Restoration of Egyptian Oud - part 1

... and here is a scale drawing of the underside of the belly for information

Before l get into fine detail the following general comments may be of interest.

I purchased the instrument in 1965 (not 1963 as previously stated) - while working in Cairo Egypt on an engineering project - from a music store in the centre of the city (I cannot recall the name of the store or its exact location. The Oud was on a rack with a number of others. What struck me about the instrument was its age and the fact that it had seen a lot of use - unlike the other ouds that were new and seemed more decorative than functional. It cost me 12 pounds Egyptian as I recall and I carried it back to London England with me as a "passenger" the aircraft being less than half full (those were the days!). Customs in London charged me 80% duty on the price of the Oud although the customs officer when he asked how much I had paid for it cut that figure in half because I had not haggled over the price in Cairo!!
As an amateur luthier interested in making and playing copies of stringed instruments of the 16th and 17th C - particularly European lutes - I decided to carry out essential repairs to the Oud in 1977. Removal of the belly was found to be difficult as it seemed to have been glued in place, when last repaired, with full strength hide glue - and lots of it, so some additional damage was done to the edge of the belly and bars in the process of trying to separate the joint. At that point other projects and life got in the way so the oud has been sitting on the shelf untouched since then.

It would likely be easier and quicker for me to make a new belly for the instrument and be done with it but I agree with the advice kindly offered by Richard (Dr Oud) that I intend to follow which is to conserve as much of the original fabric of the instrument as possible - to restore rather than replace the belly for example.

The age of the instrument is difficult to determine without further information. As it was old and well worn when I bought it in 1965, it is safe to say that it was made in the early 20th C but I feel that it may have been made - judging from the patina of the body - during the 19th C.

I also suspect that the belly of the oud may not be original to the body because the standard of workmanship of the body is superior to that of the belly.

Close examination of the planing marks inside the oud - on the ribs, the underside of the belly and underside of the fingerboard extension on the belly indicate that they were made with a toothing plane or similar tool giving all interior surfaces a rough finish. Toothing planes are fitted with irons that are grooved to form a serrated cutting edge, the iron being set at a high angle to produce a scraping rather than cutting action. They were used primarily to prepare surfaces for veneering (the rough surface increasing the gluing area) or for levelling surfaces prior to final finishing with a cabinet scraper.I am not certain why this tool was used and the finish left rough. Is this standard practice among oud makers? I don't know as I have not seen inside other ouds.
Comparing the planing marks, however, it is clear that different planes were used to prepare the ribs, the belly and the fingerboard inlay as there are 11 grooves per cm on the ribs, 13 grooves per cm on the belly and 9 grooves per cm on the fingerboard inlay. It is possible, therefore, that the belly and body were made by different luthiers or that one luthier used three different planes to make the instrument.

The attachments are images of the scoring left by the planes as well as a test piece made by me using my own toothing plane for comparison.

All comments and observations welcomed.

... and here is what a toothing plane looks like ..

I always make the interior surfaces of my lutes smooth - finished with a cabinet scraper - it just seems the proper way to go, fine craftsmanship and all of that. On the other hand I have never seen the insides of a 16th C lute either (museums do not usually allow access to the instruments and the working drawings sold by museums never mention how the interior surfaces are finished). If it is general practice among Oud makers to leave the interiors rough finished then it is likely that the roughness either is of no consequence as far as sound quality or response is concerned or that it does improve response. It would be interesting to find out how master oud makers past and present finish the insides of their instruments. After all the oud makers have had several centuries to perfect construction of these instruments and must have got it right by now. If interior surface roughness is an important factor then I suppose use of a toothing plane might be an improved finishing tool as it creates a fairly regular rough finish?
It is not that the maker(s) of this oud could not provide a smooth finish - as the body exterior and barring are planed smooth - so a rough finish is obviously intended.
As far as I know toothing planes of the same kind as my vintage plane are no longer made, however, Lee Valley of Ottawa now make a toothed blade (05P29.04) to fit their Veritas scraping plane (05P29.01) - so if anyone wants to experiment .......

I shall be posting detailed close up images of the oud as I go along but here are some general photos for now - not the highest resolution so let me know if you would like me to post specific images in more detail.

.... and an image of the back ...

I shall now start to look at details of the oud to record current condition prior to restoration as well as to look for clues that might provide more information about the instrument's history and the manner in which it was made.

First to examine the rosettes. There is one large and two small cut from a dark hardwood about 3 mm thick with a fretsaw and glued to the underside of the belly. The large rosette has shrinkage cracks in several places indicating that the wood had not been fully seasoned before use. The workmanship is rough and poorly executed as is the single line purfling around the soundholes.

Each rosette carries a signature of the maker. I can not read Arabic script but assume from their appearance that the signatures are an abbreviation of the full name written on the label glued inside the body of the oud - i.e. Hosain Mohey Al-Deen Helmy?
The signatures have been made with a copying pencil otherwise known as an indelible pencil (confirmed by making a light print from one of the violet coloured signatures onto tissue paper slightly moistened with alcohol). This type of pencil was first introduced in the 1870's for making copies of letters and documents but soon became widely used generally as a 'permanent'marker. Although these pencils are still being manufactured they generally went out of use in the 1940's.
All of this does not tell us very much except that it confirms that the rosettes (and perhaps the belly of the oud) were not made prior to 1870. They could have been made in the late 19th C but more likely in the early 20th C in my opinion.

The workmanship evident in the body of the oud - as we shall see later - is finely executed with perfect jointing of the ribs or staves - clearly the work of a master craftsman. This contrasts with the poor workmanship evident in the rosettes and which may indicate that the body, neck and pegbox of the oud were made by a luthier other than Hosain Mohey Al-Deen Helmy?

As can be seen there is thick, heavy glue everywhere which has caused loss of the edge purfling. This material will have to be removed from all surfaces requiring regluing.

Here are some more details of damage to the belly requiring repair including split bar ends, small edge chips, and hairline cracks at the edges.
Note that the edge purfling was originally inlaid to about half the thickness of the belly. As it will not be feasible to rebuild the edges of the belly to this original condition I plan to replace the purfling to the full thickness of the belly with a thin paper or silk reinforcement underneath.

Before moving on to examine the body of the oud it may be of interest to note that the luthier has laid out the bar positions in pencil and has numbered each bar on its side and on the belly. The bars have a truncated triangular cross section and have been planed to a smooth finish so it is apparent from the pencil marks that the bars were finished prior to being glued to the belly - not afterwards.
Note also that the grain of the bars runs at an angle to the vertical. On early lutes, the practice was for the grain to run horizontally across the bar section from side to side not vertically from top to bottom. This is supposed to allow a stronger glue joint by avoiding gluing of end grain (but it likely does not make a lot of difference?).

Moving on, here are images of the neck block and bottom plate on the body of the oud.
The neck is attached to the body by means of an integral bar of dovetail section. The neck block has a horizontal crack running through the bottom section of the dovetail joint and into the rib on the treble side of the oud. This has been crudely repaired with a small piece of wood glued and nailed a cross the crack - and lots of glue! Clearly this oud has seen some hard use!
The bottom plate is fashioned from a thin piece of wood (basswood?) about 2 mm thick with the edges feathered to a knife edge. This plate has been glued to the inside of the body after removal from the mould but prior to gluing paper reinforcement strips to the rib joints - and is a feature found in 16th and 17th C lute construction.

There are three cracks in the ribs of the oud - likely due to impact - and an indication of the hard use that this instrument has seen in the past. The crack across the grain in the top left image of the composite looks as though it was caused by the oud being dropped onto a hard surface. I have a similar crack on one of my lutes that I dropped (by accident!) on to a concrete floor. To my astonishment, the lute bounced like a basket ball but did sustain a cracked rib that necessitated removal of the belly for repair. These instruments are tough!

Here are some images showing damage to the edge of the body at the belly joint including splices in the ribs at the bottom end of the body on either side of the end cap and on the bass side upper shoulder near the neck joint, knife cuts in the ribs, file marks, heavy glue build up, local damage filled in with purfling and a nail hole - a past unsuccessful 'quick fix' for a loose bar end no doubt!

To complete this series of images detailing damage to the oud requiring repair, here are some of the pegbox.
The pegbox itself is partially separated from the neck. The back of the peg box has a repaired crack - indicated by glue 'squeeze out' that has not been cleaned up. Glue has been poured into end of the pegbox presumably in an attempt to fix joint separation in that locality?
At present three different styles of peg are fitted some with the ends cut to length but the cut ends left unstained. The black stained pegs are ill fitting and worn - some having been hand carved to "fit" - all of otherwise of poor quality, all signs that the instrument likely has been hastily 'repaired' for sale.

The last image for this first part of the restoration project details the "bracelet" at the neck joint and shows a roughly trimmed veneer insert (?) in the neck joint itself. I am not sure of the purpose of this insert as it is of equal thickness throughout so does not seem to be for adjustment of the neck alignment. It does, however, match up with the "fret" insert veneer on the fingerboard.
Note the perfect jointing of the ribs of the body.

The purpose of Part 1 of this restoration project has been to record the condition of the oud prior to restoration. Part 2 will be a new thread and cover step by step details of the restoration itself.
As I presently have a number of essential 'non luthier' projects to complete, in the annual preparation for winter in this part of the frozen North, I do not anticipate moving on to Part 2 for a couple of months or so - but it will happen!! In the meantime, please let me know if you have any comments or observations so far.

Thanks for your interest everyone.