Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons of Goo....

Not the most romantic processes going on in the shop just now. Here, I'm employing a forest of clamps to affix what is known as the "end cap" or "clasp" to the bottom of the ebony lute bowl. It is a well known woodworking maxim that one can never have enough clamps. There's a genial competition going on, and the one who reaches their demise with the most, wins.







For those viewers interested in making early instruments, (thanks for all the kind words and encouragement, fellows!) take a look at the item holding my mold. It's a Veritas carving vise and I am thrilled with it. The faceplate rotates and pivots easily, and locks firmly for carving. Worth every penny.










It might be overkill. All I know is that it's hard to achieve perfect mating between the two surfaces due to the three dimensional nature of the form and in this case, the re-curve. (By the way, this is the ebony strip that I cut too thin. I glued it to some .5mm black-dyed pear and the joint is pretty much invisible. As a plus, it was actually easier to bend!)

On to one of my least favorite steps in the lute building playbook. I went down to my local art supply store and purchased some quality paper from Dave Kuruc. (Kuruc is Hamilton's version of Keven Bacon, only more so. He's so well connected in our city that we can play one degree of separation using Dave.)

Anyway, he had some nice Waterford rag paper which we deemed appropriate for the task. Mainly because it resembled my name.

I've got four bowls to reinforce. I cut the paper into 1/2" strips and got it good and saturated with glue. The disagreeable thing is trying to get the strips stuck down perfectly over each rib joint. The glue wants to stick to my fingers more firmly than the paper wants to stick to the bowl!

Eventually they settle down, I scrape the next joint clean, go back and rub the previous joint to smooth out any bubbles and so on. This takes a lot more time than one might expect. I aim for some sense of regularity but it's all hidden from view when the top is glued in place.

Then, I add lines of longitude. In many preserved examples, this papering was done with strips cut from early printed works or manuscripts. Recycling isn't a new idea. Paper used to be a very valuable material given the amount of labor that went into producing it. Greek Bouzoukis usually have a lining of elaborately embossed gold foil. Perhaps I should get a platen press and print something to spice up the look of my own lute interiors. You may note a little patch of glistening glue on the last strip I adhered. Fear not. It dried matte.

In the next few days I'll be working on making some cases. That should prove more interesting than watching this glue dry.

Dirt Cheap, Super-Simple Thickness Sander

Wouldn't it be nice to own one of those big wide belt thickness sanders? My tiny shop just doesn't have the space. Maybe one day.....

With the number of lute ribs I'm preparing these days, hand planing was becoming less and less efficient. I thought about putting a sanding drum on my drill press but so much axial pressure that would cause an inordinate amount of wear on the bearings. Building a traditional sander with adjustable table seemed costly, time consuming and again - there was the space issue.

I was in my local building center and spotted this little oscillating spindle sander on sale for $120. It's a Rockwell Shop Series. The sander comes with a variety of spindles. It's light enough to move around easily for storage.

I installed the largest spindle, popped on an 80 grit sleeve, planed a length of pine square and straight, and put it to work.

One nice thing about this machine is a dust port which is the correct diameter for my little 6 gallon Shopvac. I don't even have to take the wand off - it just slips in place. The vacuum is perfectly adequate and this means I don't have to find room for a large dust collector.

I feed the stock against the rotation which presses it firmly against the fence. I suppose one could set up some feather boards on either side of the drum but I haven't found it necessary. The 2" staves come out uniform and there isn't any propensity to kick back.

I stand on the fence side and use both hands to feed, one on each side of the drum wearing some grip tape on my index fingers for safety and comfort. In the photo you can see a second board clamped against the back of the fence. This allows me to accurately increase the sanding depth. To do this I loosen the fence clamps, insert two business cards, re-clamp, and finally move the rear positioning block back into place.

Works great!

In Which Ted Finds Splitting Hairs Would be Easier

This morning I had a frustrating experience. I've decided to make the next lute bowl of Macassar ebony. Some time ago I'd come across a stick of this rare material at the local exotic wood purveyor. My tape measure told the tale... the board was just large enough in all dimensions to yield the 14 pieces needed.

Ebony is a rare substance. It's hard, heavy, black, and it's always been glorified by those who work with wood. In fact, the French word for master cabinet-maker is "Eboniste". I paid a handsome sum for the little board.

As a person of conscience, I go through periods of some doubt where exotic woods are concerned. It's true that this little board passed through three or four pairs of hands and likely experienced a 100% markup at each stage. I'm against unregulated forestry practices. The sad fact is, this board's other likely destination was a fire pit. Unchecked population growth in its place of origin means that trees are either burned to make way for farmland, or burned for heat.

Does using such a scarce resource for a creative endeavour devalue the material? Or increase the desire for it in the buying public, thereby making worse exploitation probable? I'd like to think that through employing it in a high value object designed with longevity in mind I'm somehow making sustainable harvesting a better economic opportunity than destruction by fire.

Recently I was watching one of those "Let's make your house palatable to hip young home buyers" shows. "Crash" went the sledgehammer as the old kitchen cabinets made way for new. I was a little outraged by what happened next. The new cabinet doors were made from photo-print foil laminate in the pattern of... macassar ebony. Or, "mer-crasser", as the bubbly hostess repeatedly called it.
Sigh. I think of some materials as utilitarian in their scope. Gold-plated toilet seats are wrong on many levels. If you're going to make a plastic-faced cabinet door, it should say something about plastic as a material. Utilizing the image of a scarce and beautiful natural material for storage purposes inoculates us against what a miracle the real thing is.

I had to psyche myself up to cut the ebony. I put it off for a few days until I arrived at a morning I was feeling up to the challenge. I spent some time tuning up my rickety old band saw and made test cuts to dial in the fence just so.

Wood does not sleep. It's in constant motion, gaining water or losing it. The block had been slightly larger when I bought it and had shrunk a little though drying out. Recall, if you will, that it was just wide enough to provide 14 strips, including the material lost to the saw blade. Had it rained this morning, I'd likely have been okay. As it was, I ended up with 13 perfect slices... and one too thin. By half a millimeter. Either the saw blade expanded with friction, or the fence was misplaced. By 1/24th of a millimeter. Cumulative error is an awesome thing.

So, I'm left with a decision. I could make a so-called "beach ball" lute with alternating dark and light staves. (They always leave me cold.) I think I will take the thin stave and use it for the capping strip, padding it out with a piece of veneer on the reverse side to make up the thickness. Such is life!