A Decacorde after René Lacôte

 

By last April, Covid had become a serious threat for everyone. I had had some bad experiences on my daily walks, so I was staying very close to home, becoming angry and depressed.  Then one of   my regular  clients got in touch and asked if I was interested in   building a Lacôte  decacorde, "just wondering," he said. I had   previously measured and  photographed two decacordes conserved  in  Musée de la musique,  Paris and a third in St. Cecilia's, University of Edinburgh. Immersing myself in a new challenging project sounded like the  perfect tonic.

 

   

 

 

 

 

The three instruments vary considerably in body size, neck design and aesthetic details. No single instrument appealed to me, but each had features that I wanted to model. My choices were guided by admiration for Lacôte's work, passion for the extraordinary, past experience with building models of his work and discussions with my client.

 I have included photos of these instruments at the conclusion to this post. Or if you want to read about them in detail you can  find my posts about these instruments by entering decacorde in the blog's search box.

 

The body design and dimensions are taken from St. Cecilia's UEDIN: 767. A technical drawing can be obtained from Friends of St. Cecilia's Hall and Museum . My finished model measures 434mm in length, 235mm across the upper bout, 167mm at the waist and 306mm across the lower bout. The rib depth at the neck is 80mm and 90mm at the tail.   Although the lengths of the three instruments are similar, the body widths of the two Paris instruments are nearly a centimeter wider. Ordinarily, I would have chosen a larger body, thinking that the additional, extended bass strings would benefit. But remembering a conversation with Raphaella Smits, who plays a small body Mirencourt built seven string (post from April 23, 2017), I decided to use the narrower Lacôte. St. Cecilia's also has a six string Lacôte with similar body dimensions that I have modeled many times so I felt confident that I was making the right decision.

 

While the body of one of the Paris instruments, E.986.5.1, is built with rosewood and the Edinburgh and second Paris instrument, E.1040, are built with mahogany; I chose to use bird's-eye-maple.  I have a long relationship building  instruments in bird's-eye and I have managed to keep a good stock on hand. Lacôte occasionally used  bird's-eye  and several of the theorbos that I built for this client are in bird's-eye. So that was the obvious choice.

 

Several surviving decacordes were built with full length fingerboards extending to the sound hole. One of the two instruments in Paris that I studied ( E.1040) is such an instrument. Others were built with fingerboards that end at the body joint and  lie on the same plane as the soundboard. Additional frets, usually to the 17th, were then inlaid into the soundboard. My client wanted a decacorde with a flush fingerboard in order to retain the playing feel of his theorbo and other lutes.  This decision offered me the opportunity to model an interesting but challenging feature that is encountered with a flush fingerboard. Lutes have their "points" projecting into the soundboard and baroque guitars often have the edge binding continuing around the perimeter of the tongue of the soundboard that projects over the joint and up the neck a few centimeters. Since the fingerboard ends at the joint between the neck and the guitar body  - what happens to the decorative edge banding? Lacôte's solution wraps it around the entire perimeter of the guitar. When I saw this for the first time I thought it was odd. 

 

Since the feature  has the visual flow and appeal of a continuous band I didn't want it marred by the typical joint that results where the ends of individual strips of purfling are joined.

 I chose to conceal the joint by staggering the ends of the bands and choosing a location for the joints other than on the centre line of the guitar. 

I made a series of ebony strips .8mm thick and holly strips .65mm thick that were long enough to wrap around the top half of the guitar to the point below the waist and another set that were long enough to wrap around the bottom half of the guitar. I reduced the thickness of the white bands because, when laid against black strips of equal thickness, the white ones appear thicker. I wanted them to appear equal or a little thinner.

 

 

 

 

I staggered the alignment of the strips at the starting point and included a styrene strip as a substitute for the final outer ebony band that I would apply later. Since the bands were the same length the opposite ends were also staggered. I then fitted the remaining bands around the lower bouts, being careful to snip off the finished ends to fit. I didn't get one of the joints tight enough and it became visible when I levelled the bands. See if you can spot it in the photo above. The other joints are nearby.

 

 

 

 

 

The neck on E.986.5.1 is a masterpiece of design, function and implementation of the guitar maker's art. Obviously, Lacôte did not think it was necessary to use a full-width piece of neck wood (mahogany) for strength and stability. Although he started with a full width board he cut a channel completely through the stock leaving an area equal to the width of a five string neck; the string disposition of Lacôte's model is 5+5. The remainder of the width serves as a support for the diapasons. The part of the neck that carries the fretted strings is shaped like his standard necks with the same roundness and thickness. The wood spline supporting the diapasons is left high and elegantly tapered to a thin point, just slightly rounded at its peak. The peg head is grafted to the neck with a long raised V-joint. We will look at the details of the peg head in a moment.

 

 

The heel construction consists of a single block of mahogany glued to the neck stock using a scarf joint. Scarf joints lengthen the gluing surface resulting, not only in a stronger joint but also, after sculpting the neck, in a graceful glue line. 

 

Lacôte used variations of this "scallop" design on all three instruments that I studied. This one is part of the neck of E.986.5.1.  My client wanted a wider nut spacing than early 19th century standard so I altered the peg head to suit.

The four diapasons are carried  on an extension of the fingerboard that is supported by a solid maple block. It is usually ebonized in some manner. I painted it with black shellac.   

I also tapered the end on the fingerboard extension, making it higher at the nut to give the diapasons extra clearance above the fingerboard.

 

While I was working on the peg head I started to think of it as sculpture. Seen from the rear, the elements of the design stand out in an harmonious complexity; the scallop contour,  the lines and arch of the v-joint, the through channel that exposes the underside of the ebony fingerboard and the channel's curved line and tapered sides. The random angle of the tuning pegs heads add an amusing twist--pun intended.

Lacôte usually spaces the fretted strings on 12 mm centers with the basses on 10mm centers. I used 11mm centers to match my client's theorbo bridge spacing.  Both spacing methods result in nearly the same total width.

His request for an equal tension of 5.0 kg or less per string resulted in the saddle compensation you see here and also for the skewed placement of the  soundboard frets.

I usually string my 19th century guitars with a major brand of light tension classical guitar strings composed of nylon trebles and silver wound basses.The tensions vary from string to string in order to partially compensate for the effect of fretting strings of various diameters. Pushing a string against the fingerboard stretches the string, raising its pitch. The guitar's saddle has to be crowned in such a way as to "compensate" for this effect. There are a number of other factors involved but I won't go into those here. The saddle compensation usually fits on a 2mm thick saddle, set slightly back on the bass side. The stopping point of the string is moved forward or back on the saddle's top surface to suit each string.  This method can result in a guitar that plays or nearly plays in tune. The use of equal tension for all strings however widens the disparity between what each string requires in compensation to the point where the saddle itself has to be moved. That is the reason for the arrangement you see here. 

For a clear and detailed explanation of guitar intonation see the article in Luthiers Mercantile;

Scale Length and Intonation for Beginners

                                                               

The following photos are of the three instruments that inspired this project.

This is  E.1040. Musée de la musique. There is no label so it is attributed to the Lacôte School. The back is veneered with mahogany while the side ribs are solid mahogany. The body length is 439mm. The width measurements of the body at the upper bout, waist and lower bout are: 252mm, 180mm, 318mm.

The string disposition is 5+5 while the string lengths are 634mm for the fretted strings and 694mm for the 6th and 710mm for the 10th.

The full length fingerboard is an attractive feature for some guitarists and I might have chosen this instrument to model.

Note that the neck is extended to accommodate a zero fret, a tie-down bar and a grooved nut.

This is E. 986.5.1., also from the Musée. It contributed the design of the fine neck and peg head and much of the inspiration for my building a Lacôte decacorde model. The back and side ribs are palisander rosewood veneered on another wood.

The string disposition is 5+5. The fretted strings are 635mm while the diapasons are 649mm to 717mm. The body length is 447mm.  the  upper bout is 247mm, the waist is 182mm and the lower bout is 310mm. The depth of the body at the neck is 75.7 and 80.8 at the tail.

St. Cecilia's, University of Edinburgh, decacorde is the smallest of the three. The body length is 434mm. The upper bout is 231mm, the waist is 165mm and the lower bout 301mm. The body depth at the neck is 81mm and 90mm at the tail. 

Its neck is carved in a similar manner to E. 986.5.1 but not with the same artistry. 

St. Cecilia's decacorde has an unusually wide peg head. The only reason for broadening the peg head that I can think of is an attempt to improve the response of the 9th and 10th strings by increasing their side bearing.

                                                                            *****

All photographs by the author.