What a Difference a Little Sanding Makes…

28. January 2008 Eric

In the picture to the left you’ll see what a bowed psaltery looks like after I’ve just glued the binding on. Actually, since I’m experimenting with a new type of binding - Verawood - and the back and sides are made of Cocobolo, (all very oily and resinous woods), I chose to use CA glue to adhere the binding on this psaltery. So there are dried glue globs, glue runs, glued-on pieces of blue masking tape, and even a tiny bit of plastic from the pad of a clamp (not visible in picture), all slathered on the back of this bowed psaltery.

A lot of people don’t realize that messes can be cleaned up. The psaltery above really isn’t in that bad of a condition - I’ve seen worse.

There, you see? All better. Just a little bit of sandpaper and elbow grease was all it took. Good as new.

And now that I’ve got the initial sealer coats on the back, I’m excited about this new binding, called Verawood. You can hardly see it in the picture, but this wood turns an olive green once exposed to light and air. It has a wavy and interlocked grain that is beautiful, but also quite difficult to work with. It is also a relative of the more well known wood, Lignum Vitae (aka Ironwood or the “tree of life”), and share many of the same working characteristics. Namely, it is just about the densest and most durable of woods on the planet. Arguably the densest.

Talk about protecting the psaltery from dings… This wood’s got it covered.

Building | 2 Comments »

Abralon Sanding Discs

21. January 2008 Eric

At the picture to the left you will see one of my favorite sanding items. It’s called Abralon, and I use it when I am initially buffing out a bowed psaltery’s finish.  It’s a sanding disc that is basically made out of fabric, with a 1/4″ foam backing. These things are just plain great.

Just what’s so great about this thing?

Well, for starters, it basically never gets clogged. Ever. Sure, some finish can ball up on the surface, but it can always be blown off by a blast from a air compressor hose, or just by taking it off the sander and beating it between your hands.

Secondly, and the most important for me, it allows you to dry-sand a finish all the way up to 4000 grit. (Yes, 4000 grit.) The pad shown in the picture is actually a 4000 grit pad. It is amazing to me that it is possible to sand at this fine of a grit, without a lubricant, and still get a smooth, consistent finish. It sure beats MicroMesh, at least up to 4000 grit.

Third, they do seem to last a good long while. While the initial gritty feel to the surface of the disc is quickly lost, it still seems good at cutting long after its first use.

About the only downside is that since the pad is so soft, it is not good for leveling. For that I use a regular finish sander with standard sandpaper. But once any drips, sags, or any other surface irregularities are removed, Abralon really excels.

Well, the only other downside would be its price. Not exactly cheap at all, but certainly worth it in time saved in the arduous task of finishing the finish, at least for me anyway.

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Delignit is Here

18. January 2008 Eric

So just what is Delignit? Delignit is a laminated pinblock material made of European Beech and bonded with phenolic resins. It is widely used in high-end pianos worldwide, and is actually imported from Germany.

In a nutshell, it is a specialized form of plywood that I’ve now adapted to be used in bowed psalteries to give them even more tuning stability. All psalteries from here on out will have an upper surface of Delignit where the tuning pins make contact with the pinblock. (See picture on left.)

Since there are so many layers of wood that contact the tuning pin, the pinblock’s surface is guaranteed to be consistent and free of any large defects. Also, since the wood is cross-laminated with the grain running perpendicular to the adjacent layers, it less susceptible to movement during changes in weather.

What it all amounts to is this: your bowed psaltery will be more likely to remain in tune.

A thankless job, I know.

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Tim’s “Celtic” Psaltery

16. January 2008 Eric

Here you can see a bowed psaltery that I just finished stringing. It has a bookmatched Sitka Spruce top with a Celtic knot style rose, along with a ring of burled walnut to border it. The trim and bridge is Black Walnut, and the back and sides are Curly Maple.

And I just had to include a shot of the finished rear soundhole. It is rimmed with Cocobolo. Just as a follow up, you can see what it looked like before it was finished in this post.

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Custom Turned Tuning Wrench

14. January 2008 Eric

About a week ago, the thought occurred to me that I could make my own tuning wrench handles. Since then, I’ve been itching to give it a go.

“But what kind of wood should I use for the handle?” I thought.

Well, I resolved that question by making my first tuning wrench handle out of something entirely different from wood: a Banksia Pod.

You’ll quickly notice from the picture that a Banksia Pod is really weird looking! Actually, I think it is somewhat similar to our regular old pine-cones here in the States, except these things come from Australia. They are mostly solid all the way through, except for the obvious holes throughout its body. Anyhow, you can see one of them mounted on my lathe and ready to be transformed into a handle. (And it made a big, furry, fuzzy, crusty, dusty, crackly mess!)

So, after a time that took longer than I am willing to admit, I came out with this handle. (See picture.) I like how the holes look like all sorts of little mouths, which gives the handle an interesting look, and also some traction for you hand.

Best of all, with this new handle, I was able to make a tuning wrench that was as long as I wanted. (Which was quite a bit longer than any of the other bowed psaltery tuning wrenches out there.) Basically, a longer handle means more leverage, and thus more sensitive and precise tuning adjustments - which is a good thing.

You can see from the picture on the left, that I’ve had a “lengthy” progression of tuning wrenches over the years. The one at the top is of course the newest addition and also the longest. The middle guy is the wrench that I currently include with all my regular bowed psaltery orders. (Still quite long at around 8″ total length.) And the bottom one is my very first tuning wrench model, also know as The Worst Tuning Wrench Ever. (I don’t like it because it is short and ugly, and has a square indent that makes it hard to fit it on the tuning pins.)

I hope to perhaps someday offer custom tuning wrenches with all my bowed psalteries, or at least by special request. I think it would be nice to have a tuning wrench from matching woods from the psaltery, made as long or as short as needed.

Building, Experimental | 3 Comments »

A True Heavyweight Psaltery…

9. January 2008 Eric

One of the psalteries that I’m currently working on is with a wood that is the heaviest that I’ve used to date: a tropical rosewood called Cocobolo.

It has probably one of the brightest and glassiest tap-tones of any wood I’ve come across, and it’s also one of my personal favorites in terms of beauty. See for yourself from this picture I took with a hypothetical back being set on the frame. (And just think: that is without any sort of finish - the color will get much darker and more vibrant with time.)

After some strategic boring and hollowing, etc. the frame weighed in at only 1 pound, 12.2 ounces. (That is for the frame only, excluding any soundboard or back.) And while that is heavier most other frames I’ve used in a long time, it is much lighter than many other psalteries I’ve seen available, and it should prove to be quite responsive and resonant.

And along a similar vein, I’ve compiled a chart of material densities on my sister-site “A Psimple Psaltery” for those curious to see how much all of the woods and materials used in making a bowed psaltery actually weigh. Material Density Chart

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Fun with Bookmatching

7. January 2008 Eric

As I was walking past a bowed psaltery in progress, I noticed an interesting phenomenon with the wood.

Light tends to reflect off of the wood in different ways depending on the orientation of the wood. So, two bookmatched panels, which are basically identical in color and grain pattern, can look different because they are oriented in different directions from each other.

Check it out:

In this picture, the upper right-hand side looks darker, and the top left side is light. (Along with a checker-board type effect with light/dark areas below each of the respective sides.)

But coming from a different angle, the Spruce top now reveals the opposite: the side which used to be dark is now light, and the light side is now darker.

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Laser-cut Roses

5. January 2008 Eric

I’ve fought and resisted this for a while now, but decided I’d finally cave in and make laser-cut roses available via the special order form. Why did I fight it? Because I like to build everything myself, and there’s just something unsettling about using something that has basically been cut and patterned by a robot. But, I guess I’ll succumb to the demand of these “cookie cutter” items.

Check ‘em out at: Woods and Materials: Roses and Rosettes and the ordering option can also be found on the custom order form too.

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All-Wood Bridges

4. January 2008 Eric

When I first designed the “Phantasy Psalteries” website, the bowed psalteries I made still used plain-steel strings, and wound strings were added later as a new feature. As a result, I’m finding that not everything is a one-to-one carryover from the plain mono-filament music wire of the past.

Most notably, there is the bridge saddle. If you’ve ever seen one of those taut-wire cheese cutters you’ll probably know why a saddle is needed with plain-steel strings. (Which are about half as thick as wound strings.)

Yet I’m finding that when the materials are carried over from the plain-steel construction and used on wound strings, there is an increase in the amount of sustain on the string. As a result, I’ve decided to adapt to this and make all-wood bridges standard with wound strings, while keeping the aluminum saddle as standard if plain-steel strings are used.This is not to say that the previous options are no longer available for wound strings. (I personally prefer a longer sustain.) Yet to play it safe, I’m using an all-wood bridge with no saddle as the default from here on out.

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Santa Fe #2

2. January 2008 Eric

I’ve been quite busy lately, and though I’ve said that I will be getting back into building psalteries, I still really haven’t re-established a normal routine yet coming off from the holidays. The last two weeks feel like about 3 months have gone by.

Anyhow, I did manage to do one thing: take a picture of one of my recently completed bowed psalteries.

And as long as I’m writing about it, I should add that this psaltery is made of a Padauk frame, which I really like sound-wise. I think Padauk has close to the best “ring-to-weight” ratios of any hardwood I’ve encountered. That is to say, the ringing tone that it produces is very good considering its somewhat moderate weight. (Woods that have a strong ringing tap-tone are generally also heavy.)

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Merry Christmas

25. December 2007 Eric

I hope everyone has had a merry Christmas. I’ve had to set a few bowed psaltery projects aside for the past few days, but I should hopefully be back in full swing tomorrow.

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Microplane Sanding Discs

20. December 2007 Eric

Well, I hate to make this “tool review week,” but I just couldn’t resist. I’ve been using a new product (new to me at least) for several weeks now, and I now feel confident enough to comment on it.

What I’m talking about is a 5″ stainless-steel sanding disc meant to fit all hook-and-loop 8-hole random orbit sanders. It’s called a “Microplane” sanding disc, and I’ve tried all the grits (40, 80, and 120) and my favorite is definitely the 80.

Basically, instead of using sharp particles of abrasive to sand the surface like regular sandpaper, this product is made of perforated (and probably laser-cut) steel.

As with anything there are pros and cons. Here’s my take on this:

The Pros:

• It cuts a lot faster than regular sandpaper. The best way I can describe it is that it cuts about as fast as you wish sandpaper would cut - not too fast, (like a belt sander), but not too slow.
• It lasts a lot longer than regular sandpaper. See that picture above? That’s my only medium-grit disc that I have right now. I haven’t worn it out yet.
• It’s just about impossible to clog or gum up one of these discs. It has a very open design, which allows the sander to collect a lot of dust, and also prevent any kind of clogging.

The Cons:

• The Coarse (40 grit) and Medium (80 grit) both leave visible swirl marks in the wood, though they usually aren’t terribly hard to sand out. Basically, I disagree with their grit ratings, and would equate their medium grit with something closer to a 50-grit in regular sandpaper. And what they call coarse would be…. very coarse.
• I feel that the coarse is simply too aggressive for all but the most extreme of situations, and depending on what kind of sander you have, (high quality, balanced handling help), it may be difficult if not impossible to control properly. Likewise, the fine (120 grit) isn’t all that different from regular sandpaper anyway. I really like just the medium disc.
• You can’t do the trick where you tilt the sander on its side to focus in on one area. The sander must be kept completely level at all times. (Which can also be a “pro” too, because I like to use these discs for leveling surfaces.
• It is mildly annoying to remove them from the velcro bottom of the sander. You can’t just yank them off like regular sandpaper, you have to be gentle with them so you don’t put a bend or crease in the metal.

So there’s my little mini-review. From looking above it may seem like there are more cons than pros, but I really like this product. The pros I listed are really good qualities to have, and most of the cons are mostly petty small stuff.

I recommend the Medium (80-grit equivalent) as a great way to sand out planer and saw marks, glue squeeze out, pore and grain filler excess, and a lot of other jobs that require fast, somewhat aggressive sanding. These discs last a long time.

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A Burled Walnut Ring

18. December 2007 Eric

I used a nifty new tool today to cut a burled walnut rosette ring. It is very similar to a standard circle cutter for a drill press, but instead of one cutter, it has two - one on each side.

By using two cutters, I can cut out both the inner and outer diameters of the ring simultaneously, and the arms are much more balanced.

Here’s a shot of the tool, along with the ring it cut in a matter of seconds. It was cut from a reinforced double-ply of burled walnut veneer.

Tools and Equipment, Building | 1 Comment »

Crop Circle Rosette

14. December 2007 Eric

I’ve always been fascinated by the patterns of crop circles. I think that some of them are incredibly beautiful and complex patterns.

Naturally, I began to think of ways to somehow apply this to bowed psalteries. I just wanted to have a little fun with it. So, I inlaid a giant purpleheart disc in the middle of a spruce soundboard, (this is the “corn field” so to speak), and them drilled a pattern of holes to loosely duplicate a crop circle pattern.

The pattern is apparently based on some mathematical formula called a “Julia set.” (Don’t ask.) All I know is, it looks pretty, and will make a lovely soundhole rosette.

Building, Experimental | 0 Comments »