I’ve always found it somewhat humorous how easily it can be to alter the perceived length of a bowed psaltery. Since I seem to have taken pictures of all sorts of bowed psalteries already, I thought today I would have fun with it a little and take a picture from an interesting angle.
You can see from the picture on the left that changing the angle can drastically alter the perceived length of the psaltery. Yes, believe it or not, the psaltery above is actually of standard length and width.
Here’s a tip for any woodworkers or luthiers out there: if you’re at all like me, you’re always grabbing for a writing instrument to mark a board. Oftentimes they get “misplaced” or knocked around while working on a project. (I go through quite a number of pencils in any given week while making bowed psalteries.)
Well, as you can see from the photo on the left, here’s my cheap, somewhat quirky solution. Stash a whole bunch of pencils or other writing utencils in the miter tracks of your power tools. You could put pens, pencils, chalk, crayons, etc. in the standard miter tracks that come on many table saws and bandsaws. They sit below the surface of the table, and don’t interfere with regular cutting operations (unless you’re using a jig that makes use of the track, of course). Plus, they’re always in plain site and easy to find.
This has been another groundbreaking tip from Phantasy Psalteries. 
(And no, in case you were wondering from the photo, I’m not a Clevland Browns fan – it’s just a random pencil that I had lying around.)
I must admit that inlaying rosettes is one of my least favorite things to do. Accordingly, sometimes I can get a small buildup of these things before I finally get the time to actually inlay them in a soundboard.
On the left, you can see three such rosettes that are ready to adorn a bowed psaltery soundhole. From left to right: 5/16″ banding, a custom Cocobolo rosette, and a new 3-holed design I’m trying out.
To the left you can see the beginning of my little experiment. I had a narrow yet thick chunk of Cocobolo left from cutting the sides to Arielle’s psaltery, and I was trying to see if I couldn’t find a use for it somehow.
One thing that struck me was that it had the most beautiful sapwood, yet it was too narrow to make an entire back from it, so I decided to cut the board into four strips and bookmatch each pair of strips, to make a four-piece back. Since the sapwood (the lighter area of the wood), was so dramatic and figured, I decided to highlight that area and maximize its area on the back.
I really like how the whole back turned out once I cut out the shape of the psaltery. You can see this piece, along with a closeup shot of the sapwood area, in the Treasure Trove section of my main website.
To the left you can see the two things that I use to fill the pores in various woods, (in this case, Cocobolo), before applying the finish.
1. Medium viscosity CA glue.
2. A deck of playing cards.
What I do is drizzle the CA glue somewhat sparingly over the wood surface to be filled, (a little CA glue goes a long way), and then just use a playing card to level and spread the glue throughout the entire surface of the wood. I also use a box fan on my work table to prevent my eyes from watering up from the fumes.
I use shellac to seal the wood first, so less CA glue is wasted and absorbed into the wood fibers. (Multiple applications can sometimes be necessary.) And in this case, with Cocobolo, it was just about a necessity to seal the wood first, because Cocobolo’s colors will leach into the finish (or pore filler) and taint the nearby wood. In this case, the white lines on the purfling would’ve turned orange if I hadn’t (gingerly) sealed the wood before filling the pores.
To the left you can see the wood surface just after I’ve filled the pores. (The actual color is just a bit redder in person.) The surface will obviously be uneven, but once the CA glue is fully dried, I will go back over it with a cabinet scraper, and/or sandpaper and level things off. Once the wood’s pores are glassy smooth and filled to my liking, I like to let the entire psaltery sit overnight before starting to apply the finish. This ensures that all the solvents and chemicals within the CA glue won’t get trapped under the finish.
I love CA glue as a pore filler because, unlike most pore fillers which are colored, CA is completely transparent and lets the natural beauty of the wood show through. Take a look at an example of a finished Cocobolo psaltery, with its pores filled and a gloss finish applied and buffed.
Here’s a shot of a psaltery that I’m currently working on:
I still can’t get over how great the rosette looks on this psaltery. It almost looks like a little band of fire inlaid into the Mahogany. I think I may have to try and go back and salvage some more strips from that board and see if I can’t duplicate this rosette again.
The Cocobolo sides appear darker than they actually are, because of shadows. But usually its the opposite, as freshly sanded Cocobolo turns much lighter, and quickly darkens over the course of a few days as it is exposed to air.
I’ve worked with so much Cocobolo over the past few weeks, it starts to worry me. I once heard it said: “there are two types of people in this world: those that are allergic to Cocobolo, and those that will be.” I guess I’ll just enjoy this wood as long as I’m able to, and hopefully I don’t develop a severe allergy to it!
