Professor Woozle

I like the figure on that last one - burr walnut?

The Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps, probably the most technically accomplished gold and garnet work to survive from antiquity.... Regarding the post with the links to pietra dura videos, I should have made clear I was referring to the first video that came up on the results list, which showed how Italian craftsmen create their pieces. A couple of thoughts on adapting these techniques to guitar building, for headstock inlays at least - if you're going to put a veneer on the headstock then the technique of cutting the inlay cells all the way through is probably the way to go. I guess you could do the same with a fingerboard, though you'd either need to use much thicker (and hence slower to cut) inlay pieces or use the cut-out pieces as backing for the inlay pieces maybe?

Just thought of something, which is that there might be some stuff online of use about Italian pietra dura stone inlay work, and there is: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pietra+dura The plain wire and carborundum sawing technique looks worth a try, likewise the trick of sawing out at about 30 degrees making final shaping easier. When you've got some bits done, please post some pics here - I'd like to see how it turns out for you.

I'm not aware of any videos on gemstone inlaying but I have in the past done some cloisonne garnet work so here's a few suggestions for the gemstone working at least. Firstly, having access to a geological circular saw is a big advantage when cutting the mineral slices, particularly for brittle/fracture-prone minerals. If the minerals you're working do tend to fracture then they can be stabilised with epoxy resins, for example the decorative variety of Fluorite known as Blue John is vaccuum impregnated with epoxy resin before cutting/turning to stop it shattering. For shaping, I guess dental burrs will be the fastest option for removing material but wet or dry paper (used wet) is what you'll need for the final passes, and beware of chipping at the edges of the work piece - unfortunately, very easy to do with a lot of minerals when thinly sliced. As for the actual mounting, for translucent minerals like tiger eye you may want to consider a reflective backing to really get the best effect. Traditionally, cloisonne garnet work has each piece backed with a waffle-cut piece of gold foil so that light is reflected back through the garnet, giving it a magnificent blood-red glow like this : I'm not sure how would be best to go about finishing once mounting, whether it would be better to fit the pieces in the wood slightly recessed and sand the wood down to the mineral top, or fit slightly proud as you'd do with wood inlays and sand the inlays down. I'm sure others on here will have an opinion.

My avatar is a caricature done by a former work colleague, although I don't wear glasses - I guess he thought it added to the general mad professor look. I've dug out the oak bits I was looking for, I think it's American white oak that has suffered a bit of woodworm damage and I'd previously treated with boron-based insecticide. Should be enough there to cut the damaged bits off, now need to level some edges and glue up.

Been musing on the spare bits of oak in the garage, and the spare machine heads and P90 in the parts box, which is rapidly coalescing into "why don't you make yourself an electric one?" I guess some reinforcement will be needed on the arms, and maybe make it a semi-acoustic to cut down on weight, but I won't know that it doesn't work until I've tried!

So true - with good sharp hand tools and the old rule of "measure twice, cut once" you can make whatever you want. Maybe not as fast as you _potentially_ could with power tools but there's also so much more potential to wreck your workpiece!

Pulled out my lignum plank today for a look and had another possibly crazy idea - it's slightly over 25mm thick so maybe I could make a one-piece neck, fingerboard and all. How to fit a truss rod would need a bit of thought. Anyway, enough on the lignum - next post will be back on the Giannini restoration...

The suggestion on this link from wikipedia is that it was an extra soundbox - https://web.archive.org/web/20131230234441/http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/article/crwth I'm guessing the modern crwth makers will have been experimenting to see what difference it makes to the sound, but the fact that three of the surviving originals have this does point to it being a deliberate and established practice?

It's pronounced "Krooth", and they are perhaps the final development of the lyre family with some unusual features, such as a void in the centre of the neck under the fingerboard.

Just had a delve in the dustier recesses of my hard drive and found this one I got from Academia.org... EARLY_LYRES_IN_CONTEXT_A_COMPARATIVE_CON.pdf

I've not really looked into it, but I suspect there will be some good reference sources to follow up on the wikipedia page on lyres, and the sub-pages for different sorts. I might have a look on academia.org and see if there are any good papers uploaded there, in fact I may even have one already - I've got a load of papers on Dark Age archaeology from there that I never got round to reading properly, not enough hours in the day...

Not quite the same, given that the hearpe is plucked/strummed not bowed, but they are both from the same family. This one is more akin to the Welsh crwth. Somewhere on Youtube there's probably the footage from Time Team of Phil Harding having a go with a hearpe - possibly the same episode where in the background of one shot, you also get to see him getting a faceful of ale when he was drinking from a horn and found out why you don't lower them quickly after taking a mouthful...

Sound advice there, thanks. Fretless bass... there's something missing from the guitar harem at the moment, but I really need to get through all the other projects first!

Has anyone ever tried, I wonder? I know the traditional uses of Lignum are mostly related to turning (mallets heads, wet-use bearings and suchlike), and it is a lovely wood to work on a lathe given its oiliness, but its density (and the nice figure it can have) is what made me wonder if it could be used for a fingerboard if you could get glue to stick. One of these days I may try an experiment with an offcut, treat it with solvent to try and de-oil one surface then see if I can get it to glue to a different wood.

I have, mostly turning so I know just how quickly it takes the edge off tools from my experience of resharpening the skew chisel frequently! I do love that chocolately smell it has, and it has a fine ringing tap-tone as well. I did also consider lignum vitae for the nut and bridge, since I've got some of that in stock too. One piece is a small plank, nicely figured and I've wondered in idle moments whether it would make a good fingerboard, putting aside lignum's tendency to resist being glued...

Given how difficult I found it to get the crack to open even the slightest amount, and it's been caused by over-stressing the neck with steel strings, I think the neck tenon joint is still sound. I'll see how it behaves when strung and like you say, if it stays stable and plays fine then nothing else is needed. I'm thinking of fabricating a new bridge and nut out of African blackwood, then I can get strings on.

Today I gave it a go with glue - I couldn't open the crack up enough to get a wedge in, but using my syringe I wetted the wood then dripped thinned PVA glue in, and flexed the neck as much as I was comfortable with doing to work it in. Clamped up with scrap wood for protection and wiped the excess glue off, I'll probably leave the clamp on for a week to give it plenty of time to dry. I also took time to properly look over the state of the finish and I think I'll repair rather than redo - there's a few knocks need filling, some areas of scratching, and the end of the headstock has been abraded. I remember someone, possibly Martin Carthy, telling the tale at a gig about taking a treasured but road-worn guitar for refinishing; the luthier started asking about how the various knocks and dinks happened and MC (if indeed it was him I'm remembering telling this) realised that getting it re-laquered would be removing the guitar's history and changed his mind. I get where he was coming from on that...

Add lemon juice to that list. This afternoon, having a slack half hour, decided to try and clean the fingerboard with lemon juice on an old sponge dish scourer, and boy, did it do the job quick and easy! The first photo is before, the second is after a scrub with lemon juice, and the third was after I put a coat of linseed oil on to soak. I don't think the nut is original and it looks like there's a bit of glue spill, so I'll scrape back when re-nutting. As to what the wood is, I'm still not 100% sure - I'm asking myself if it is indeed Dalbergia Nigra, same as the back and sides, but it's very lightly figured if so. Having said that, I think this is a mid-range instrument, so maybe Giannini were using a lower grade of rosewood for the fingerboard on these, which would have the desired tonal qualities but not quite the same aesthetic appeal?

After mentioning this instrument in passing on another thread, I seem to have got the interest of several people and promised to start a dedicated thread, so here it is. Hearpe is the Old English name for the stringed instrument that thanks to the influence of Greek and Latin scholars, most people refer to as a lyre. There are a few fragmentary examples known from archaeological digs, most famously Sutton Hoo but also Taplow, and there are examples from Germany too, one from a grave in Koln and one from Oberflacht. The latter was apparently virtually intact when found, but in pre-PEG days the only way to preserve it was in alcohol. When Berlin fell to the Russians in 1945, unfortunately some of their troops found it and did what Russian soldiers normally do with neat alcohol, destroying it in the process. Attached are some scans of photocopied pages from R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford's The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (British Museum Press, 3 Vols: 1975, 1978, 1983) which was in my University library. One thing I am currently missing is the A3 photocopy I made of the plan of the Sutton Hoo hearpe but I've got a suspicion which folder of photocopied stuff it's in, there's a partial one attached with measurements. I found this site - http://www.michaeljking.com/index.htm#, looks like he specialises in making them and fair play to him, although the prices of some had me sounding the Yorkshire War Cry (for the benefit of non-UK members, that's "How Much!!!" rendered at earth-shattering volumes). I've long had designs on making myself a copy of the Taplow lyre, including the wonderful bird-head escutcheons, so maybe it's time I got mysef a suitably sized bit of maple and got on with it!

That purple > blue > green burst is awesome!

Since I seem to have got some interest in the hearpe, I'll start a thread over in the non-guitar build section - I can scan what I've got and see what I can find in the way of links. @Prostheta to quickly answer your question, mortice and tenon joints were used for the peg arm, and the decorative bits (usually referred to as escutcheons in archaeological literature) are hiding the joint. More once I've got a proper thread going...

I like the way you've done the control knobs on this build, it makes me think of top-end hi-fi kit. I also am not a Finnish engineer, these days I test software for a living but by education I'm an archaeologist and have also worked as a blacksmith - gives you an odd perspective on the world, but there you go! One of these days I will get enough maple in to build myself an old English hearpe, based on the Taplow and Sutton Hoo remains, since I have photocopies take from the Sutton Hoo excavation reports of the reconstruction plan...

To quote Baldric, "I have a cunning plan" - it's occurred to me that probably the best non-aggressive means of cleaning the fingerboard gunk will be lemon juice on an old washing-up scourer (well worn so it's less scratchy) and elbow grease. If that does the trick and gets the grot removed then I'll give the surface a rub-over with fine scotchpad, and then give it a good application of linseed oil. If my suspicions about the wood are right, then that'll hopefully show up if there's subtle grain pattern and confirm whether or not it's a lightly figured piece of Brazilian Rosewood. I'll take some before and after photos too.

Xylene is the last resort, it's a good solvent and shifts most things but as is often the case with the best solvents, it's not good for your health - one to definitely use outside or wear an activated charcoal filter mask! I'll try the stiff bristle brush with soapy water first, it almost seems like the former owner not only nearly killed a fine guitar by putting the wrong strings on, but they regularly played with sugar-sticky fingers... Yes, I do use linseed oil on fingerboards after I've cleaned with lemon oil or suchlike. I generally leave it on for a while and keep topping up the coating until the wood doesn't seem to be taking any more in , then wipe clean and give it a good rub with a lint-free cloth.