Well, to each his own Dana, but I find that for myself there is no
substitute for doing. Copying and scaling a rose is as simple as
punching some buttons on a copy machine. The rose on my present lute
is copied from the return address logo on the Guild of American
Luthiers envelopes. I picked a fairly simple rose pattern for my
first effort. In general, I started as simple as possible and have
been increasing the level of difficulty with each instrument I
build. I started out using inexpensive violin pegs rather than
making pegs myself, for example. None of my instruments is a
masterpiece. But each one has been playable, and several have a very
nice tone. And it's been fun and relaxing.
Tim
On May 31, 2008, at 12:54 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Fri, May 30, 2008, Timothy Motz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
Considering that even a cheap lute
of the southeast Asian variety is now running $400-500, buying one
sounds like an expensive way to learn what not to do.
depends on how you look at the expense.
Consider the rose, just designing a rose takes time, even if you
copy the
design you have to get it scaled and printed; then you make/
purchase the
chisels, scalpel, punches etc to carve it, and some practice wood, and
then its what, maybe 20 hours of work? Yes, you have the radio
playing
nice music to cover the occaisinoal epithet when you mess up the
over/under interlace or break off another bit of short grain...
The cheap instrument you purchase will probably need somw work to
improve
its action, they arent always going to be hopeless, some will need
less
work than others. The first several instruments from any new luthiers
bench will have similar issues to be solved. Just as when
practicing a
new piece, sometimes its best to begin at the ending.
Several aspects of building require each builder to solve fabrication
techniques - thicknessing thin stock, turning pegs, working with hide
glue, triming the bowl, shaping small pieces that have no parallel
surfaces (bridge, pegbox sides, neck, neckblock).
In so many other fields, the large project is best split into smaller
ones, each of which is more easily learned; confidence is built
slowly and
surely, with the strong possibility of some fun along the way if
you can
keep the new toy functional inbetween work sessions.
You can make a couple of lemons and learn more than by playing
someone else's mistakes.
That is quite true, but does it hurt to do both in succesion?
--
Dana Emery
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