Parabellum1262
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Building a budget lute
Six months ago, I finished building my first lute - the first instrument I have built that has a good level of playability. I didn't use any
specialised tools and the only electric tools I used were a power drill and drill press. Most of the materials are cheap and commonly available in
Australia.
Here's a list of materials and their approximate costs:
3mm plywood (ribs, $17)
12mm cedar lining board (soundboard, $10)
30mm pine (neck block, salvaged)
19mm Tasmanian oak (neck and pegbox, salvaged)
19mm Merbau (pegs and fretboard, salvaged)
1mm nylon fishing line (frets, $12)
LaBella 6-course strings (from stringsbymail.com, $13)
Bone nut blank ($4)
That's a total of $56. Not a tiny sum of money, but every dollar spent was worth it in the end. Plus, I have enough cedar and plywood for another lute
and enough fret 'gut' for fifty!
I have many questions about lute-building because I do plan on making another. They will come later, so without any further ado, onto the pictures!
[file]35832[/file] [file]35834[/file] [file]35836[/file] [file]35838[/file]
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Parabellum1262
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For anybody building their first lute who like me, lacks knowledge and experience, Making musical instruments: Strings and keyboard by
Charles Ford is an essential resource. The chapter on lute-building by Ian Harwood was very easy to follow for an amateur. It didn't specify
infinitesimal complexities or dizzying arrays of specialised tools but it wasn't lacking in detail either.
Hopefully some digression is acceptable, for this should perhaps go in "Advice, Tips, & Questions". However, I wanted to keep it all in one
place.
The first photo shows the bridge. I now wish I didn't simplify the geometry because it looks rather clunky.
The soundboard is rather thick. I did these for two reasons:
western red cedar is quite a bit softer that spruce.
A lute by renowned maker Laux Maler was discovered to have a thicker than usual soundboard, averaging over 2mm.
For those who are curious, more has been written about the exceptional Maler lute, especially in a paragraph titled The thickness measurements of
original lute soundboards, and modern 'copies' on this website:
http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/htm/cat01.htm
Hardwood (1979) does specify "a mean thickness of perhaps 1.3mm" for a spruce soundboard, but adds that "Cedar needs to be rather thicker to give an
equivalent result; perhaps up to 1½ times the suggested measurements" (p. 51). That takes the thickness up to 1.95mm.
The thickness of my soundboard ended up being somewhere between 2 and 2.5mm thick.
[file]35840[/file]
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jdowning
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Nice work and congratulations on a completed instrument!
Your reference book by Charles Ford is unfamiliar to me but on further checking found this detailed review by Eph Segerman on the section about lute
making in FoMRHI (1979) that may be of interest.
http://www.fomrhi.org/uploads/bulletins/Fomrhi-015.pdf
The article on making a lute was written by the late Ian Harwood who - together with John Issacs - had designed and sold a kit of parts for making a
lute since the early 1970's. As I recall the kit included a solid mold (an innovation made from urethane foam), rib blanks of maple finished planed to
thickness and (?) a completed pegbox with fitted pegs. Assembly of the lute kit required some basic manual woodworking skills but the final result was
(as I recall) a light (in weight) nice sounding instrument. For information, the cost of the lute kit in January 1974 was 47.30 Pounds Sterling.
The design of the kit lute was - of necessity - simplified (compared to an historically accurate lute) details that Eph. Segerman covers in his FoMRHI
review.
In the 1970's a number of makers (including myself) were using Western Red Cedar as a sound board material - it was then close grained good quality
material and readily available even from general lumber suppliers - but, of course, was not a sound board material used by lute makers of the 16/17th
C.
However, I would encourage any maker to try alternatives to traditional materials - including plywood - as a way to circumvent the increasing shortage
worldwide of costly, so called, instrument 'tonewoods'.
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Parabellum1262
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Thanks John! Segerman's review was really helpful in clearing up ambiguities. For example, Harwood makes no mention of what diameter or length the
pegs should be.
The first photo clearly shows the deep neck. This allows for a simple 90° joint because the neck cross-section is semi-circular just like the body.
However, it also makes the neck very heavy - for this reason, I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't say that the depth makes playing uncomfortable, but
at the same time I've never held a different lute or even learnt to play another stringed instrument before so I can't compare.
The second photo shows the simple butt-joined pegbox. Harwood saw nothing wrong with this type of join even though there are disadvantages of it in
addition to historical inaccuracy. However, the pegbox is the same width as the end of the neck, i.e. as wide as possible. This means that the outer
strings don't have to bend as much to reach their slots in the nut. Personally, I prefer the aesthetic of a butt joined pegbox more than the aesthetic
of strings wound onto the pegs outside the pegbox walls.
I am very pleased with the frets. John's suggestion of using fishing line rather than instrument strings worked a charm. I pre-stretched the line to
prevent them from loosening and they are as tight as the day I fitted them five months ago.
The last photo shows the rose in all-too-revealing detail! Western red cedar has very soft summer growth yet relatively hard winter growth which makes
the cutting a little more challenging. I'm certainly not blaming the wood for my lack of expertise and experience, but for anyone wanting to cut a
rose out of WRC, it's something to keep in mind. I also made the mistake of varnishing the soundboard, albeit with a water-based varnish that has very
little 'soakage'. Regardless, I don't like the look and I plan on using burnishing and egg white 'distillate' next time.
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Parabellum1262
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Lute construction part 1
First photo shows the pine neck block and MDF mould. The two screws kept the neck mould nice and stable. As is the case with many components of this
lute, the neck block is a bit over-sized. My next instrument will be less over-engineered because I don't like how neck-heavy this one was.
Next photo shows a rib being glued in place. The ribs were made of plywood and shaped with an ordinary steam iron. This non-ideal combination meant
that it was almost impossible to shape each rib exactly the same. You can see a very obvious high spot near the back. However I am pleased to say
there were no gaps...at least none that couldn't be pulled together with tape!
The third photo shows the complete bowl, with the pegbox and neck screwed in place. More examples of over-engineering here, most notably the deep
semi-circular neck.
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Parabellum1262
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Lute construction part 2
The first photo shows how I made the soundboard - sawing a Western Red Cedar lining board in half. By hand! However, with the razor-sharp pruning saw
it was a fairly easy job. Spruce of any sort would have cost a small fortune so when I figured out I could slice a lining board into two thin sheets I
went with that. I got a 1.3m piece for $10; quite a bargain.
The second photo shows the beginnings of the rose. There are more ways to improve this process than I care to list so I'll just say there's a great
deal of room for improvement here.
Third photo shows how I glued on the plywood barring. I call it the 'tower and wall' system. The two clamps are holding the towers in place, which
keep the bars (or 'walls') perfectly aligned. The bars are then pressed down with wedges and weight (the plane in this case).
The fourth photo shows the completed barring.
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Parabellum1262
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Lute construction part 3
This first photo shows a poor man's lathe. It worked fine, but the chuck proved to be flimsy. The L-shaped brackets that held the clamping screws were
prone to bending and the screws didn't do a great job of holding the merbau blanks that I cut the pegs from. The tool rest was in completely the wrong
place which didn't help either. Nonetheless, it did make the arduous process of turning pegs well...less arduous. An obligatory safety note - the
trigger of the drill was 'pressed' by a wooden wedge so if anything went wrong, all I would have to do is pull the wedge out.
The final photo shows my label. The pen didn't like the cotton printmaking paper that I used for the bindings, so I had to use office paper. If the
lute can outlast the paper, I will be very proud of it!  )
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Jason
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Registered: 9-17-2005
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Awesome thread, thanks for all the pictures. Very interesting build with the lack of power tools. How did you go about shaping the neck?
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Parabellum1262
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The neck was made from four separate pieces which allowed me to glue them together in a slightly more neck-shaped piece than a single block. After
that I roughed it out with saw and axe. The final shaping was done with a hand plane.
This page here was incredibly useful - it's a detailed record of a lute built using Renaissance tech:
http://www.lutesociety.org/pages/building-lute-original-methods
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Jason
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Thanks for the link. This is great. I ordered the book you referenced above.
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