Fiery Cocobolo
Thursday, day 8. May 2008Well, as promised, here are some pictures of the back of the psaltery that I have been working on.
I’ve finally got my new photography tent all set up, and this was one of the very first pictures. I’m still tweaking and perfecting things, so please bear with me. It has always been at the […]
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All Dressed Up…
Monday, day 5. May 2008Here is a near-complete psaltery that looks all dressed up. It has black pins, and an ebony bridge and binding. In contrast, it also has light-colored nickel-plated strings and black and white purfling around the binding.
In case you were wondering, this is the (almost) end result of Arielle’s psaltery. All that’s left is to buff […]
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Fun with Perspective
Monday, day 28. April 2008I’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 […]
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A Trio of Rosettes
Friday, day 18. April 2008I 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 […]
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Fun with Double Bookmatching
Saturday, day 12. April 2008To 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 […]
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Pore Filling Cocobolo with CA Glue
Tuesday, day 8. April 2008To 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 […]
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Arielle’s Psaltery
Wednesday, day 2. April 2008Here’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 […]
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A Psychedelic Rosette
Thursday, day 20. March 2008As I was cutting some straight-grained 1/4″ x 1/4″ strips of Cocobolo for rosettes, a funny thing happened. I rotated the otherwise straight-grained strip 90 degrees onto its side, and was amazed at the crazy colors and patterns that were present in an otherwise plain board.
Show to the left is a rosette made from the […]
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Some Nice Cherry
Friday, day 14. March 2008Here’s a cherry bowed psaltery that I’m currently working on. Its not strung up or finished yet, so I can’t say for sure how it will sound, but it’s tap-tone is outstanding. This is a great piece of cherry, with an unusual amount of resonance for a wood this light. (Note, as of right now, […]
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Quiltage
Saturday, day 8. March 2008I felt constrained to help explain the phenomenon in certain types of Maple (mostly in soft Maple), known as “quilting.” Now, I’m certainly no expert on the matter, but I have worked with the wood before.
Basically, the wood looks blistered and crinkled up - and the more three dimensional the quilt, the better.
Now, another factor […]
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Strings, strings, and more strings
Friday, day 7. March 2008 Well, after quite a prolonged shortage, I’ve finally got my shipment of wound strings! Look for a new batch of bowed psalteries to be listed on the main site: Phantasy Psalteries in the near future.
After having experimented with all sorts of strings during the beginning of the year, I really am leaning toward nickel-plated […]
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High-Gloss Psaltery
Thursday, day 28. February 2008I took this picture right after buffing out the back of a Cocobolo bowed psaltery I am working on. As you can see from the reflection, the light bulb is a Sylvania.
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Sick as a dog
Thursday, day 21. February 2008 Well, I’ve been sick with either the flu, or a really bad cold for most of this week. Consequently, I haven’t been able to finish any psalteries lately, but there are plenty of them on the horizon.
For now, since I am mostly bedridden, (or sometimes “office-chair-ridden”), I decided to make a little slideshow to […]
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Another Safari
Wednesday, day 13. February 2008A while back I had a few psalteries for sale that I had called “Safari” because of their somewhat wild looks. Here’s another addition to that collection.
As you can see from the picture, it is made of beautiful Zebrawood. The sides are also solid Zebrawood, versus the veneered sides on my previous psalteries.
Note also the […]
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