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Jonathan
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[*] posted on 1-20-2006 at 11:06 PM


Hank, that is great!!! I can't thank you enough!



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carpenter
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[*] posted on 2-12-2006 at 11:24 AM
Good for you!


I'm finally getting around to reading all these forum pages - great stuff! And I'm proud of you (or anybody) who sails into the unknown; it's fun, isn't it? Keep up the good work! Be all you can be!

I was reading about your lacewood bending woes. I've looked at it, but never used it for anything; my taste runs to the "really-plain-figure-if-any" end of the spectrum, the home of more half-baked acoustical theory. I've worked plenty with curly/flamed maple, though, and noticed some things.

(Caution: Opinion/Observation Ahead:)

It appears to me, and this is probably covered much more expertly elsewhere, that the curliness comes from the grain "accordioning," I guess would be a good image, so if you cut along the grain and peek across, it looks like waves. (I've split out some curly maple pretty thin, just to see, and it looks like a nice piece of cooked bacon.) The grain's going to approach 45 or even vertical where the waves are, and the thinner the piece - well, for one, it's a booger to plane, all that rising grain; and two, through the thickness, there's not a lot of longitudinal grain continuity. Lots of short grain, just where you'd split it if it were stovewood. If it were waves, we'd talk about frequency and amplitude, I suppose, but the more extreme the figure, the less continuity/integrity through the length.

I've seen lots of violin ribs, where the middle bouts are, or the Cs, that are split out on the inside of the fiddle - the outside diameter of the bend, I guess - and those bends are about the diameter of your thumb. Tough work. But they break out at where the curl meets the surface. (Inattention or physical properties?...hmmm.) It looks like the lacewood figure is more like a ball-peen hammer pattern than a straight-across curl; I'm not surprised that it tore out, but that's just me. The edge of that unfortunate break in the top rib looks pretty ugly; easily patch-able, but look at the grain with a loupe first. (You can always back up the bends with a really thin piece of steel, too. It seemed to help when I tried it, but I didn't have a control group; called it Progress regardless. Think it was load banding I used; good steel, free, made a couple of tiny scrapers out of it, too.)

(End of Opinion/Observation. Open to correction, as always.)

It's sure a pretty start for you, though. "Thin is good," and, "head for the hide glue." And keep pumpin' the oud-building gas!
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oudmaker
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[*] posted on 2-12-2006 at 12:01 PM


Carpenter
You are correct. When you bend a rib, regardless of the thickness both faces of the wood receive a stress. Concave side face is subject to compresion and the other face is subject to tension stresses. Wood like all materials which subject to pressure shorthens and subjected to tension elongates.To a different degree of course. Heat weakens the bond of the fibres of the wood makes them possible to move against each other.
When you bend a side of violin C bout the ends which have sharp curvature tends to split due to more surface tension. We usualy use some times a flexible sheet of metal or even piece of cloth at the tension side of the bent. This is not necessary for oud ribs. But if you have real difficulty because of the thicker ribs you may use it and wont get splits.
If you have good amount of heat the split stops at the centerline of the thickness ; from centerline to the concave face, the rib is subjected to compression.
Regards




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Jonathan
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[*] posted on 2-12-2006 at 07:22 PM


Thanks, Carpenter. You guys know a lot more about wood than I do, but I will tell you that the maple was not as difficult as I thought it would be. I do like figured woods, but I reached a bit beyond my grasp with these woods. That part of the oud is done, now, at least. I have only seen a few ouds made out of flame maple up close--two by Merjanian, and Kyvelos' own oud. The effect of the wood on all of those is amazing, and so I guess I have been a bit stuck on it. The wood just has so much depth.
And, I have seen a couple of ouds made of lacewood (both Kyvelos), so the wood can be used for ouds. Just tough.
This is a sidetrack, I know, but here is the Merjan:




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Jonathan
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[*] posted on 2-12-2006 at 07:28 PM


So, pretty amazing when done skillfully.
Which makes mine all the more depressng!
Anyhow, the patch.
You have read my nightmare with the airlines, and the broken wood.
I decided to make a patch. Unfortunately, I was not at all happy with any of the patches that I made because the wood is so highly figured, that all of the patches were pretty obvious. So I figured I would go ahead and make it even more obvious, and patch it with maple.
Don't laugh. I know, I know. Just bear me with me on this, guys.
I am going to inlay something in there--a date, or something. Don't know yet.
Making my first batch of hide glue now. Going to try to glue the two pieces of spruce for the face together.




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[*] posted on 2-13-2006 at 05:20 PM


Hey Jonathan,

Not a bad Idea, sign your name on the patch. Maybe it can become a small tradition and when people buy your ouds someday, they will ask, I wounder why he signs his work that way?
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carpenter
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[*] posted on 2-13-2006 at 05:35 PM


Nice patch! Like the programmers say, "It's not a bug - it's a feature!"
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Jonathan
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[*] posted on 2-14-2006 at 07:07 AM


I thought just the guys working in restaurants said that.



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paulO
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[*] posted on 2-14-2006 at 11:13 AM


In restaurants: "It's not a bug -- it's desert !"
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[*] posted on 2-18-2006 at 02:43 PM


I just started working on the braces this AM. I decided to pretty much follow the layout that I had on the diagram I posted earlier. Nothing is finished on them yet, but here is where they are going to approximately be located (of course there will be the two small ones next to the large rose.



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[*] posted on 2-18-2006 at 08:41 PM


:applause::applause:
the patch looks very good
i would never guess that it was dropped

nice work:)
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[*] posted on 2-19-2006 at 05:00 PM
Braces


Those look like some heavy braces, my friend. How do they compare, do you suppose, with the photo I sent?

Love,
Hank Levin

Quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan
I just started working on the braces this AM. I decided to pretty much follow the layout that I had on the diagram I posted earlier. Nothing is finished on them yet, but here is where they are going to approximately be located (of course there will be the two small ones next to the large rose.
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[*] posted on 2-19-2006 at 06:04 PM


They're not, though. They are only about 6 mm wide. Some depth I have to take off of them, particularly the third one up, which seems very, very shallow on the photo you sent me. When I have the face done, I will lay them on there and show you, and get some opinions before I glue them in place.



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[*] posted on 2-19-2006 at 06:48 PM


It's looking real good.
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[*] posted on 2-20-2006 at 12:13 AM


Jonathan,

Very good. Indeed, the 3rd from the bottom is in fact rather square in section, about 5.5 x 5.5 mm. They ALL taper to about that dimension at the ends.

By the way, how do you like the gluepot?

--Hank
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[*] posted on 2-20-2006 at 07:58 AM


I like the gluepot. It makes things easier. Yeah, you can do the job without it, but it just simplifies things. Well worth buying.
Here's a pic of how the face spruce came. Two pieces. You would think it would be easy to join them. . .




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Dr. Oud
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[*] posted on 2-21-2006 at 08:17 AM


Quote:
Originally posted by carpenter....(You can always back up the bends with a really thin piece of steel, too. ...

Violin makers use a sheet steel backing when bending the sides. It has stops at each end of the workpiece and the sides are bent dry over a heated form.




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Jonathan
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[*] posted on 3-4-2006 at 05:43 PM


The face is now joined, and the three holes have been made.



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[*] posted on 3-4-2006 at 05:50 PM


I have decided to use tiled-edge purfling around the three rosettes.
I will admit that I am partial to the simple purfling, rather than the tiled-edge. But, a couple of things made me reconsider. First, as I mentioned earlier, the body of the oud is a bit wider than a typical Turkish-style oud. I think the wider body actually might look better with the tiled-edge purfling.
Second, and truthfully the deciding factor, is that I messed up a bit when making the channels for the purfling. The holes themselves are fine, but there are some stray cuts outside of them. This can all be covered up if I use the tiled-edge approach.
Nothing too wide. I don't want it to look really busy.
So, I was trying to come up with a way to do this easily. I reviewed Jameel's website a million times. I just don't know if I can pull that off. My skill level is about 1/100th of that.
So, what I did was find a circular template the size of the outside edge of the purfling that I wanted. For the large rose, it was actually a discarded dvd. For, the small roses, a package of teflon tape.
Onto those templates I glued on some of the purfling (I made some with leftover strips of lacewood, maple, mahogany, and wenge).

The final purfling is going to be very, very narrow. I know it looks a bit strange now, but imaging that inner boarder cut very close to the outer boarder. The odd angles won't be all that noticable when it is made narrow.




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Jonathan
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[*] posted on 3-4-2006 at 05:56 PM


Then, I sanded down the outer periphery to match the template. I wasn't too concerned with the inner edge--I figured I would use a scroll saw at the end.
I probably won't actually use this piece--this is an experiment.
My goal is to now use a scroll saw to cut the inner edge, and then pry it off of the template.
Then, use the pufling as a guide to scribe the exact area on the face that it is going to go (this particular one would be for one of the small eyuns.)
Of course, the whole thing could fall apart on me, I suppose.
Any thoughts? Bad idea?




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Dr. Oud
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[*] posted on 3-6-2006 at 08:24 AM


Quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan....My goal is to now use a scroll saw to cut the inner edge, and then pry it off of the template....

Using a saw to cut narrow bands of laminated wood will be tricky at best. Even if the pieces are glued to a backing for support, the saw blade could tear the edge and/or pull the glue joints apart. You might try a hole cutter or knife with a hole template. The cutter will also make it easier to match the tile outline on the face.




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[*] posted on 3-12-2006 at 04:49 PM


do u have new pict jonathan? how is your oud going on?
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[*] posted on 3-12-2006 at 04:58 PM


Wow Jonathan!
you are making such great progress on the Oud!it's a lot of time that i didn't check it, but it is coming up very very nicely!
:applause:
Best wishes for the oud....
:airguitar:
Elias
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[*] posted on 3-14-2006 at 07:07 AM


Thanks, guys. I have slowed down a lot on this one. I am still not sure if I am happy with the angle of the neck, and I might re-set it once again.
DocO was right on the inlays--the scroll saw tore them up. Back to the drawing board.
I have been doing a lot of experimenting with rib bending, without any luck. I know the ribs are done on this one, but I am just thinking ahead. I have made about a million moulds, and done some research, but I guess I haven't found anything better than the method that I used on this one. I guess I was hoping to find some way to make a series of moulds, of gradually increasing angles, that could make the ribs consistent, uniform, and reliable. So far, no luck.
So, I better get back to this oud.




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[*] posted on 3-14-2006 at 07:38 AM


It's not how many times a guy gets knocked down, it's how many times he gets back up that counts. Hang in there, Champ; you're doing well.

Nobody ever learned anything doing it right the first time...I figure consistent, uniform, and reliable are Platonic ideals, like square, plumb, and level in remodeling. Hah! But they're something to shoot for, all the same. One man's opinion.

(Thus ends Philosopher's Corner for today.)
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