zeryab
Oud Admirer
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Registered: 4-24-2006
Location: canada
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My What if Oud project
Hello All:
All right here it is ,I'm tired of writing and erasing my first entry in this forum, and I decided to be direct and honest about my experience .
I began obsessing about building my own oud six years ago.I don't know what started it .maybe because I am from an Arabic descend , or something
else, but some times you get the urge to do something and it sticks in your head day and night. any ways my break came when i was fixing a guitar to a
customer and got to talking about where am from and so on , as he told me that he have an old oud in his basement that he wanted to toss away ,so i
told him that i can take it off his hands .to make story short the oud was built in Egypt in the seventies, and in a very bad shape so i took
measurements and started the building process with help of my knowledge in guitar building ,
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Hosam
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 12-6-2005
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Hello Zeryzb and welcome to the forum. I will be looking forward to follow your project. Are you Zeryab from http://www.zeryab.org ?
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zeryab
Oud Admirer
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Registered: 4-24-2006
Location: canada
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hello all
thanks hosam .but Im not with zeryab.org, my name is main mahd ,and my shop is called zeryab guitars. named after the big guy him self to keep his
name alive.
in this post I will talk a little about the changes I made in my first oud, and needless to say that every thing i write here is only my own opinion
and I'm not suggesting for any one to adopt my methods ,all I'm trying to do is finding new ways to approach oud building based on my experience and
imagination, so I can learn from it and share my findings (right or wrong ) with the people in this forum.
The wood I choose for the back is Canadian cypress and mahogany ,I like working with cypress because it's
* easy to bend
*easy to sand
* it polishes really will, and it has a bright and clear tone that i like.
I used 24 hours two parts epoxy for gluing the ribs.I used it because
* it has a long open time
* for it's incredible strength.
I also tried using something called (gorilla glue) for it's promised strength , but the next day when i started scraping the excess glue it raised
the temperature of the wood surface and that led to the joint to fail immediately, so i didn't use it for anything else.
I didn't have a lot of problems in that stage although it took a long time to finish.
I used the two block technique with bending the ribs by hand with a bending iron.
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zeryab
Oud Admirer
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Registered: 4-24-2006
Location: canada
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hello all
I will continue today with talking a little bit about the project, and the most important part of it which is bracing the top.
with what i saw from the old oud that i got and pictures from the internet of top bracing patterns that made me stop the building procedure completely
until i solve the problem i was facing , to me the choices where clear :do the bracing system as it is traditionally made . see figure (1) .or I can
open up the braces underneath the bridge and align them in a fan bracing pattern (classical style) to direct the acoustic waves away from the deep end
of the body and into the sound hole and then out of it. see figure (2).
after bracing the top. See figure (3).i tapped tuned the whole soundboard by shaving tiny pieces here and there until the sound produced by tapping
was muffled with no high or low harmonics, and that was it for the top .i can explain more if needed.
[file]3885[/file]
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Faladel
Oud Junkie
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This system of bracing is very interesting since it puts in lute and mandolin here in Spain
Oud Player
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Jonathan
Oud Junkie
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It would seem that you have the ends of the ribs so thin that there would be no way to effectively attach the top to the rest of the instrument.
Also, the bottom of the face would not be attached to the bowl (only by the very edge of the top itself).
I think that pattern would work better on an instrument like the guitar, which relies on kerfing strips to hold the top in place. Looking at the
photograph on top, it looks like you have placed kerfing, or that it was there already. Are you planning on using this?
An oud relies on the braces to stabilize the face, and help attach it to the bowl. In the picture of your braces, there is nothing holding the
bottom half of the face to the rest of the oud. I think that with that pattern when you string it up, it would come loose from the bowl.
Just a couple of thoughts. I await input from people more knowledgable than myself.
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Jameel
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Welcome to the forums Main.
I took a look at your website and discovered why your oud face looks like a guitar! Nice work.
I've always been curious about how an oud would sound with kerfing and fan bracing. It looks like we'll soon find out. I look forward to hearing the
results of your "what if" oud.
You mentioned that the traditional ladder bracing makes no sense. I don't know enough about bracing physics to comment, but the western lute, which
sprung directly from the oud, uses nearly identical bracing.
I've also been re-reading (after about 4 years) Lundberg's Historical Lute Construction. Some fascinating info there that readily applies to the oud.
In fact, he references "al 'ud" several times in the text as an historical precedent in comparing some aspects of lute construction.
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Hosam
Oud Junkie
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I gather that you are not done yet with your bracing. Are you planning on adding the bottom V-struts or you are going to depart from Torres's bracing
pattern? What is the thickness of your soundboard? Can you please share with us the dimensions of your oud? I have also noticed that the soundhole
area will be weak if you are not going to use additional finger bracing next to the soundhole graft, how are you going to compensate for this?
What kind of strings you are planning to use? I would really like to hear this oud when completed strung with oud strings and with guitar strings.
Sorry for too many questions.
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zeryab
Oud Admirer
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Registered: 4-24-2006
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hello all
Thank you for your interest and questions, I'll try to answer them thoroughly .
Jonathan asked about the braces ends . i used Spanish cedar lining on the edges of the bowl to increase the gluing surface, so there was no need to
keep the end of the braces tall, and didn't have to cut them exactly the size of the inside of the bowl , so i just cut notches two to three mm deep
in the lining and the ribs edges to seat the braces in. See figure (4) .
I would like to thank jameel for his comments .i really admire his work.
The answer to hosam first question: the oud was finished a week a ago,but I'm waiting for a second opinion on the results (to me it sounds loud and
immediate , but I'm not a very good oud player) ,so if any oud players are passing through Edmonton, please stop by the shop and play it, i would
love to get some feed back.
I didn't install V struts because i kept the top (2 -2.5)mm thick so there was no need for it .and that also answers the sound hole question.
I strung the oud with old oud strings ,i would like it to sound as authentic as possible, and i didn't know that you can use guitars strings .what
gauge strings can i use ?
the oud has a scale of 60 cm, and i will post all the other dimensions in a couple of days.
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Elie Riachi
Oud Junkie
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Mood: Gebran Tueni Lives For Ever, 12-12-05.
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Very interesting Zeryab. I wonder if you get more top vibration by this method of attaching the top rather than gluing the braces to the sides of the
bout! I hope we get to hear this oud soon.
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Andy
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 10-5-2004
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Hello Zeryab, It looks great. I use fan bracing too, a slightly different pattern, on my ouds and make my own kerfed linings, which is the system I
use to glue on the soundboard. It works for me and have not had any of my soundboards fail under stress yet in 8 years. My bracing is also narrow and
low profile.
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
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This is very interesting. I'm also very curious about the results of this kind of bracing.
in general guitars seem to me more stable than ouds, and also have higher string tension (also I don't know about total tension, since the oud has 11
strings).
Maybe next someone builds an archtop oud?
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Andy
Oud Junkie
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Location: MA
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Brian, I built my 25 ribbed 7 course oud with thinner ribs too to make it weigh less and I also made the sound board just a bit thicker to compensate
along with sleeker fan bracing. It made sense to me because hard wood is denser and heverier that soft wood and by having more ribs it would give
strength to the thinner back. I remember the one conversation I had with John Mirjanian just before his passing, he advised me to experiment and it
was great to hear because I was already experimenting.
Zeryeb, I am anxious for you to finish and and hear the results.
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