Here’s a couple of pictures of a bowed psaltery that I just recently completed. The top is african mahogany with a padauk laser-cut rosette. The binding and bridge are made from cocobolo, which I chose from the darkest stuff I had on hand.

The back and sides are padauk, which I think both complement and contrast the other woods used—not to mention padauk is very stable and resonant!

Well, it’s not too often that I go out looking for wood in my backyard. Given the work involved in processing raw logs into lumber, and the tiny amounts of wood necessary for building a bowed psaltery, it’s almost always easier for me to just buy pre-processed lumber commercially for my bowed psalteries.

But last year, I was intrigued with the wood of a tree that had just recently been cut down: a medium to large sized Buckthorn. The inside heartwood was sort of a rusty orange color, and it caught my attention. Since Buckthorn trees are typically very small, they aren’t used or harvested commercially as lumber, so out of curiosity I decided to cut a few logs into wood slabs and dry them to see what the wood looked like.

As soon as the first side peeled off the bandsaw, I knew I was in for a treat. The wood was gorgeous, with great color and grain patterns. Unfortunately, I would soon also discover that the wood was incredibly difficult to dry, and my first planks developed significant checks all the way through the wood when drying: this left me with narrow strips of wood which weren’t wide enough to use for a bowed psaltery.

But I had one more large Buckthorn log available, so I decided once more to cut the log into flat sections, this time taking extreme care in sealing the endgrain and stickering the wood after the cutting, to help ensure a slow and stable drying period.

When I finally got the wood all processed, I found a section of wood that was wide enough to be made into a bowed psaltery back (with accompanying sides and pinblock liner), and I got to work.

So, it’s been nearly a year later from the time when the tree was first felled, but the pictures above show the finished psaltery made of Buckthorn. As of 4/15/10, it is still available for sale on the Phantasy Psalteries website.

Here’s a couple of photos of a custom bowed psaltery that I’ve just recently completed. You can see from the back that this is the same psaltery that I had written about earlier regarding the linseed oil finish. The back is made of Canarywood with Bloodwood binding.

For the soundboard, Sitka Spruce was used, along with the same Bloodwood for the binding, bridge, and rosette. The center rose is made of Hard Maple, and closely matches the color of the Spruce top.

Here’s a couple pictures of a custom psaltery that I just finished up. On it I used up the last of my quilted maple, which for some reason the camera always flatters. It’s funny, because usually I’m frustrated that the camera can’t capture the full beauty of the wood grain, but with quilted maple, it’s almost the opposite. The wood looks nice—that’s true—but it just doesn’t look as astounding in person as the pictures make it out to be. I just don’t want to inflate people’s expectations.

For the top of the psaltery, sitka spruce was used, and you can also see the matching custom wrench that was made too. (Please ignore the masking tape over the area where the metal ferrule is supposed to be—it is used to keep the finish off this area.) The wrench is made of quilted maple and purpleheart, just like the body of the psaltery.

The wrenches are actually for an pair of autoharps, though the pins are the same. The style is a T-wrench, with an offset handle, sort of a middle ground between a gooseneck and a true T-wrench.

The pictures above show the before and after shots of a wonderfully colorful and figured bowed psaltery back made of Canarywood. While it’s true that applying just about any type of finish brings out the color and grain in the wood, one of the best finishes for doing this, in my experience, has been Boiled Linseed Oil.

Actually, most linseed oil today isn’t boiled, but it’s instead just some heavy metal driers that help the oil to dry. However, I’m using an all-natural linseed oil that is polymerized—meaning it will dry on its own without the addition of the toxic driers. (Otherwise raw linseed oil tends to stay gummy indefinitely.)

Note that in the second picture, the psaltery still looks a bit “greasy” because I’ve just applied the finish, and I have not yet wiped the excess oil off. The finished surface is actually very low gloss.

Here’s a couple of pictures of a custom bowed psaltery that I’m currently working on. As you can see, the photos were taken at an intermediate time: after I had routed the ledge for the binding, but before I had actually cut and installed the purpleheart binding. As a result, you can get a peek into what the psaltery looks like without the binding in place.

Hopefully I’ll post more picture of this psaltery when the binding is finished, so you can see the dramatic difference that only a few thin strips of accent wood can make on a musical instrument.

I admit that when I first saw Bloodwood—with its amazing blood-red coloring, and its astounding hardness, I was enamored. I could definitely see some useful applications for this wood in musical instrument building.

Yet, as a woodworker, the more I work with this stuff, the more I have grown to disdain it. This wood is so dense, it wrecks just about everything it touches. It dulls saw blades very quickly, it clogs sandpaper, and it bleeds its reddish color into surrounding wood surfaces unless extreme care is taken during its finishing.

So why am I undertaking yet another project with this annoying wood?

Well, to be honest, the color and tap-tone is simply unlike any other wood on the planet. So I guess I’ll endure one more project with this punishing wood!