# First Build: A 63 string....



## Metal_Webb (Jan 14, 2012)

Hammered Dulcimer 

After listening to quite a bit of folk music, I have gotten the urge to learn how to play this brilliant sounding instrument. Rather than just buy a ready made one for a few thousand or a kit, I'm going to dip my toes into the luthiery pond.

The instrument itself will be rather easy to build, just a case of getting the indentaion for the soundboard and the body joints correct. After spending a few hours in Google Sketchup I've gotten some schematics:







I'm going to construct the bridges by taking a rectangular piece of tassie oak and drilling the 3/4" string guide holes in them. I'll then shape the timber back to the triangular shape shown below. The Circular thing in front of the larger (treble) bridge are the guides and show the centring for the individual courses.












I'm going to have a triple course treble and a double course bass side. Gonna have 13 treble courses and 12 bass.

The lighter timber in the diagrams is going to be Tasmanian Oak (an Autralian hardwood) and the darker timber will most likely be a hardwood stained dark. I still need to come up with a design for the sound holes (need at least 2). Most likely going to be a simple celtic symbol or something of the like.

A rather simple example of what the instrument sounds like:


More to come!


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## jarnozz (Jan 14, 2012)

not exactly a guitar and this IS a guitar forum. But it´s a very interesting build and a great sounding harpisch, guitarisch thing


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 14, 2012)

jarnozz said:


> not exactly a guitar and this IS a guitar forum. But it´s a very interesting build and a great sounding harpisch, guitarisch thing




Haha, yeah, i know it's not *exactly* a guitar, however many of the construction principles are the same and I figured quite a few people would be interested in how the build goes.

Also, InB4DoesItDjent


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## anthonyferguson (Jan 14, 2012)

jarnozz said:


> not exactly a guitar and this IS a guitar forum. But it´s a very interesting build and a great sounding harpisch, guitarisch thing



It is, however, a stringed instrument and this is the luthiery section 

Looking forward to seeing this man!! Keep us updated.

edit: You planning bkps for this then yeah?


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## vansinn (Jan 14, 2012)

Yummy, hammered dulcimer is such a lovely instrument.
Looking forward to this build - and I find it absolutely ok in here 

What made you choose Tasmanian oak? Which other hardwoods have you considered?


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## Explorer (Jan 14, 2012)

First off, I wish you luck on this. The hammered dulcimer can be easy to build.

I suggest you reconsider the triple courses. Until the dulcimer revival of the 1970s and '80s, most traditional dulcimers had triple and quadruple stringing, but the higher tensions of modern strings allow for double stringing with the same volume. 

I'm unsure if those guides are clips of some kinds on the bridges. Dulcimers rely on string tension to hold down the bridges, and as setting intonation can be a matter of thousandths of an inch, anything which interferes with that is a problem. If they are clips or holders as they appear, I'd get rid of them. You don't need to crank down all the strings at once, so you can still adjust the bridges with the strings on, just with the tension lowered.

A lot of dulcimers also have open bridges, making adjustment, restringing, or even removal and replacement of a bridge possible without completely unstringing the instrument. 

On hammered dulcimers, although they are traditional, there is actually no need for soundholes. 

I'm not sure what online resources exist which describe the bracing of a dulcimer. It looks like you're going for a floating soundboard, instead of a torsion box. You'll probably be able to get away with two supports, one each running just a bit away from the bridge placement. The braces/supports aren't directly beneath the bridges, but just stiffen the soundboard so the up-down motion of the bridges can better drive the soundboard. 

If you're already going for a 13/12, as the two notes on the right of the top of the treble bridge (G5 and A5) are already duplicated on the left three courses down, you might consider either detaching those two courses and moving them slightly to the right, or bringing in the right side bridge just a touch, in order to sharp those two courses a half step, to G#5 and A#5. I'd recommend altering the treble bridge as the easier course, as if you don't know the exact angles/measurements for the side bridge, you can run into problems.

At the same time, the two courses at the top of your bass bridge (C5 and D5) are duplicates. You can tune either of them to D#5. Going just a bit further, some builders install an agraffe (just a simple metal rod) by drilling a hole spanning the holes in the top course(s) in the treble bridge and inserting a rod. That rod cuts the string length of the top courses of the bass bridge, so that you can even tune the top course to D#6, getting you almost completely chromatic at the top end. 

And, if you want to complete that trick, you can add one more bridge to the left of the treble bridge, using that now-free string length from the bisected course and putting the high D#6 ont he left, and C#6 on the right. 

I know that all sounded confusing, but here's a 2/14/13/8 instrument I commissioned. 






It has a range of D3 to A6, lacking only a high Ab6 to be fully chromatic. If you look at the top, the treble bridge has three offset bridges, with an agraffe spanning the holes. The top of the bass bridge and the two bridges on the top left are on the same string courses. 

Anyway, it looks like an interesting project. Good luck!


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 14, 2012)

vansinn said:


> What made you choose Tasmanian oak? Which other hardwoods have you considered?



I've chosen to use Tasmanian Oak for my bridges and bindings for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I can get my hands on the stuff super easy (working in hardware and being in Australia lol). It's ridiculously easy to work with, isn't prone to splinters and it has a really bright and springy tone to it. I'm most likely going to use Jarrah for the body hardwood. It's a really hard Australian timber that has an absolutely wonderful deep red/brown colour to it.



Explorer said:


> Really helpful post.



Thanks again for writing all that Explorer, really appreciate it.

The "guides" (whited out things) are meant to be a reference plane for the bridge. I'll use the reference plane on the rectangular bridge stock so I can get my holes drilled before I sand the bridge to it's final shape. The vertical lines next to the holes are the centres for the treble courses.

You've also convinced me to go with twin course, means I'll have 26 less bridge pins to put in lol. 

I'm probably going to use a really heavy guitar fret wire to cap off the bridges and for the break over the side of the soundboard. Sounds good to you?

One question about the bridge bracing, how is your's shaped? Are they pairs of rectangular timber or are they rounded like the ones below?


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## Fiction (Jan 15, 2012)

I'd love to come and see this thing when its done, or even one day when you're working on it.. This build will be a blast to watch.


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## AwakenNoMore (Jan 15, 2012)

yes yes that's awesome, but,
will it djent?


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## Hollowway (Jan 15, 2012)

Very cool project! I'm excited to see how this comes out. 

And Explorer,  !!!!


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## Augury (Jan 15, 2012)

have fun stringing this up.


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## Explorer (Jan 15, 2012)

t


Metal_Webb said:


> I'm probably going to use a really heavy guitar fret wire to cap off the bridges and for the break over the side of the soundboard. Sounds good to you?
> 
> One question about the bridge bracing, how is your's shaped? Are they pairs of rectangular timber or are they rounded like the ones below?



I wouldn't go with an embedded fretwire. If you're not going to use Delrin (acetal rod). You're talking about using a pretty hard wood for the soundboard and the bridges. so I don't know if I'd go with metal for the bridge caps.

Further, I'd go with rod because you can rotate it as the strings start to notch the caps. 

Funny to see the pictures from the plans Sam drew up for the Smithsonian. Sam Rizzetta is the one who introduced most of the modernizations of dulcimer design (including the marked bridges). 

Sam stopped using the two brace design fairly soon after that drawing. I couldn't find any good illustrations from the Augusta Grand or the Augusta Chromatic, but here's a pictures (soon to disappear) showing the bracing of a Dulcetta, Sam's soprano dulcimer.






See that single brace? Yup, that's it. I think that Jamie is still building these older designs for Sam, as some people like Sam's old tone, and the June Appal dulcimers from Carl Gotzmer are built along those same classic lines.

Anyway, the point is, I don't think I've seen a dulcimer over the past 25 years with the pointed/rounded bracing, and I have never seen a modern dulcimer with two braces for one bridge. It was a valid design experiment, allowing the soundboard to flex like a speaker cone, but turned out to be unnecessary. 

So, in my Jones instrument, I have one flat/rectangular bar for each bridge, glued to the back and with the top pressed atop it by string tension. On my other dulcimers, there is bracing from left to right to help resist the string tension, and the soundboard voicing bars rest on top of those, running from top to bottom. The voicing bar design allows one to change the timbre (assuming one knows what one is doing). The voicing bars are also rectangular. 

I don't have a source for the math, but you'll likely want to make the bridges shorter as you head towards the top of instrument. As the instrument gets narrower at the top end, the tuning pins get closer to the center, and if the bridges stay the same height, the strings can miss the left and right side bridges and go right to the tuning and hitch pins, causing tuning problems due to the string length being a little longer due to the lack of contact. 

You know what, though? ! I know a lot of people who have managed to make workable instruments from Sam's plans.


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 15, 2012)

Hmm, thanks for the heads up about the fret wire. Was only a passing idea for a suitable candidate anyway. Was also going to use a single rectangular piece for each bridge brace anyway, the double rounded one seemed a bit complex. Also was going to use smaller pieces for the lateral soundboard bracing.

Bridge was going to get a slightly more agressive taper as well, treble bridge probably going to be 1 5/16" high on the bass end, probably going to drop down to about 1" high for the short end.


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## Explorer (Jan 15, 2012)

Hollowway said:


> ...Explorer,  !!!!



*laugh*

ERGs are really new. I acquired my string calculation chops on the dulcimer before a lot of the modern information became available, and my cutting edge dulcimer from almost thirty years ago is still ahead of the curve. 



Augury said:


> have fun stringing this up.



Ah! Although you're a ways off from starting to string this thing, you might want to start looking for information to build a small loop maker for the strings. It's cheaper to buy bulk music wire and to make your own strings than to buy individual loop end strings.


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 15, 2012)

Well, time to scrap that dodgy plan I made up. Was searching around for resources and found this :

FOLKSINGER: Acoustic Dulcimer Plans

This gentleman has kindly provided plans for his 13/14 Dulcimer which I shall be using for my first build. I will be using the same timbers as above, just making it to this spec. Should make the intonation and setup so much easier.






Brian's Dulcimer plans reassembled. The top right part doesn't quite match up 100%, but is good enough for me as all dimension are there.


Will be timber hunting on Wednesday!


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## Solodini (Jan 17, 2012)

I'm really looking forward to how this turns out. Lots of updates, please!


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 18, 2012)

Got the timber today 

Had to buy a couple of larger sized bits that will comprise the pin blocks and the bridges. Ripping and dressing the timber will just add to the fun of the experience 






All the timber (bar the 19mm ply I'll be using for the base!). There's a sheet of 3mm BC grade hardwood ply that will form the soundboard. The long thin lengths are the tasmanian oak that will form the edge bridges, accents on the main bridges and binding for the base ply. The red/brown timber is the jarrah that will form the main bulk of the body and the two main bridges.






A shot showing the pinky tone of a lighter bit of jarrah.






Jarrah after a quick sand with some methylated spirits applied to show the finished colour. Timber was drinking up the spirits though, so I didn't get a good chance to get the colour. The bit shown here is going to form the pin blocks.


Can't wait to start cutting everything up on Friday!


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## Solodini (Jan 18, 2012)

That jarrah sure is Purdy!


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 19, 2012)

Solodini said:


> That jarrah sure is Purdy!



It's also, quite literally, tasty  The timber has a really strong, sweet, timber smell to it, gonna be hard to resist eating all the sawdust lol.

Worth noting that's it's dense as concrete. The 150x50x600 piece weighs about 5-10kg by itself with the grain all nice, straight and tight. It apparently carves and saws well, but is prone to splitting when having fasteners driven through it, so I'll have to be careful with my pilot holes for the hitch pins (which are essentially half a nail) and the tuners.


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## Solodini (Jan 19, 2012)

Timber porridge, no?


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## Explorer (Jan 19, 2012)

I just ran across these pictures from while my travel instrument was being built. It lacks the Delrin bridge caps, but does have the soundhole carving I commissioned.











I love looking down at that little guy, with his little smile beaming up at me. It reflects my Mexican heritage, and I think he's pretty cheerful. 

I had never seen jarrah before, and did a little reading. Very pretty, and it makes me think about getting a piece to experiment with hitch pins and tuning pins. 

In case it hadn't occurred to you, keep in mind that the pinblocks don't have to go the whole depth of the instrument. Many modern instruments have the dense wood (normally maple here in North America) on top of another wood, like in this picture.






That saves a ton of weight. 

Some then put wood over the pinblock, but that jarrah is gorgeous, so I can't imagine that being a concern....


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 19, 2012)

Just cut up and stained the plywood that's forming the base of the instrument. It's got outer veneers of Hoop pine. It takes stain really well and sands to a good finish. The grain pattern also looks awesome on the bit I grabbed 






Full sheet before cutting.






The base cut down to pretty much the right dimensions. Will trim to the trapezoidal shape after the rails are all cut and ready.

After staining....












Unfortunately the depth of the grain of the pine isn't really showing through completely in these pics, but trust me, the stacked grain pattern looks absolutely *awesome* up close. I especially love how the darkness of the timber has inverted after staining.


Explorer: I'm going to brave using solid jarrah rails, I know the thing is going to weigh a ton because of it, but it'll be nigh on indestructible 

*Post Working Edit*

Done for the day. Got the tuning blocks cut to length and roughly angled. The front and back braces are also roughly cut to size. All the faces need to be sanded and the visible ones I'll plane back a tiny bit to tidy them up.






Results of the day's work 






A good brightly lit shot showing the partly sanded bottom rail that's been wiped over with mineral turpentine. Such a nice piece.


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## Purelojik (Jan 20, 2012)

AwakenNoMore said:


> yes yes that's awesome, but,
> will it djent?



damn you beat me to it.

but on a serious note. the thing has wood, strings, and makes music. this is gonna be awesome. lookin forward to this.


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## Fiction (Jan 21, 2012)

Wow, nice finds on the wood. That pine has really popped, it looks like a mountain-scene.


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## AwakenNoMore (Jan 21, 2012)

I can't wait to see this project take form.


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## TimSE (Jan 21, 2012)

This thread is made of dreams!


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## Mysticlamp (Jan 21, 2012)

looks complicated as hell. 
good luck. i can't wait to see more pics?


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## iRaiseTheDead (Jan 22, 2012)

I would hate to string that thing!


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## 9voltchicken (Jan 22, 2012)

Definitely one of the most unique builds I've seen on this forum. Keep it up


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## Metal_Webb (Jan 25, 2012)

Spent all day (and by that, I mean most of the day lol) working on the build.

First up, had to put the angle on the tuning blocks. I used the 1:1 printout for them that came with the plans I'm loosely using.






Freshly cut!






Also, gotta love the Australian summer:





I'll be using a boiled Linseed oil and mineral turpentine mixture to finish the dulcimer. I couldn't resist myself and had to try it on a bit:






Next up, I cut and glued the tassie oak binding to the plywood.






After spending several hours fighting with it, I won. Got it all smoothed off and sanded. I gave the back of the ply a quick and light sand over to bring up the grain then a quick wash over with the stain to darken it back up. Looks awesome next to the tassie oak.

Well after cutting and notching the side rails to accept the bottom rail in an insert, it was time to glue the bass side one to the back:






Lotsa glue!






Needs moar clamp!! 














I'll leave the glue to set undisturbed overnight. Next chance I get (probably over the weekend after work) I'll flatten off the bottom of the left rail so it can actually stick to the back lol. After I'm done with that, I'll glue it on as well and think about fixing the top and bottom rails. Following that, I've got to make up a couple of braces for the soundboard to sit on as well as make a small channel in the top and bottom rails.

After that, body bracing!


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## Metal_Webb (Feb 5, 2012)

Finally got a chance to do more work on the dulcimer! Ground out the notch for the bottom rail on the bass block so that it fits in tightly and flattened and glued the treble rail onto the base. About 50% done with the actual construction of the instrument now, only have some tidying up, the body bracing and the bridges to make up now.

No pics this time, I'l stick the ones from today up next update post.


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## Metal_Webb (Apr 19, 2012)

...and finally attached the top rail!!!







All I had to do was saw the top face of it down to level it off and bring it in line with the side rails. Once that was done, got a chance to use my new clamps. I'll have to shave a bit more timber off to tidy it up, but it feels damn good to have it on!!

Couldn't help myself either....standing there looking at the sexy Jarrah that was just begging to be covered in some linseed oil....












Yeah, the pics don't do it justice, but the depth of colour that has appeared in the timber makes me just a wee bit hard. 


Hopefully I'll have a bit more free time over the next couple of weeks to get the construction of this done. Cannot wait!!!


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## bob123 (Apr 19, 2012)

I've always been curious, are you going to have to spend the gross domestic product of malaysia on tuners???


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## Metal_Webb (Apr 19, 2012)

bob123 said:


> I've always been curious, are you going to have to spend the gross domestic product of malaysia on tuners???



Hahaha, no actually.
I got them and the hitch pins in a couple of months back. Got 100 tuning pins for $30 and 65 hitch pins for about $15. Not as bad as I was expecting.

When I'm installing them I'll just have to make sure every hole is pre-drilled to the correct size....otherwise I'll split the pin blocks and that will just ruin my day.


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## bob123 (Apr 19, 2012)

Metal_Webb said:


> Hahaha, no actually.
> I got them and the hitch pins in a couple of months back. Got 100 tuning pins for $30 and 65 hitch pins for about $15. Not as bad as I was expecting.
> 
> When I'm installing them I'll just have to make sure every hole is pre-drilled to the correct size....otherwise I'll split the pin blocks and that will just ruin my day.



haha thats pretty cool man! I was expecting a god awful amount of cost for those things... are they wood or metal though?


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## Metal_Webb (Apr 19, 2012)

bob123 said:


> haha thats pretty cool man! I was expecting a god awful amount of cost for those things... are they wood or metal though?



Metal. Here's a mine are chrome colour, but here's a pic of a blued steel one.






They've got a super fine thread on the bottom. The idea is that you hammer them a little bit of the way in and the thread takes care of the rest. Tighten them all the way in then back them off. Put the string on and off one goes!!


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## Metal_Webb (May 2, 2012)

Figured it was time to tackle the soundboard. Yep.

Ply being marked. Cut the board to the shorter side first, then the trapezoidal cut next.






Cut! I left it a few mm larger so that I could sand it back flush with the top and bottom rails.






After a bit more cutting and dodgy handling of a circular saw, I had my board cut to size and shape. I put some tape over the cuts to prevent splintering. It mostly worked. I tidied up the edges with some sandpaper and put a bevel on the top edges by hand.

After about 40mins sanding (all by hand mind you), working from 280 up to 1200 grit, I was left with this:






That was with a quick wash of mineral turps over it to take the dust off. I made up a new batch of 50:50 linseed and gave it a coat. 



This is what it looks like now:






The Shine!! (Got out the actual camera for these next few pics so I could do it justice)










Closeup on the grain:





And with the board in-situ on the body:












Once I'm done working, I like to have a bit of a snack. Unlike scherzo, I don't have cake. Instead I have the most brutal of snacks, a Protein Shake.






Best bit is all this was done by 10:30.


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## Explorer (May 3, 2012)

Since it doesn't appear that you're going with a floating soundboard, I'll mention that a lot of torsion-box dulcimer designs have notches cut into the top and bottom rails so that the soundboard can flex and not be tied down. 






(Gee, who thought that finding a picture on teh interwebz would be so hard?)

Anyway, in case you're about to tie that thing down, I highly suggest you do some reading and research before you do something irreversible.


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## Metal_Webb (May 3, 2012)

Explorer said:


> Since it doesn't appear that you're going with a floating soundboard, I'll mention that a lot of torsion-box dulcimer designs have notches cut into the top and bottom rails so that the soundboard can flex and not be tied down.



It was actually intended to be a floating soundboard. That was what the plans I am roughly following have. I'm guessing that for a floating board, it should only contact at the bridge braces in the body and on the rails, under where the strings break over a rod? If that's the case then, it's easily fixed, I'll just have to cut an inch off the top and bottom of the soundboard to make it sit between the top and bottom rails.

Thanks for the heads up as well. Kinda keen for this to be an instrument rather than a wall decoration at this stage of the game.


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## scherzo1928 (May 3, 2012)

Why didn't I read through this thread before!?!???1?=

Work is looking awesome mate!


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## Metal_Webb (May 6, 2012)

Just a quick update for today.

Got the pinblocks drilled! (No pics, cbf to take any) So that's the last really challenging piece of work done, so it's pretty straight forward from here on out.


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## Metal_Webb (May 11, 2012)

Bass bridge done!!!! I'll let the pics do the talking.

Ripping down the timber:






Treble string passthrough holes. They all drilled really cleanly, jarrah tends to have a habit of tearing out.





I used a chisel to make an indent along to top of the bridge, then used a pointed grindstone in my drill to make the groove large enough for the rods to sit in. I then spent the next 2 hours with a Sure-Form..




..shaping the timber. 

Some photos of the profile that I ended up with:















The less carved end bits will be cut off once I know how long the thing needs to be.

I then sanded the whole thing up to 1200 grit paper. Was a bit of a job, but once I put some oil on, I ended up with this:





I also got the soundboard height reduced so it now sits between the top and bottom rails.

I'll take a couple more pics during the process of making the treble bridge, simply for completion's sake. Once I've got that done, I'll just need to carve the break rails, attach them to the soundboard and get the bridge bracing cut to the correct height. Then building will be done!


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## Metal_Webb (Nov 20, 2012)

Well things got a bit busy with university there for about 6 months, so the project went on hold.

It turns out I'd made that bridge totally wrong and as such had to remake it from scratch. After spending 5 hours this morning working on it....






Done. All that's left is to intonate the bridges, glue down their braces and put some strings on the sucker. Hopefully I should be able to get that done tomorrow.

A quick note on the bridges. The treble bridge is made from jarrah and tassie oak whereas the bass is made from a chunk of what I guess is a gum of some sort. The timber I cut that from was being used as a glut at work. Cutting it with the circular saw was a mission, it's so dense and heavy it was being polished by the saw blade as it was being cut. Well worth it though.

NHD thread imminent


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## Metal_Webb (Nov 25, 2012)

It's totally DONE. Once photobucket pulls the photos from my Facebook an image dump in a NHDD thread will occur!

EDIT: Here's the picdump thread!
NHDD Thread


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## RickSchneider (Nov 25, 2012)

I just spent about 15min watching videos of these things in action on youtube. Cannot wait to see how yours has turned out. I applaud you


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