I'm getting famous

In the blog world this must be fame, or at the least the beginning of fame.

My humble blog has been linked by a brilliant young art student, with literary obsessions.

I'll have to watch my sppeling and garammer if real book people are going to read it.

Not that it matters, me and my lathe will keep working away, and just occasionally launch a few random thoughts into the blogosphere.

We've been busy, me and my lathe, and 3 darts, marked with country of origin, will be post-hasting in the direction of the Athens of the South tomorrow.

All the best to all.
vsquared.

Pens and chess pieces

Practice spindles for making a chess set, for my too smart by half son. I taught him how the play chess, taught him everything I know ( which isn't much), and now I can't win a game. So I'm no longer interested in playing chess, only in turning chess pieces.


Pens: interesting though it'll get a bit repetive unless I get creative, which I might. Much easier than it looks, once you've got the gear. And you have to purchase the "works" of the pen. the only wood-turning is the barrel. A good turner could easily make a couple of pens in an hour, including putting them together. I take about an hour per pen at the moment.

Woodturning - mistakes, blunders, blame the lathe

There have, I know, been some rumblings of criticism over the fact that nothing new has appeared on this site for over two months.
But, as I am not under any contractual obligation, and I foresee no fiscal benefit attached to my ramblings, I am not at all repentant.

The steady reduction of the world's supply of timber continues, as I reduce perfectly good lumps of wood to shavings and dust.

Wood-turning really is very wasteful, though not as bad as printing newspapers.
I've recently been making pens - you know, things to write with when you don't have a computer. The word "make" in this instance is a bit misleading, as I buy all but the outer shell, then turn a piece of wood down to a very fine cylinder, into which the "works" of the pen are fitted. My guess is that 83% of the timber ends up on the ground, and the remainder forms the pen. But I comfort myself that what I start with would, for anyone but a woodturner, be rubbish to start with. Very small bits of wood are involved!

I've also recently been working on a crib board. A round crib board, obviouslyl, what other shape would a turner be making?
This involved bigger lumps of wood than for the pens, but still waste timber to the professional workshop that had thrown them on the junk pile.
Unfortunately, things didn't go entirely to plan. I managed to split off a large chunk, while turning. In fact, this happened twice. So I glued it back together, and modified the design to hide the bungle. Succesful? We will see - in due course - in the fulness of time.

Unfortunately, I suspect that it wasn't just a bungle by a ham fisted amateur. the lathe is developing noises it never had before. I suspect the bearings are wearing out, causing the drive shaft to move around a bit.
On the other hand, it might just be me.
.
I'll probably never be a really good turner - started too late in life. But I have a theory - a motto if you prefer. You've probably heard the proverb - "if a things worth doing, it's worth doing well".

I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I have an alternative - "the proof of whether a thing is worth doing, is if it's worth doing badly".
Working with wood, whether I do it well or badly, is worth doing for me.

Just lumps of wood

This is the current project - cake stand/platter, from New Guinea rosewood. I promise it'll look better when complete.

Two pictures of a lump of Raintree wood, turned to resemble a vase.


This comes from then same piece of timber that the art student keeps her pens in.



It's finished as far as shaping goes, but doesn't yet have a polish/sealer/coating of any sort. A finish coat of something will bring up the grain and brighten it.


Should look good.


all the best,
vsquared.

woodturning - bad for your mental health?

camphor laurel bowl

I said I'd post picture of the bowls I've been working on. Herwe they are!

The bottom one (upside down) was the first one, and the top one, made from New Guinea rosewood salvaged from a tree removed from m y workplace, is the second.

The other photo is the upside down one, right way up. It's turned from a pice of camphor laurel.
A very pretty timber, though not without practical problems for the wood-turner.

Birthday present - the cheap way

The making of lutes, lyres and zithers seems to have ground to a halt for the time being.
The craft known as woodturning has me by the throat at the moment. I had intended that woodturning would be just one more skill to use in my pursuit of a usable musical instrument. But for some reason I find great satisfaction in taking a perfectly good piece of timber and reducing it shavings and dust.
And that is woodturning for you.
It does have it’s uses though. The photos herewith are of three items I salvaged from the debris on the floor, and which provided a cheapskates birthday present for my favourite arts student.
The little bowl (more of a saucer really - it started out much bigger) is from a nameless tree my back fence neighbour gave me after he had chopped it down. The thing that looks like a miniature beer barrel is a miniature beer barrel, and is turned from a 20 year old lump of Oregon, that was at one time part of a post holding up my pergola. These were made in my back-yard on the world’s cheapest lathe.
The biggest of the three I made in the timber workshop I attend once a week. This workshop should be called “Woodworker’s Heaven”. It smells of new and old timber, sawdust and glue, and the lathes whirr instead of clanking and rattling, and the chisels and gouges are sharp.
Anyway, this bowl is made from a piece of timber I rescued from a park after the city council had been lopping some trees. I was convinced it was a piece of black wattle, but Ian, the guru from the workshop, says it’s Raintree. He’s the expert, so it’s Raintree.
A nice bit of timber anyway, and I’ve got enough left to produce two more things.
Happy birthday my love.
Vsquared.

Lyre now complete - more or less

I posted a photo of this lyre in an earlier post, but without the soundboards. There are two soundboards, though you can only see one in the photo - one either side of the frame obviously.

They're held in place by the tension of the strings, which pass over a bridge, which bears on the sound board.

The soundboards are turned from cypress pine, which I glue-laminated in 20mm wide strips, then turned on a lathe. Rather pretty I think.

The roughish looking frame at the bottom of the lyre is just a stand I put together to make it stand up for the photo. I'll tidy it up one day, as it works well.

The lyre actually sounds pretty good, but I've no way of getting a tune out of it, as I can't play anything.

all the best

vsquared47.

It's been a long time

You might expect that, as it has been longer than a month since my last post, that the long zither would be pretty much finished. Alas and alack, that is not so.

Ideas for other things keep popping into my head, and I am easily distracted.

I think I've inherited this problem - Skywalker suffers from the same malady.

So, since the last post, I have not finished the zither, I have started another lyre, recommenced my woodturning adventures (at a woodturning workshop and on my el cheapo GMC lathe at home), and completed the lyre that featured in a previous post, by fitting the sound-boards it lacked, (wood-turned, and rather pretty if I say so myself).

The wood-turning was intended to be just a skill to be at the service of the instrument making projects, but it is proving to be hard to keep it in its pigeon-hole. It's an addictive past-time, and the quickest way to reduce a piece of timber to shavings that I know.

At the moment I have two bowls at the workshop that I hope to complete next week, plus a couple of things at home that I'm having fun with. I'll post photos of the bowls if they come up worth a picture.

For now, I've posted a couple of photos on of a 'lute', that I consider a failure. It's the first (and only) fretted instrument I've tried. I need someone with hands the size of a polar bear to stop the strings. (The neck is a bit oversize. I'll do better next time).

all the best

vsquared.

A real qin - I didn't make it!

My previous post mentioned the 'qin', a Chinese long zither. The photo on right is a real qin, advertised on ebay. It's about 1.2m long.

The ebay ad didn't tell me much about this particular instrument, but a classic and serious qin would have seven silk strings, tuned by tightening cotton or flax strings attached to the silk strings. The cotton is wound round a wooden dowel, that is turned in a hole.

Sound strange? Well the instrument has a history of around 3,000 years. They did things differently in those days.

It's played, so I've read, by plucking/strumming, and using the row of dots on the side as guides to where to stop the strings. It has neither frets nor bridges.

My reading also suggests it took many, many years to become a master of the qin.

I believe it!

All the best.

vsquared.

Long zither - starting a new instrument

Starting a new instrument. This week I started constructing a new instrument - a long zither, based on the Chinese "qin" (or "chin").
Note, I say 'based on'; I don't claim that this is a qin. I'm not that presumptuous. The qin has a 3,000 year history, and is considered by Chinese scholars to be one of the great musical, poetic and philosophic influences.

So, what I make is a long zither, influenced by the qin.

It will be about 1.2 metres long, by about 160mm wide at it's widest point, and will be strung with six bronze or brass strings.

I'm using one of my favourite timbers for the body - cypress pine. It's a pleasure working cypress; it cuts and planes well, glues well, and finishes beautfully. When it's being worked it gives off a wonderful piney/spicey/turpentiney smell. It can have big variations in colour and grain. The batch I'm working with isn't highly varied, and is a bit like teak in appearance.

As a contrast I'll use NT stringybark for zither pin planks at each end. The stringybark has a pink to reddish brown colour, and is quite hard. It unfortunately smells like dog poo when being cut or planed.

I unreservedly love the cypress, because it's pleasure to work, and if you make an effort with finishing it looks great.
I have a bit of a love/hate thing with the stringybark, because although I do like the contrast in colour it provides, I really don't enjoy working it.

As the zither progresses I'll post some photos to show the stages.

A slab zither

A zither is a stringed instrument, with the strings stretched across the sound chamber or soundboard.
Unlike, say, a guitar, it doesn’t have a neck to extend the strings beyond the sound chamber.
That’s it. Within that description it can look like anything.
For instance, the Chinese (and Japanese and other Asian nations) have traditionally used long zithers, with anything from five strings to more than 30. They are usually unfretted, with movable bridges.
I’ve made a couple of long zithers based on the Chinese “qin”.
The European zither is more commonly rectangular with multiple strings - often 20 or more.
The nearest I’ve made to the European style zither is what I call the slab zither. It’s made from a slab of camphor laurel, which was given to me by a very generous man. Thanks Peter.

I use mainly Australian native timbers, but camphor laurel is an introduced species. Its very common in parts of New South Wales and Queensland. In fact its been declared a noxious weed in some places.
In dairy farm regions it’s a real pest, because if cows eat the foliage their milk tastes of camphor!
But the timber is good to work - medium hardness, interesting grain patterns, planes and sands OK.
This particular slab (which means I don’t know if it’s all like this) seemed to be affected by some dark staining - perhaps fungal attack. As often as I sanded/planed it out, it appeared again next day.
I ultimately decided to lightly stain the main body to conceal the marks. In the photos, the natural colour of the timber is the sound chamber cover; the darker body is due to the stain.
This zither has 17 bronze strings, from .012” to .025”.

another lyre - even stanger than the first

A lyre is a very simple device, but it's very simplicity means it can take a variety of forms.

This one I made from the fork of a Norther Ti Tree, known locally as a weeping ti tree.

I call it David's Lyre.

You remember the David from the Old Testament. The first mention of him is when King Saul, who was having a few professional problems at the time, commanded his helpers to find someone who could play the lyre and thus cheer him up. David, a shepherd boy, was brought before him, and his playing cheered up the grumpy king. In fact Saul sent a message to David's father saying he had decided to keep him. Then, when Saul's kindom was invaded, David took on Goliath, and killed him with a stone from his sling. Ultimately of course, David became King in place of Saul. But he started as a shepherd boy, who played, and I have no doubt made, his lyre. And if he, a poor shepherd boy, made a lyre, what did he make it from?

He didn't have a luthier's shop available, probably not even a corner music store. So what more natural, given the shape of the lyre, than that he found a suitable tree fork, and worked from there.

I guess he didn't have bronze music strings available, as I have used, but then I couldn't get my hands on sheep or goat gut, nor the sinews of the lion or bear, as I'm sure David did.

The top bar is of Northern Territory stringy bark (see previous post) and the partly completed sound board is a slice of Darwin Black Wattle. All the best from vsquared47.

What's a lyre.

A lyre is a seriously ancient musical instrument.

The ancient Greeks loved it, and the Egyptians used it.

It probably goes back 4,000 years, perhaps more in it's most basic form.

In more modrn times the Irish and the Welsh both used it, either as a precursor or as a poor cousin to the harp (say 800 to 1300AD). Don't hang any heavy hats on my dates.

The one pictured isn't quite that old, in fact I'm still working on it, though I started it about 12 months ago.

I wasn't happy with the standard of joinery so I put it away for six months or so. Then I had a moment of inspiration that put all to rights. I think it'll be good when finished.

The arms are of two different New Zealand timbers, glue laminated in three strips to form the curve.

The top bar is of Northern Territory stringybark; very hard and strong, ideal to carry the zither pins I use for tuning. Unfortunately it's not a pleasant timber to work - it smells like dog poo when cut/planed/sanded. But it looks and performs well, and you don't get the smell once the job is finished.

More on lyres later. Play well. All the best from vsquared

Intro to 'zithers lutes and lyres.

This publication will be for the purpose of sharing my interest in crafting strange musical instruments, which for want of better descriptions I call variously "zither", "lute" or "lyre".

There might be a few ring-ins, as I've also made some simple-system flutes, and a hammered dulcimer.

I'm not an expert, just a backyard wood-butcher who has found, in my advancing years, a very interesting hobby.

If I sometimes wax philosophical as to why I do this, or the importance of not losing the skills that our ancestors used to make these interesting instruments, I apologise. You don't have to read all those boring bits.

I'll post some photos for you to look at instead.