I made this theorbo for a music conservatory. It is the only one I ever made. It is a rather strange instrument in that its neck has to be built out of line in order to get the bridge better centered on the body. But,this is how they were made. It was still a bit of a compromise,as the bridge is still never centered on the top on these theorbos anyway.
They must have been a handful to play! There are many open bass strings that are not fretted,but just plucked with the thumb for extra deep bass notes.
The boy is curly maple,as was the neck. There are inlaid ebony lines between the staves of the back.The neck and peg head are painted black,as were several of the surviving original examples. The top has a typical knot for a rose. Leonardo daVinci designed a knot of considerable complexity for the logo of his Academy.
The fingerboard is ebony,and you can see the usual tied on gut frets.
This was all completely hand work,except for the pearwood tuning pegs,which I turned on the automatic tuning peg lathe which I built from scratch,and will someday post pictures of.
These knots are made by punching them out. O made a chisel from 1/8" square W1. The last 1/4" was filed down very thin. As thin as I thought I could get away with pushing it through the spruce top without snapping it off. The area near the cutting edge was nearly as thin as a razor blade,tapering up to about twice as thick where it stopped being filed down. It was made as sharp as a razor,and only inserted into the spruce top enough to penetrate to the other side-about 1/10". The spruce top was laid upon a cutting board of poplar,and after the design was drawn on the top,was pushed through the spruce successively along the lines it had to follow. As each individual area was completely punched,it was pressed out of the top and discarded. The harder wood of the cutting board told me when the chisel had fully penetrated the top.
After the chisel had fully punched out the rose,little cuts were made on the surface of the rose,making it look like the elements wove over or under the other elements where they crossed.
This was a standard way of making these roses,and was MUCH better than trying to saw them out. When trying to saw quartered spruce,the hard and soft grains are difficult to keep from producing a wavy line,followed by MUCH needle filing.
I DID saw out some of these roses before discovering this old technique. The job became MUCH faster!
I cannot recall the length of the strings,or their number by now. It was a special order,as I said,and I only made 1.
I no longer have the little chisel,having left it at work when I became the toolmaker(from the musical instrument maker). It only takes a little while,and a file to make one anyway.
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