John,
It may not be the kind of support you were looking for, but when it
comes to hurdy-gurdies, it's exactly the kind that you probably need.
The *substantive* problems that others identified (bridges not
designed for the proper number of strings and missing parts) are
*not* aesthetic or trivial in nature, and not just a matter of period
correctness. Your own assessment of your skills (“my woodworking
skills (not much to brag about) are still a sight better than my
musical skills”) give no basis for assuming that you have the
knowledge needed to correct for these problems, even if the plans are
just inspiration for your own design.
I'm sorry for being fairly direct, but I really don't see anything
unkind in what anyone wrote at all: you just got advice on those
plans worth more than the plans themselves (if your own time is worth
anything at all to you): that advice will save you hundreds of hours
of work based on a faulty starting point. If you don't like it and
choose to ignore it because it wasn't what you were looking for, you
will not find those same people so willing to help when you come back
needing help to fix major problems that could have been avoided by
heeding their then-unwelcome advice.
You will find no online community more supportive or helpful than
this one, nor people more willing to share their experience to help
you out. But you will not find most of them willing to help you fix
an instrument based upon plans with major problems after they warned
you of the dangers.
Best regards,
Arle
On May 14, 2007, at 11:26 PM, john tappan wrote:
Well, guys, thanks for the “welcome!” So far, I’ve had one offer
for help (thanks, Marc!) and three criticisms of the plans I’ve
bought. Not exactly the kind of support I was looking for!!
To my way of thinking, unless you’re going to build an historically
accurate hg with historically accurate decoration (pick your
builder, your style, and your decade), then a set of plans is just
a beginning point. I’ve rarely built anything exactly like the
plans specified—there’s always room for changes, adaptations, and
some creative license. I’m assuming your good intentions, but really…
As far as Pascal Crangat’s plans, I’ve been looking at hg sites for
months and I had never come across that name, so I googled him and
found one site in French. I don’t read French, so if he does have
plans for sale, however good they might be, I wouldn’t know it.
And if I did know it, I’d expect the plans to be in French, as
well, so I doubt they would be very helpful to me anyway. Now if
he has an English version, I might be interested—I haven’t built
anything yet.
John Tappan
