We are back with another Woodworking Wednesdays. Today, we finally take a break from the multi-project approach and go into a particular set up for a build. This is the experimental Venezuelan Cuatro. It has been dubbed Experiment One .
Chances are that you might have followed my antics as a luthier and my ideas on experimenting with different kinds of woods and other basic stuff. This is a big jump onto structural differences. If you are familiar with the crafts, this is the design of an Acoustic Guitar brought into the shape of a smaller instrument.
Inspiration for this design comes from s fellow luthier. He was making an ukulele with this particular pattern and the idea hit me. Why not trying to do this on a Venezuelan Cuatro? I'm eager to get the results of this experiment.
Pattern
The main idea was making more sound holes on the top of the instrument. To do this, we need to rearrange everything that goes inside. However, the problem is too many reinforcements will hinder the sound output.
The solution is simple. The voicing of the sound board needs to be perfect. Ergo, every strut and reinforcement, needs to be carved to the minimum possible. There will be plenty of sanding as well once the instrument is out together.
More Sound Holes
Having more holes in the instrument is a problem. It means the surface around then needs extra reinforcements. Also, they need to be placed where they won't trouble the setting of the sound board.
Putting them in a side frees some space to do the work of the rest of the setup. Once the reinforcement was in place, I used a circular drill saw to cut the holes. Then a drill bit to make the smaller ones. Once all this was ready, I went ahead and trimmed the reinforcement to remove some weight.
Bridge Plate and Struts
A Bridge Plate is pretty common. It gives the foundation to hold the bridge on the other side and keep the sound board strong against the tension of the stirngs. It can't be to thick or the strings won't have the strength to make the top vibrate. Since tension on the instrument isn't too big, we can trim this to the bare minimum, around 1mm.
The same goes for the struts. These are supposed to be the ones that regulate the sound quality. The taller they are, the stiffer the areas surrounding then. So, the instrument will have a lot of treble. If we keep them at a minimum, the whole range if timbre won't be affected.
X marks the spot
The biggest concern on this build is this X-shaped reinforcement. It has to be trimmed with caution and to the thinnest setting possible. It is a lot of weight on a sound board. This factor is important as well for the sound output of the instrument.
Once all the reinforcements are trimmed and sanded, we can go ahead and attach this sound board to one of the necks we had previously made. And thus, the assembly process can start.
Something more
You might be wonder how I'm going to start assembly if there hasn't been a lot of stuff going on. Well, while I wait to make this weekly posts, I get s lot of work done. So, this top isn't the only thing that was made during the week. A lot of important work was done as well.
Sides
We went a head and trimmed some of the sides we had pending. It was an easy process, but took 2 days to get 6 pieces ready for flexible for bending. You can see here 2 species of Louro, on the middle and left, (nectandra spp) and Teak (tectona grandis) to the right.
Backs
And along these sides, we finished with the backs for all these pending instruments. Same woods mentioned above. These have the added bonus that all have a curvature radius of 6000mm. So, these instruments will have a great sound projection.
Making all the bars for these backs too a day of work since they are 3 for each one. 12 bars carved to th radius and then glued in place. Needless to say I don't own enough clamps to make this a quick process, but once the carving work was done, gluing was easy.
Lastly, we make the last aesthetic carving of the bards for each back. And thus we have 4 backs ready here, plus other two that have been ready for quite some time. There's going to be an assembly fest coming soon. And you'll be able to see a lot of this process.
On a final note, Experiment One we'll have a back and sides of the yellow kind of Louro. And I'm lucky this one has a beautiful flamed pattern on boths sides and back. I'm excited to put it together. But that'll have to wait until the next entry.
All the photos in this post were taken by me.
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