Luthier Workshop
Making Stringed Instruments
If you're interested in the creation of a functional, handmade instrument, then you might like this page!
-- $40.00 Tuning Mechanisms (had to buy a minumum of 4)
-- $ 2.50 Bass Nut for 4 stringed bass guitar (cut 4th slot away)
-- $ 1.50 Plastic Saddle for the strings to rest on (bought 2)
-- $ 0.00 Bass guitar strings (donated by the Music Store--thanks!)
-- $25.00 Small cuts of wood, various dimensions for structural support
-- $25.00 Flat cuts of wood to construct front & back of soundbox
-- $36.00 Veneer, three sheets of, for side construction & ornimentation
-- $50.00 Piezoelectric pick-up to allow amplification & digitization
-- $25.00 Woodworking tools, sandpaper, varnish, etc....
TOTAL ~ $200.00
Most of the wood was inexpensive pine & spruce. The back of the body was made with thin plywood, the front was spruce.
*access to a well-equipped woodshop deferred much of the costs and saved many hours of labour. Thanks to Hewie, Jerry & Mark Byrd for the use of these facilities & for their helpful suggestions!
Prints to the right were
made after I had finished the guitar (it was much easier than trying to build the guitar to the specifications of my original plans).
Still, the finished product is very close to the original design.
To maintain this structural support, I decided to carve "F-Holes" or "F-Scrolls" away from the midline, instead of the typical center sound hole. Drilling such a hole would have severely weakened the guitar.
For additional support, two arches were placed at the Neck-Body Juncture (the Proximal Arch) & at the very bottom of the guitar (the Distal Arch). These arches gave the guitar its 15cm depth, and are structurally connected--forming a tight oval-shaped frame from the top to the bottom of the guitar's body, on both the front and back sides.
I'm sure a common problem with beginning luthiers is the over-building of their instruments. As you can see, the internal support structure of my guitar is probably over-done, by a factor of 3-4. As my learning curve progresses, future projects will increasingly scale-back on the amount of internal structural support.
1- Would the strings align properly along the neck?
2- Would the bridge support the pull of the strings?
3- How would the strings lay on the saddle?
4- How well would the saddle transmit the string vibrations to the body?
5- Were the strings too high, or too low from the fingerboard?
6- Would the neck support the pull of the strings without crumbling?
7- How did the guitar feel when held in the playing position?
8- How did the guitar play at this stage?
9- Were there any modifications, or corrections that I needed to address at this point?
I was pleasantly surprised with this initial test. Everything pretty-much lined-up & functioned as I thought it would. Even at this stage I was able to play it a bit. The lack of frets prompted me to pay much closer attention to the tones I was producing--learning to make small, quick adjustments in fingering when a tone was too flat or too sharp.
The sides were made of a veneer, and I needed to add two layers of this veneer at critical points. I needed its flexibility to follow the curves of the instrument, but the sides had "soft spots." Placing the secondary veneer with its grain at a right angle to the primary veneer strengthened-up the sides. I could add another complete layer of this veneer along the sides, but it isn't necessary.
I have reversibly-mounted the piezoelectric pick-up on this guitar and am able to amplifily and digitize the sounds it produces. Since I plan to create other instruments, I will not permanently mount the pick-up on this guitar. I want to be able to switch the piezoelectric device to several instruments.
Lastly, making a hollow-body instrument was much more difficult than making one with a solid body, but I think it was much more rewarding. It was a good exercise in planning, critical thinking and goal accomplishment. I'm already planning Project 2 !
--JPB
3-String Fretless Bass Guitar !
