviving lutes. But if you have a nice piece of timber I'd use it.

Walnut will do fine for the pegbox but I would strongly urge you to put a back on the pegbox even if you don't veneer it all over. The back contributes enormously to the strength and stability of the structure.

I don't have any experience of walnut for the bass rider but, as it is stronger than sycamore in all respects, it should be absolutely fine, even though this part is very liable to gradual 'lean' over the years, again as demonstrated in historic survivors.

David


Ruben from USA asks:

Hello David,
I'm working on the lute ribs now, but I've run into a problem. I purchased some Paduak for the ribs (actually I was undecided between Padauk and Black Walnut), but when planing them I get a lot of tear-off, I got a very nice Record low angle plane and practised for a few weeks to get the blade correctly sharpened, I can now "shave the hairs off my forearm", but I still get the tear-off. I tried with the cabinet scraper, but I'm afraid I haven't quite gotten the hang of it. Maybe I'm just impatient and want to get on with the building process, but now I'm thinking that either I need to get some other wood that won't tear off as much, or that I should just sand smooth one side of the rib first (because some of the gouges produced by the plane are very deep- almost 1 mm.) and plane the other side down to size. On the other hand, after physically seeing the Padauk I don't like it too much, seems too orange and unnatural for a lute. What would you advise me? Thanks for your help,
Ruben

Dear Ruben,
Yes, tear out is a problem with Padauk. You should set the adjustable throat on the plane as close as possible to the edge of the blade and set the blade very fine anyway. Then press down as hard as posible as you plane. This should make it work but some pieces of wood are virtually impossible to plane and maybe yours is one of those.

If so then scraping or sanding is the best option. Scraping is harder work than planing but is quicker than sanding. However it is only really an option for rib slices by using some kind of scraper plane, as the normal cabinet scraper will tend to produce a rib thinner in the middle lengthwise, as you can't easily start from the beginning and one tends psychologically to resist going full pelt over the end of the rib. Veritas make a scraper attachment for the normal bench plane. I haven't tried it myself but it looks as if it would work well. I made my own cast iron body to take Record plane blades held vertically in the same way as the Veritas idea and that works fine. This was before Veritas or I would have bought theirs!

Either way do as you suggest and work to a good finish on the future outside and then thickness using the plane.

However if you don't like the look of the Padauk, I'd cut your losses and swap while you've got the chance. Padauk does lose its bright colour fairly soon and by the time you've finished the lute it will be a much more sober brown colour. But always follow your gut feeling about wood, you'll be much happier.

Best wishes,

David
Francesco from Italy asks:

Dear David,

how are you ? I'd like to ask you some few questions.

In the ribs planing chapters you never mention sand-paper to smoothing the ribs. Is it not advised to use the sand-paper for the finishing ?

What do you think about the publications of the Guild of American Lutherie ? I would like to buy the 'Lutherie tools', and the 'Big Red Book' n. 1 e 2 (the collection of early issues), but they are expensive, 150 US$ (105 + 45 for shipping) for the three books. Do you find useful the GAL publications ? Is it worth while ?

Thank you very much.

Francesco Conto

To which I reply:

I'm surprised to learn that I don't mention sandpaper! But this is certainly an oversight on my part as I use sandpaper myself on most of my ribs! I would finish off with something like 320 grit for a good finish, and of course you can use coarser sandpaper for smoothing any major imperfections in the planing or scraping.

I'll put this answer up on the help page as it's certainly something I would want to correct.

I'm afraid I don't know the GAL publications at all, except for parts of Robert Lundberg's Erlangen Lectures series which were excellent. I understand that these are being re-published sometime later this year, alas after Robert's untimely death. The Lutherie tools publication might or might not be useful! Most such tools can be seen in the [free] catalogue of Dick GmBH whose address is on my suppliers page.

Very best wishes,

David
Richard from California asks:
May I be indulged several beginners questions if you have time ?

I have before me a wonderful 331/3 album (I have more than several thousand of these curios 98% classical - and never thought this would date me) of Eugen M Dombois who is one of my favorite lute players (this album contains music of Weiss, Kellner, and Bach) . I note that his instrument while being a full 13 course baroque lute has an entirely different pegbox and fret arrangement. There is a swan (is that right?) style peg box bass rider for 4 bass courses which is nearly parallel to the neck and here the two lowest bass courses are stopped by a "demi-nut" on the bass rider so that the strings must be equivalent of 2 frets longer with respect to the bridge than the treble strings . The next 2 bass courses run from this rider are laid over the fretboard and stopped a single fret in back of the nut as opposed to the 2 for the lowest pair of courses. The rest of the remaining 9 courses are strung across a rather beautiful peg box at approx 98 degrees to the neck which has a subtle swan shape itself, and one I'd love to see on the Hoffman , as historically inaccurate as it might be, to compliment the 2 course bass rider the lute we build employs.

While our lute after Hoffman has only 2 courses on the rider, both one fret back of the nut, it disposes the next 2 sets on a longer main pegbox ,where the lute has an extra fret across the entire lute fingerboard under these 11 courses for a total of 9 gut frets (and I assume a longer neck) whereas Dombois' has 8 gut frets plus the 2 course demi-nut on the rider, with the lowest strings as in the Hoffman one fret back of that ( My goodness, I hope this not as elliptical an explanation as it reads ).

My question here is does this mean that fingerings will for any given piece be entirely different depending on which lute is used, and does one or the other instrument require a more difficult fingering in general or does all of this depend on the composer and which kind of baroque lute he had in mind when composing the work? Is one solution any better than the other ie designed later in time and more comprehensive as far as range is concerned? as you may have guessed I'm basically a perplexed guitar player.

And en fin, I noted you mention in the cd a note about further modifications to the top bracing citing Robert Lundberg in his Erlangen lectures in the Guild of American Luthiers articles, are these available anywhere? I question whether I'm competent to utilize them, but I would love very much to read them and see what he says

As it happens I have the same record in my collection (and very wonderful it is too) so I can print a copy of the photo.

I can quite see why Richard calls this a swan-neck lute, the pegboxes seen sideways look very much like a swan. However the convention has grown up to call the long double pegbox form of 13 course baroque lute a "swan-neck". These were also made by the Hoffmann family of lutemakers and this is a picture of the sort of instrument I mean:

13 course lute after M. Hoffmann 13 course lute after M. Hoffmann

These are functionally equivalent to the bass rider form that I chose to use in the CD course, and it would be possible to make this form of pegbox on the body that I give. However I chose the bass rider form because there is evidence that S L Weiss used this type of lute throughout his composing life. This can be proved because some of the pieces require the 9th 10th and 11 course to be fingered, which is clearly impossible with the five diapasons on the "swan-neck", or German baroque, form. These pieces can perfectly well be played on the "swan-neck" form lute but they do require their fingerings to be somewhat edited. Details of two different German baroque lutes can be seen on my website at:
http://www.vanedwards.co.uk/33.htm and
http://www.vanedwards.co.uk/35.htm

However the form of double-headed lute that is shown in the Dombois picture is another type of lute altogether. It is a double headed lute with curved pegboxes, one set backwards at an angle rather like the normal lute, the other extended in the same plane as the fingerboard. This carried four separate little nuts to take the bass courses in steps of increasing length. This form usually had 12 courses not 13 as in our baroque lute, and was apparently invented by Jacques (English) Gaultier c.1630 but was not used much by the French who stayed largely loyal to their single-headed lutes. As the author of the Burwell lute tutor (c1670) wrote: 'All England hath accepted that Augmentation and ffraunce att first but soone after that alteration hath beene condemned by all the french Masters who are returned to theire old fashion keeping onely the small Eleaventh'. It was, however, widely used in England and the Netherlands until at least the end of the 17th century. The apparent thinking behind this form was a desire to avoid the sudden jumps in tone quality between the treble and bass strings which characterise the previously known methods of having extended bass strings on a lute. An important tutor for this type of lute, Musick's Monument, was published by Thomas Mace in 1676, in which he characterises it as a French lute, although Talbot (c1690) in his manuscript called it the 'English two headed lute'. For Talbot the 'French lute' had 11 courses, with all the strings on a single head. So far, six examples of this type have turned up with fingered string lengths of between 50 and 75cm.

This type of lute is thus much earlier than either of the 13 course baroque lutes and it usually utilised one of several transitional tunings rather than the D minor tuning of the baroque era.

Thus Dombois is rather anachronistic in using this type of lute for the repertoire on his record.

Furthermore whoever made his lute had not examined either the actual surviving instruments or the available iconography with much care since he has missed several important features of the type and has thus made up a hybrid of his own. Firstly, all the evidence shows them to have had twelve courses rather than 13. Secondly, they all had four stepped nuts on the extended pegbox rather than the one nut of Dombois' lute. This therefore misses the main point of the type. Thirdly, the painting predominantly show a delicately tapered extended pegbox, rather than the crude parallel-sided open-backed pegbox of Dombois' lute. Here are a couple of pictures of a version based more closely on the available evidence. Please do note, though that this is no criticism of Dombois, or indeed the lute, since research then was not very detailed and the sound is fine and the playing superb.

12 course two-headed lute 12 course two-headed lute

It is perfectly possible to use this form for 13 course lutes but it is important to realise that it is not quite in period and offers no advantages for the music itself. However I have built a couple like this in 13 course forms for customers who liked the style.

The fingerings would be slightly different since the double-headed version has only 8 or 9 courses running from the first nut and thus fingerable, whereas the type in the CD course has 11 courses which are fingerable. This fits with the music as written by Weiss, and so the double-header would need a bit of transposing or modification of fingering to play. However this would not be too difficult if you are very much wanting to make this form. The joint between the two heads and the neck is very complex and exacting and I've spent ages perfecting it. I shall not be advising on this joint in the course and it is somewhat beyond the amateur woodworker!

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