Tuesday, December 19, 2017

December Update - Theorbos, Archlutes and Guitars


My workshop has gotten crowded. In the foreground is a Tecchler archlute that is just about finished. In the back left is a Buchenberg bowl that is coming along. The baroque guitar is in for a bit of glue and the Schelle theorbo is having its neck finish redone.




I finished the archlute with French Polish that I have been allowing to harden for few weeks.










In the meantime I decided to start a new theorbo as a special project. It is based on Matteo Buchenberg (Victoria & Albert , London). The string lengths will be 90 and 170 cm.












I built this Voboam model baroque guitar ten years ago and you can see it gets a lot of work. Occasionally, it comes in for a little glue and I am always happy to see it. This time it has a loose bar and an open back seam.





















The extension of the historic Schelle theorbo is painted black and at the request of my client I painted the fretted neck as well. I have used this method before, but not for ten years or more. Since then paint products have changed and my favorite is no longer available. I wasn't happy with the substitute so I am re-finishing it with black shellac using the French polishing method. You can see the  results of this method on my newest Voboam in my post from 9/11/17.

I have some catching up to do with my posts. Hopefully I'll finish my report on the Josef Pagés guitar soon and the Tecchler archlute deserves a detailed description too.


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