Official Luthiers Forum!

That rose is incredible... please don't forget to post pictures of the one at the top of the thread when finished too.


Shawn.... I feel I am being unfairly singled out here because of my appreciation for Colin's lutes. If I attempted to make a lute, and by some stange happening I was able to make one that wasn't a total embarassment - I'd be tarnishing Colin's mysterious uberkraftsman persona!

At night and on weekends, and mostly intoxicated, I'm secretly (!) making a guitar with cardboard for the back and sides (ala Torres). Once thats done, I'll move a lute into my next pet project. Even though it strikes me as nothing short of a monumental task, one of the top reasons I make guitars is to challenge myself - so why not?

But ONLY if I can convince Colin to send me some varnish and pick me out a rose design. Colin, if you'll do that I'll take the plunge and sacrifice 25 euro spruce tops and 2 years of my life trying to carve the rose.

Feel free to say "no" so I have some sort of "out" on this.

_________________
Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

Joshua, No of course I won't send you some varnish or rose plans. (Is that the right answer?)

Not at least until you have finished all the other projects that I have set you in the past, I would of course have to ask David if you can have some of his 'instrument varnish #2'. As to the rose patterns, I'll e-mail you as many as you want, but as you like a challenge, I really feel you should do this one from the 10-course above!





Colin

I think I'll have an "uberkraftsman" badge made!

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Shawn, my only real variation from Heiber is in the choice of materials, but otherwise it's pretty faithful. I used yew staves for my 7-course Heiber and 10-course 1610 Venere lutes. I've still got most of the 1000+ year old yew tree to cut up, and still trying to get some big enough for a guitar B&S that doesn't split as soon as look at it!

I've restored an 18th century fan braced 13-course original and a 1780 6-string guitar (unknown maker) as well, and was interested to see how truly badly they were really made internally, but they seem to have lasted 200 years and sounded superb after restoration.

I just love historic instruments, I believe we can learn a lot by studying them.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Colin, YOU ARE A TRUE ARTIST!!! MAGNIFICENT!

Colin,

You are my new personal luthiere hero! Man, what a beautiful combination of stave woods. Very nice rose too. Well done!

I'm very pleased to see you using a jeweler's saw for roughing out the basic rose shapes. I've done that too but had read that the TRADITIONAL method was to dramatically thin the rose area of the top, glue on the paper pattern to the BACK side of the spruce, slice & dice the basic shapes with a scalpel, then turn the top over & do the 3-D fine tuning. That approach doesn't make sense to me when it can be more easily done the way you described. Plus you avoid thinning the top plate so much & then having to later reinforce it from underneath.

I have found a few really cool web sites for different roses - some with drawings & some with just pictures. Most are historical designs & probably aren't copyrighted. An enterprising computer-savy budding rose artist (sorry for the pun) could size & print some of these out for personal use.

http://www.lutyst.dircon.co.uk/detailpages/roses.htm
http://www.wadsworth-lutes.co.uk/roses.htm
http://www.tomlinsonlutes.com/ (look around the site)
http://www.parchmentroses.com/en_catalog.htm

Now for the begging:

Please (with much emphasis), will you consider doing all of us here all a GREAT favor & do a detailed "show and tell" picture-filled, building process post. I for one would absolutely love to see the basic plan you're working from, the body form & how it's made, the head & tail blocks, how the staves are shaped & attached to the blocks, neck construction, pegbox construction, bridge construction, etc. etc. etc.

This would be a bit of additional work for you & take some time but I'm sure but it would be a real inspiration for all of the interested and curious parties on this forum. Who knows, maybe some other folks here would actually try a similar project if the various processes were more clearly evident.

If you don't want to take on that much extra work, I certainly understand but if you're interested in doing it, I know lots of folks around here would just love to see it!

By the way, have you heard the CD of Lutz Kirchhof's collection of Bach's works for lute? Masterfully played on fabulous sounding instruments (Theorbo & Baroque Lute), beautifully recorded, & wonderful music! It's a double CD on the Sony Vivarte label. Truly scrumptous.

Skip

Colin,

Your work blows me away! True artistry.

Jeff