Mike's Oud Forums

Braces Placement in Relation to the Body

saOudattempt - 7-31-2024 at 03:07 AM

Hello,

I am a design student and by no means a luthier, but I am attempting to understand the process of constructing a Oud to potentially build one in the future. By following Richard Hankey's book, along with referencing a physical oud, I am trying to construct a very accurate CAD in an attempt to learn as much as possible and even building the CAD in a similar manner to how the real thing is built. I am currently constructing the braces and I am quite confused on their alignment to the ribs along with how the face is supposed to fit on top later on in relation to the neck and neck block (especially ribs 7 & 8)


Is the face simply laying on top of the ribs and parallel to the neck or not? Since the book mentions that "the braces in front of and behind the bridges are shaped to raise the face and position the bridge in line with the fingerboard"

In simpler words, I am simply trying to understand how to align each brace properly. My current understanding is that all the braces besides 7 & 8 are aligned to the neck? However, this doesn't seem correct. I am also quite confused on what to do with braces 7 & 8.

Thank you so much! This is a great community.

Brian Prunka - 8-1-2024 at 08:08 AM




Here are some pictures of an oud face with bracing:

https://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=13212

Here's a PDF of an article which you may find helpful:
https://pub.dega-akustik.de/DAGA_2018/data/articles/000581.pdf

Another picture:
https://www.ethnicmusical.com/oud/oud-instrument/attachment/oud-brac...

This thread may be useful to you:
https://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=6878

And this one:
https://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=11186

Eric Stern Music - 8-1-2024 at 06:37 PM

Richard Hankey is a memebr of this forum and I bet you could ask him. His handle here is Dr. Oud, I believe.

coolsciguy - 8-1-2024 at 06:59 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hds9hEXaYSU

video is in Arabic but self explanatory to an extent.

bulerias1981 - 8-2-2024 at 11:08 AM

The problem with counting braces is some people start from the neck block, some from the tail block. Starting from where?

Also, I don't believe in the method of gluing braces to the bowl, in my opinion and experienced practitioners is to glue the braces to the soundboard, trim the ends roughly the thickness of the ribs, and yes, the soundboard will sit on TOP of the ribs... which that area will later be routed out and either receive binding or mosaics.

coolsciguy - 8-6-2024 at 10:35 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TBa--S5-Jc&list=PLL2dSTZrxYpnsd...