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.