Back and front

I made and fitted some beech braces to the back. These are really for strenght rather than improving the tone (the instrument will sit on a table or a lap, so the back won't resonate). I have also joined the two halves of the front together and cut out the rough shape.

Days to go

One Hundred and Seventy Seven....(and counting).

Some of this year's Christmas Cards

My oldest lad gave these cards to us this Christmas - I think that there may be a whole series here... (see these one, two, three)

An Unsymmetrical Mistake

A bit of a near disaster today. I finished off cleaning up the back, and then cut out the shape based on my template. However, I should have turned the template over before drawing the outline. My dulcimer is not symmetrical (it has rotational, but not mirror symmetry), so I ended up with the best surface on the inside. Blast! Anyway, I had to sand and scrape the other side and it turned out fine.

I have now made and started to fit the cross braces - I am using four in a simple ladder arrangement.

The pickle has gone

Everything seems to be sorted out now, and I have been able to include a picture of my mandolin (scroll down, and it's on the right).

Waaaa

What's a 'java.io.IOException'? It's getting my blog in a pickle....

The Back & a museum trip

I made a bit more progress over the Christmas break. The two pegheads are now more or less finished, and I tried fitting one of the pegs for fun. I also made a start on the back. My two pieces of rosewood were too narrow, so I have included a laminate of oak with a narrow central strip of mahogany down the middle to widen it out a bit. It's still not as wide as my original plan, but it will have to do (i.e. the design has now been modified!). The rosewood is proving difficult to get a completely clean finish on, scraping and sanding both leave rough patches which you can see in the picture above.

On a different note, I took my older lad to the British Museum today to see the 'Lost Kingdom' Exhibition of artifacts from ancient Persia. It closes on the 8th of January, but we both thought that it was excellent.