I was made aware of the potential for this instrument which dates from the 19th century by Simon Chadwick who has written an in depth article on this and made many video recordings that can be heard on YouTube.
The original which can be viewed here is made of a block of aspen, a.resonant light hardwood, with a pine soundboard and birch pegs. The soundboard original also had a birch bark strap to hold it in place but on my example I will use animal glue.
I started with a block of alder wood and marked out the instrument from my full sized plans (now included on my Lyre making CD-rom as an added extra or separately on my website here)
I then marked the straight sides of the soundbox interior using a biscuit jointer(my router was set up for something else that day but with care it worked well)
Then I used a Forster bit to hollow out the sound box.
Once this was done I used a chisel to remove the waste and clean the slanted edges in the end grain top and bottom.
A Forster bit and biscuit jointer was used to begin to open up the hand hole.
More to follow in a few months! please feel free to comment
The original which can be viewed here is made of a block of aspen, a.resonant light hardwood, with a pine soundboard and birch pegs. The soundboard original also had a birch bark strap to hold it in place but on my example I will use animal glue.
I started with a block of alder wood and marked out the instrument from my full sized plans (now included on my Lyre making CD-rom as an added extra or separately on my website here)
I then marked the straight sides of the soundbox interior using a biscuit jointer(my router was set up for something else that day but with care it worked well)
Then I used a Forster bit to hollow out the sound box.
Once this was done I used a chisel to remove the waste and clean the slanted edges in the end grain top and bottom.
