Mike's Oud Forums

Building my first oud, updated 09-17-2009

FastForward - 8-19-2009 at 02:13 PM

Hi,

I am thinking of building my first oud. I wanted to do it for a while and I am about to start. Right now I am just trying to iron out some details prior to building.

I am almost done with the CAD and now trying to plan the major things. Although not necessary, the CAD drawings will help me understand how some of the things will fit together. Moreover, I can use them to build a mould.

I have selected the wood, I think I will be going with black walnut.

One of the issues I have is that I do not have a band saw/table saw and was wondering where in the Los Angeles area can I get the wood cut into thin slices.

I have called a few furniture/cabinet shops but they told me they don't do this.

Any suggestions.

Help

Yaron Naor - 8-20-2009 at 02:01 AM

I would like to help you with pleasure... I live in isreal, if you would come to here we can go and buy the wood together and we can resaw it at my studio...

Yaron.

CAD design

chmile - 8-21-2009 at 01:52 AM

Hello, friends,

I'm drawing also my futur oud on 3d CAD.

My draws are here :








The first step was to draw top view and cross section,
Then, I draw circle, and put polygons on it in order to have ribs design

Bye,

Emil

FastForward - 8-21-2009 at 08:31 AM

Yaron, thanks but that is unfortunately not feasible now. I will continue looking around and I am positive I will find a place to cut the wood.


Emil, yes, that is one approach, I am following a different approach though.

If the neck was semicircular at the body joint, then a circular sweep of the profile would do the job. But a semicircular section means that the neck will be more than 2.5cm thick at the base and that is not comfortable and doesn't look that good.

Alternately, I am using a neck profile that is 55mm wide and 18mm thick at the body. When combined with a veneer, this will give a neck that is about 58-59mm wide, and about 20mm thick.

The approach I am taking is to a bit more work. I will extruding along a path the rib profile, there will be different guide curves for the extrusion, the guide curves are at the neck joint, at the tail piece, and a cross section at the highest point in the bowl profile. Moreover, I have done extrusion, rib by rib, the extrusion are along a path and up to a plane that is rotated 8.7degrees from the plane with the profile.

I will post some CADs later this weekend.

wood milling

Clayton - 8-24-2009 at 09:57 PM

I can help you with milling the wood. I am located in Murrieta, Southern California. Where exactly are you located?

FastForward - 8-25-2009 at 03:07 AM

Thanks Clayton,

I already got it done yesterday. I am in the UCLA area.

I am pretty sure I might need something else in the future and will let you know. I really appreciate it.

Ibrahim

Jonathan - 8-27-2009 at 10:43 PM

House of Hardwood in Los Angeles (not that far from UCLA, actually), can cut the wood into the slices you need. If you need any more details, let me know, but I know that they are listed and I have had them do the same work for me when I was between table saws.

FastForward - 8-28-2009 at 03:44 AM

Thanks Jonathan,

thats where I got it done. I am about to start building the mould now.

FastForward - 9-17-2009 at 09:23 PM

Here is the update, I made a profile using standard drafting tools, primarily french curves and a ruler.

I used the CADs to guide me of the overall shape.

The first profile was kind of narrow in the back so I ended up resketching the back portion and creating a new profile.

I transferred the sketch to pieces of scrap MDF that I got from near buy lumber stores (total cost was less than a $1).

I cut the MDF with a jig saw and used a band saw at one of the UCLA shops. It had the wrong blade type and ended up causing some burns. Final sanding will take care of these marks.

When I started, my bandsaw skills were pretty poor, I learned the hard way how to cut better curves. Unfortunately in a couple of spots, I didn't leave that much stock outside the line and ended up cutting the inside of the piece.

That shouldn't affect the shape as much as the curvature of the rib will not be affected by a dent here or there.

I still have to assemble the remaining pieces and file/sand the pieces to final shape.

[file]11220[/file] [file]11222[/file] [file]11224[/file] [file]11226[/file] [file]11228[/file] [file]11230[/file] [file]11232[/file] [file]11234[/file] [file]11236[/file] [file]11238[/file]

FastForward - 9-17-2009 at 09:24 PM

Here some more pictures.

[file]11240[/file] [file]11242[/file] [file]11244[/file]