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Jonathan
Oud Junkie
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Turkish? Oud Restoration
Quite a while ago, I posted a thread on an oud that I obtained. It was missing a face, had losses to the fingerboard, and a lot of the ribs were
separating. I finally got around to starting a restoration of it.
Here is that original thread:
http://mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=2629#pid16433
Here was the oud as I got it.
There was a thick kerfing strip around the edge of the bowl. So, while the ribs might look thick in the photo, they are actually incredibly thin
(less than 2 mm).
Gunk inside.
The inlay on the fingerboard is beautiful, but it is missing two strips on the outside (the whitish strips that you see are about 1 mm below the ebony
surface of the central fingerboard--this is just the underlying wood of the neck, perhaps pine or spruce). I don't know what was here before. Maybe
ebony.
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Jonathan
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The bowl itself was filthy. The wood looked miserable, but I attributed that mostly to dirt and grime. The neck was on nicely. Pegs missing.
The oud itself is a mystery. I know nothing about the maker, Kayserili Jebrayel. 1947. Was this made in Turkey (Kayseri), or was he simply from
Kayseri and making the oud in another place?
I don't know if the oud was ever finished. Some of the workmanship looks just great, and some is wretched. In the back of my mind, I keep wondering
if it was started by one luthier, and then finished by another one who was a bit less skilled.
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Jonathan
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If it wasn't for the fingerboard, I don't know if I would have bothered. Another problem was that the medallion below the fingerboard (the beard, the
necklace, whatever), was just super thin.
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Jonathan
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I made a bridge out of scraps of mahogany and wenge, and a scrap of pre-ban ivory. I like it.
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Jonathan
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I was lucky to have two small rosettes that were thought to be original to the oud.
The central rosette was a gift from Cengiz Sarikus (Thank you!).
This is the face that I had planned on using for my new oud (really nice spruce from lmii), but on reflection I decided to make my new oud look a
little more Arabic, with tiled-edge purfling around the rosettes, so I decided to use that face for this repair. Maybe restoration is a better word
here. It turned out fairly well.
If you see anything dark at the bottom of the braces, that's just the masking tape that I have not yet fully removed. The braces are on there
tight!
The bracing pattern is the same as I used before. Please feel free to criticize or give me some feedback on the braces. This area seems so critical,
and I am open to any suggestions. This is only my second face, so I really want to learn as much as I can.
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Jonathan
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OK, here's where we start to get to stuff that some of you may criticize. If my judgement was wrong, let me know.
The beard, as I mentioned, was ridiculously thin (much less than 1mm). I did not feel comfortable removing it from the neck block. The neck block
also had huge cutouts.
My fear was that, if I made the face super-thin near the beard, my finger would go right through the sound board the first time I played in a higher
register.
So, I filled the cutouts with a slurry of sawdust and glue, then used my dremel to lower the surface of the new neck block down another mm or so. At
the base of the neck block, I glued on a thin strip of spruce. I didn't think that the slurry mixture would fall out, but I did not want to take any
chances, and I figured this might give me some more security.
Perhaps it would have been best if I cut solid wood to fill these spots. I don't know. Probably.
Also, as you can see, I put thin strips of maple on the edges of the fingerboard where there was missing wood. I tried ebony, but it just did not
look right. The maple may get dirty, I suppose, but I have an old oud from the 30's with a fingerboard of maple, and it has worn really well. Plus,
I think the maple brings out the inlay.
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Jonathan
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With my last oud (http://mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=2789) , I struggled a bit with the pick guard when I added it after the face was attached. I
was afraid to put too much pressure on it the face, but this synthetic material just isn't porous like wood, and it is a bit tougher to get a really
good bond.
So, this time around, I attached it before I attached the face so that I could clamp it well.
On my first oud, I just put a bunch of score marks on the back of it. This time around, I roughed it up with 60 grit sandpaper. Much better.
I also sanded the front surface of it this time to dull it down a bit, which made it look a lot more natural.
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Jonathan
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I used the same clamping procedure for the rosettes.
You can see that I made the cutout for the medallion (beard? necklace? what is the name for that thing below the fingerboard that looks sort of like
a mihrab?). This was a bit intimidating for me. With the oud that I had made in the past, I inlaid the medallion after the face had been set. Easy.
I just used the medallion that I had cut out as a template. This time around, I had to cut it out ahead of time, because there was no way I could
possibly remove this medallion--just too thin.
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Jonathan
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I turned my attention to cleaning up the bowl a bit. I had glued together all of the separating ribs earlier. That gunk inside the bowl was a bit of
a mystery. It almost looked like mold, so I used a bleach solution to try to get rid of it. No luck. It's mostly just dirt, sawdust, and glue.
There was a bad repair on one of the ribs, and the guy apparently tried to fix it with a bunch of sawdust and glue. More on that later.
So, I sanded and sanded and sanded the back of the bowl, and the results were really impressive. Take a look at the earlier pic of the oud, and now
look at it after the bowl has been sanded and wiped with mineral spirits.
Mahogany and walnut.
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Jonathan
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Another shot. The lighting is different, and the mineral spirits are drying, but you get the idea. I love the caligraphy at the bottom.
But, take a look at the fifth rib up from the bottom on the left, toward the middle of the bowl, and you can see the patchwork that had been done
previously.
It's staying. I had to draw the line somewhere as to how much I wanted to do on this oud, and removing that rib, and trying to find another piece to
match it, just seemed beyond my abilities.
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Jonathan
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Glue time.
I know, I probably shouldn't have applied the tape directly to the face, but I just really wanted to make sure that it was a tight tight bond.
Starting to look nice. Really simple, clean look, which I like.
I used the same pattern of mizraplek for my first oud. I really like for a mizraplek to be as small as possible. I love the simple oval that you
find on a lot of old Turkish ouds. But, I play just a bit higher than that. So, I moved it up a bit. I like the look of this a lot, although a
family member told me it made the small rosettes look like Mickey Mouse ears.
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Jonathan
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Now all you can see is Mickey Mouse, right? Me too.
Remember I told you that cutting out the face for the medallion was a bit of a struggle? I did not get a really good fit, so I made the cut out just
a tiny bit larger, and added some black/white/black purfling. It will look better when I get it sanded down a bit. Also shown is the sanding block
that I used to go over the edge of the soundboard to make sure that there was even spacing between the face and the bowl all the way around.
I am going to go with a simple black band of purfling all the way around the face. The purfling around the face is pretty simple, and I think the
black band of purfling will work better.
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Jonathan
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That's it for now. Unfortunately, I will have no more free time to work on this oud until the last week of May. So, I covered up the bowl with some
tape. Not really happy with the neck. Old repairs. Loss of purfling. I guess I could use a router and pull out all of the old purfling and put new
stuff in, but my skills with a router are, well, limited.
Or, I could just cover the entire neck with a piece of nice veneer. I remember seeing that in Lundberg's lute book. Might look ok that way.
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Jonathan
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One more shot. You can see that there is a lot of missing purfling. And, there are old repairs that were made with purfling that does not even match
the surrounding purfling. Not happy with the neck as it is now at all.
In the distance, Jameel's incredible bone pegs. More on that later.
Inshallah, finished product last week of May or first week of June.
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Hosam
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Very nice work Jonathan, I really like this oud and I think the craftsmanship of the original luthier is superb. Good luck with the rest of the
project. I would not cover the neck with veneer. I will try to repair it if possible, from the photos it does not look too bad.
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Jameel
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Great post and great work Jonathan! This one is going to be nice. The back looks much better. Couldn't even see the spacers in the before photo. I
think your idea of wrapping the neck is a good one. Might be kinda tricky up by the pegbox though. Or you could try filling what looks to be missing
black lines with black epoxy. No one would know the diff. Looking forward to more...
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SamirCanada
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well done! just want to give you my encouragement.
Iam with hosam on the neck I think you should try to restore the purfling...
Maybe with a black Sharpy marker? hehehe
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paulO
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Hi Jonathan....really interesting..neat lookin top, and cool how the back really did come to life ! I like the black epoxy purfling replacement for
the neck...looking fwd. to the next installment.
Regards..PaulO
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oudplayer
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hey jon
It looks great to me I mean what do i knwo about building ouds  but what i have seen
it is great
thx sammy
we are lost camels in the desert and wanna find our way to water and the water is in aden
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abusin
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Hi Johnathan
Great work I enjoyed your projects before and this one is another trophy, very beautiful oud its great to see another master peice brought to life.
goog luck with the rest of the restoration
can't waite to hear it
thanks for sharing
Awad
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Jonathan
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Thanks, guys. Jameel, the epoxy idea sounds great. I've never worked with the stuff, but there's a first time for everything.
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mavrothis
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Great work Jonathan! It's amazing what you've done with this oud.
Wow, you are really getting very good at this. I can't believe how beautiful the bowl looks after you sanded it. And the face looks great. I agree
with the other guys that you should try and work with the neck the way it is, though you know best since it is in your hands.
Looking forward to more updates. 
Take care,
mavrothis
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Jonathan
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Thanks a lot.
OK, back to work.
Took off the tape, and sanded again. To 2000 grit. Yeah, I know, it is almost certainly a waste of time to go that far, but it does look nice.
An instrument maker once told me that I should not go that far, because the surface will be too slick to adequately apply the finish. I have no idea,
but I had some time on my hands, and a whole bunch of caffeine, so I went for it.
This time, instead of truoil, I am using something called Watco wipe on polyurethane. I know nothing about it, but it goes on really easy (the stuff
is really thin), and the dry time is just four hours. Also, I am new at this, and I want to try something new (new woods, new techniques) with every
instrument.
Here it is with two coats. I'm still amazed that it is the same wood that was in the "before" picture.
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paulO
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Dude...it looks so cool. The difference is pretty amazing, the "mahogany" staves really look choice ! Looking fwd. to when it's strung up.
Cheers..PaulO
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abusin
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Hi Jonathan
good to see this baby again, and masha Allah it looks great indeed and this watco stuff brought the beauty of the wood to life, I am sure under
different lighting it will look more sharper....
looking forward to the sound
go for it man almost there now,
all the best
Awad
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