FastForward
Oud Junkie
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Oud Back completed
This past Sunday I finished the back of my first oud. It is made of 21 ribs of walnut with maple purfling
It was quite a bit of work. The result is satisfactory overall. The width ended up being 8mm more than what I wanted but it is acceptable. The width
will be 37.8cm rather than 37cm.
Below are some pictures. The image quality isn't high as I only have a phone camera at the moment.
Two ribs were slightly off curve and as I assembled them they protrude up a bit by about 1-1.5mm. As I finish the bowl, the scraping and sanding will
take care of that. The only thing is my ribs were 2.5-3mm in thickness and I am worried that the back will be too thin in these area.
I don't know what to do, I don't want to disassemble them and assemble them again as it is a lot of work. I am thinking of gluing some rib shavings to
the inside to increase the thickness on the inside. I also thought about wood powder and glue.
The oud also came off the mould with no problems.
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Jonathan
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Looks great. It could be my eyes, but I can't see the problem that you are talking about.
I have made about 7 bowls so far, and I have never had the ribs line up just perfectly--the sanding can take care of that. I would try to keep the
glue joint at about 1.5 mm, and let the sanding do the rest. It would seem, from the numbers that you mentioned, that that could get you pretty close
to perfect.
As for the rib shavings vs wood powder and glue--I would go with the sawdust and glue, if you think that is necessary. It can be extremely strong.
Just make sure that it does not give you a false sense of security, and you sand right thru to the sawdust/glue mixture in an effort to make the bowl
perfectly smooth. It just doesn't look good. Also, if the surrounding wood is just paper thin, I would worry that the mixture might just knock
out.
The sawdust/glue mix is also good, of course, if you have any gaps (small) between the ribs.
Congratulations on your oud. It looks great.
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FastForward
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Thanks Jonathan,
I think your eyes are fine, but what you are probably seeing is the purfling sticking out. The pictures are not that high quality and the offending
areas are not showing. The purfling is slightly thicker than the ribs. It is quite hard to see even when looking at the bowl directly. They are just a
couple of small areas around the tightest curve.
Two other solutions that I thought of are:
1- Glueing a thin piece of walnut veneer to the inside of the protruding rib and scrape/sand smooth. The veneer is thicker (about 0.6-0.8mm). This
also won't look good and might not be smooth enough.
2. Pressing the rib against a hot bender to try and correct the curvature. I am only worried about burning the glue between the ribs and being unable
to glue them properly.
Overall I am quite pleased with the bowl. I think it came out better than I expected given the primitive tools I used.
Using Hide glue was also pretty friendly, except for the "sticky hand syndrome" that you get once you start inserting the perfling between the ribs.
For that, I kept a small container of water nearby that I used to soak my hand in to get the glue off.
I can't say how much I am grateful for the comments and guides here on this forum and on youtube. Your first oud thread has also tons of useful
information.
I will start working on the neck, and pegbox in the coming week. But for now, I have a weekend of scraping ahead of me 
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Jonathan
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I think that idea number 1 just wont work. It's going to be tough to get it absolutely flush with the rib it is going to be attached to. And, in the
end, I don't think it will help. If you are putting it there because you think you are going to completely sand thru the rib/purfling and are going
to rely on the veneer, then you have made the rib so incredibly thin at that spot that it is just not going to hold up.
As for number 2: Don't know. Maybe. You used hide glue, which is a plus. I think it is going to be tough to do, but I can't see how it is going to
cause any problems.
But, really--an oud bowl is never really perfect. Especially older bowls (even Manols, for that matter). Personally, I would just make it as smooth
as you can without comprising strength or making it ridiculously thin, put on some sawdust and glue in the back, and then call it a day.
Finally, one last thought--if you happen to sand the rib down to a very thin level, you can also reinforce it by cutting out a piece of fabric (silk,
or some synthetic), cut it to the shape of the rib, and glue it on the inside. It's not going to solve your problem, but it's something you can keep
in the back of your mind if you make the rib just too thin. It's not great, but it doesn't add any significant weight, and it is of some help.
Good luck
There are a zillion people on this forum that know more about this than me. I am anxious to hear other's opinions.
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FastForward
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I think I am just obsessing too much about this.
What I will do is start scraping and I will take it from there. If I feel that the area has become too thin and weak, I will reinforce with fabric
like you said.
Thanks Jonathan.
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FastForward
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Finally managed to get the back scraped and sanded to 120. Looks good, it came out much better than I thought.
Here are some more pics...
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paulO
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Hi FastForward,
That's some beautiful walnut, fantastic light grain streaks, just amazing. Can't wait to see it with the finish on. Way to go man !
Regards..Paul
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FastForward
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Thanks Paul,
It does look pretty good. The pictures are a bit dull as they were taken with my old blackberry phone.
I will keep updating once I do more work. I am working on the neck/pegbox now.
Ibrahim.
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Jonathan
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Beautiful. I love the fact that you used some ribs with a bit of sapwood included. It really gives it some depth and visual interest. Beautiful
work.
Did the problem you mentioned above resolve?
Did you make the purfling yourself? I am having a hard time finding single-wood purfling that is the right width
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FastForward
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Thanks Jonathan,
I didn't scrape it all the way down. I am worried it will get too thin. there is still about 0.3mm difference between the adjacent ribs. I am hoping
that it will be smoothed out as I put the paper on the inside.
I did make my own purfling. I bought some veneer with no back from rockler (12"x48") for like $5 and made a enough strips for the oud back. I still
have a lot of veneer.
For me the width was not an issue, here I used the veneer as is, so the thickness of the veneer comes out to be the width of the purfling (0.6mm). In
order to make it the right thickness for the ribs I made my own veneer/purfling cutter.
If you want I can give you the cutter. I don't need to use it anymore. Let me know. What thickness are you trying to get? also is the purfling a
single color or different laminated strips?
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Jonathan
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Thanks. Veneer. Cool. I'll give it a shot.
I really appreciate your offer, but that's ok--I'm sure you will be making another oud sometime soon (it's like a virus that gets into your system).
I think I can figure it out.
It's kind of easy getting the multiple wood laminated strips (lmii has been my usual stop), but it seems harder to get single-wood strips (other than
some hideous super-bright white or super-black stuff that I have found.
I'll give the veneer a shot on my next bowl (koa!).
Thanks!
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FastForward
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You are welcome, I am serious with my offer, if you need it you can have it. I am not planning on building anything else anytime soon.
Also I have a large amount of maple/walnut veneer that I won't be using, so if you want to try it out let me know.
Veneer should be straight forward. If you want to make it fancy and laminate different pieces and get something like Maple/Walnut/Maple, or some think
like that then you should be able to do it easily.
Rockler doesn't have any Koa veneer, but they have a good small variety. Here is a link to the items I bought
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=2215
Here is another source for veneer, they have a much bigger variety and the prices seem reasonable. I haven't dealt with them before.
http://www.homecraftveneer.com/oscommerce2/catalog/index.php?cPath=...
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SamirCanada
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Hi Ibrahim,
could you describe the method you used to bend and glue the ribs with that veneer strip?
I dont know how I missed this project before! you have some talent my friend!
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FastForward
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Thanks for the words Samir,
The ribs were bent using a "crappy" pipe bender with a small diameter, I realized this after but in the end the shape of the ribs were close to each
other but not exact. I think my 2.5mm thickness helped to level off the differences in the end by sanding the high spots.
The purfling was made by cutting a thin veneer using a small cutter that I made. I recently found this tool and I think it can do the same job and its
not expensive at all.
http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/mas/masma4000.htm
This one would also give you more control over how wide the purfling is. I used the edge of a table as a guide and clamped the ends of the piece to
hold it in place. A $5 sheet of veneer makes enough purfling for 3 ouds or more. This is a much cheaper alternative to buying the purfling strips
individually at $1 a piece.
The purfling was not bent prior to gluing. Instead it was along the ribs while gluing. Here is a video that shows how.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSbrLqUzYAQ
The process is shown at the beginning. You can also see it on Dincer's website photo gallery. There are other videos on youtube that show a similar
process, some of them were taken in Usta Faruk's workshop, others were for making other instruments, search for divane yapim and you will find these
videos. These guys make it look really simple and fast but for me the novice it was a bit more difficult and much slower. The purfling strip has a
tendency to slip underneath the ribs particularly near the deep end of the ribs. This took a bit of work to deal with and I realized that a little bit
more pressure around the deep curve helps. I also worked in small sections and woul place a small piece of paper that is wrapped to give some
thickness underneath the ribs if there was a gap between the ribs and the mold, this helps in supporting the strip. Using hide glue helps as you can
easily disassemble things and retry again. I had to do that two or three times to completely remove a rib and many many time by undoing a small
section and redoing it. This was a very labor intensive and tiring process. If the purfling was bent
In the past, I saw an interesting way for which I am attaching the pictures taken from another website. This is how Thabet Albsry does it and it is
quite interesting. The purfling is made from a bent piece of rib stock that is sawn using a small table saw with a thin kerf blade and a piece of wood
taped to the side as a fence. If I had such a saw I would have probably done it that way. But either way it works.
If you have anymore questions let me know and I tell what I have learned and I am pretty sure the others in this forum have way more experience and
knowledge than me.
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