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.

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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.

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A Psaltery’s Weight

12. December 2007 Eric

So, what does all of this stuff weigh??? Here’s some of my own measurements, to help you get a perspective on things:

• 60 tuning/hitch pins - 1 pound, 1.4 ounces
• 30 wound strings - roughly 2.5 ounces
• Bridge - between .5 and .9 ounces depending on the wood used
• Saddle - .1 to .3 ounces

So, you can clearly see, just the “extras” alone are responsible for about 1 pound, 5 ounces of weight. So, even an ultralight psaltery will weigh over 2 pounds when finished. I think it would be quite difficult to get below this number on a 30-string psaltery! (Assuming the sides are at least 1 1/2″ tall, and the length is over 23″.)

Being at the low end of the spectrum, it becomes very hard to achieve even a 5% reduction in overall weight. It is, however, very easy to make things heavier, and by much more than a 5% increase!

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A Black Walnut Beauty

10. December 2007 Eric

Here is a picture of a recently completed psaltery with a bookmatched black walnut back. I think the hard maple binding does a good job of framing this wood’s beauty.

And, for those curious, here is a picture of the top of the psaltery, with a sitka spruce top.

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A Mother-of-Pearl Rosette Strip

7. December 2007 Eric

I was busy gluing together strips of mother-of-pearl (MOP) to form a rosette, and thought I’d take a picture of the process:

You can see from the picture that MOP obviously does not come in giant pre-manufactured rolls because it is harvested from the shells of small mollusks - so it’s more like 1″ long strips - and all of the little strips have to be glued together into a continuous strip, along with adding a black and white border of purfling on each side

This long strip will then be cut, mitered, and reglued into the standard 5-sided shape that I use for rosettes, and then inlaid into the soundboard. It is for another “Atlantis” bowed psaltery I am working on. (And yes, you will notice that the strip is being glued together with lowly clothespins, slightly modified.)

Shortly after this picture was taken, I came very close to gluing my fingers together! I still haven’t done that yet, but I expect to soon, as I can be quite careless with the initial gluing. (I use cyanoacrylate ester (CA) glue to adhere the shell strips together, which is basically just a fancy name for super glue.) Thankfully, I also keep a bottle of CA solvent nearby, to undo any bonds that turn out to be *ahem* less than handy…

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Kerry’s “Santa Fe” reproduction

5. December 2007 Eric

In the attached picture you can see the progress on a psaltery made of Padauk. I made a very similar psaltery a few months back that I had named “Santa Fe,” and this psaltery will end up looking very similar to the original.

As of right now, the frame is assembled, and all of the side inlays are done. You can see from the picture how I glue the front protector tip on: I make sure that both surfaces are perfectly flat and clean-fitting, and then I glue the tip on and use low-tack masking tape to keep it aligned and snug against the frame. It will then be shaped and sanded later.

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Phantasy Psalteries v2.0

3. December 2007 Eric

I’m in the process of revamping my website a bit, as I get time. I’m planning on adding more options, and also editing some areas for clarity and brevity. Hopefully the navigation - particularly on the Woods and Materials page, will be much cleaner and easier to use.

I’ve got several new changes to the bowed psaltery that I would also like to roll out along with the revised website. For the psaltery, some changes are cosmetic, but a lot of them are also practical and acoustical improvements. (Such as Delignit laminated pinblocks.)

Anyhow, I hope to have the new site up by the start of 2008, or thereabouts. For now, one (relatively minor) addition can be see in the attached photo: Bearclaw Sitka Spruce. Acoustically, it is identical to regular spruce, but it has a figured top that looks as if a bear has dug its claws into the wood.

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A Rear Soundhole Rosette

1. December 2007 Eric

Here is a picture of the back of a psaltery I am working on for Tim.

What is seen is a curly maple back, with a rear soundhole and an inlaid ring of Cocobolo around the rim. Since it is freshly sanded the Cocobolo looks light brown with streaks of yellowish orange, but it will soon become much darker. A combination of oxidation and simply applying a finish make this wood look much darker and more elegant.

Cocobolo is very hard, and it’s one of those woods that you feel sorry for your blades when you are cutting it, because it has such a blunting effect on the cutters.

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Gluing on the Binding

28. November 2007 Eric

Here you can see how the trim that borders the top and bottom of the psaltery (also called the “binding”) gets attached.

The psaltery in the picture is a spruce top, with walnut back and sides, and hard maple binding.

You can clearly see the blue masking tape contrasting with the wood. Pulled tight in both directions, the tape does a good job of holding the binding in the slot until the glue dries. Gluing binding can be a tricky endeavor because you need adequate pressure in two directions - both downward and sideways pressure simultaneously.

Low tack masking tape is used to avoid damaging the wood surface when the tape is removed. Also, I intentionally make the binding a bit over-sized and then route/sand it flush with the surface of the psaltery afterward.

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Yes, Psaltery begins with a P…

26. November 2007 Eric

I remember telling my aunt about my website, and I wrote down the address on a sheet of paper and handed it to her:

www.phantasypsalteries.com

She gave me a puzzled expression. I said, “do you understand what I wrote?”

“It says, fantasy pee salteries? I don’t get it” she replied.

So, just to remind everyone: yes, psaltery begins with a P. I’m no etymologist, but Merriam-Webster online had this to say about the “psaltery:”

Etymology:

Middle English psalterie, from Anglo-French, from Latin psalterium, from Greek psalt?rion, from psallein to play on a stringed instrument

Now, I realize that most anyone who is reading this probably already knows this, as they have managed to find this website - with the correct spelling, but I just thought I’d include my humorous observation.

Additionally, I’m sure a lot of you psaltery players have encountered this type of dialogue:

You: I play a musical instrument called a bowed psaltery.

Them: A bowed what?

You: A psaltery.

Them: How do you spell it?

You: PEE…

Them: What!?

You: P - S - A - L - T - E - R - Y.

Them: Never heard of it.

I feel for you.

Here’s to the bowed saltery, salt tree, saltry, psaltry, psalter, and however else you can manage to misspell it! (Hint: the correct spelling can be seen by scrolling to the top of this page, bonking yourself over the head with a nerf bat, and then reading the title banner of this website.)

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An Inlaid Rosette

23. November 2007 Eric

Well, there’s not all too many exciting things going on in the shop right now, so no finished products to display as of yet. Instead, I’ll share an in-between picture of a work in progress:

This is a Western Red Cedar top with an inlaid 10mm width rosette. This is the same top that can be seen in the post of Sharon’s Psaltery. The rosette has been assembled into my standard 5-sided shape, and inlaid and sanded flush with the soundboard. I have also done another one almost exactly like it except in a spruce top for Lois and Jerry’s psaltery. (Sorry, no pic of that one - use your imagination.)

This picture was taken during the brief time after the rosette has been inlaid, but before the soundhole has been cut.

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Happy Thanksgiving

21. November 2007 Eric

I’ve been sick for the better part of this past week, so I’ve not been able to make a whole lot of progress on building. I hope to be back in full swing right after Thanksgiving. But nonetheless…

Happy Thanksgiving

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