antekboodzik
Oud Junkie
Posts: 109
Registered: 5-24-2010
Location: north poland
Member Is Offline
|
|
Lute (or oud) top extending over the neck
Hi,
Lutes usually have tops extending slightly over its neck, and it may come with decorative points ("beards") of fingerboard, but may not (in cheaper
instruments and if there are no fret there). So I have some doubts:
- is it necessary (for providing extra strenght to the neck-neckblock joint)?
- so do "beards" add even more strenght?
- is this part of top varnished (or treated another way) as the whole top?
And also, on many medieval and renaissance paintings there are lutes with contrary option feature - the fingerboard (supposedly) go into top, and
sometimes quite deep. Several makers do it, but fingerboard extension is quite short, not going more over neckblock. But some make it as on paintings.
How they do it? Is this part "inlayed" into the wood of top (in only part of the thickness)? If yes, this "sandwich" like construction should be the
strongest option to reinforce neckblock-neck joint...
|
|
|
antekboodzik
Oud Junkie
Posts: 109
Registered: 5-24-2010
Location: north poland
Member Is Offline
|
|
Just a very rough sketch of what I mean.
[file]34785[/file]
|
|
|
jdowning
Oud Junkie
Posts: 3485
Registered: 8-2-2006
Location: Ontario, Canada
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
The sound board overlap onto the neck probably provides some reinforcement of the neck joint but primarily allows a smooth transition from fingerboard
onto the sound board area beyond the last tied fret position.
The added 'points' seen on lutes of the late 16th C onwards may protect the fingerboard edges against scoring by the upper tied frets and usually do
not extend beyond the edge of the neck block (where there is no support - they are inlaid to full sound board thickness).
Little wooden frets glued to the sound board area beyond the tied frets are something of a modern anomaly for which there is little or no historical
evidence. Above the last tied fret (i.e. fret 8 or higher) lute players were expected to stop a string without the 'benefit' of frets.
In earlier lutes, where the finger board, as portrayed in the iconography, appears to extend on to the sound board area, no lutes of this type survive
in order to judge but, from a practical point of view, it is highly unlikely that the bottom edge of the fingerboard - for obvious reasons - would
have extended beyond the edge of the neck block.
The sound boards of lutes were not varnished.
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbprobrown/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
