Construction:tools

Tools

I find it quite amusing that the longer I build musical instruments, the more I reach back to older technologies to make improvements in their quality. As examples of that, I've explored these areas:

Hide Glue is an ancient adhesive which has some wonderful features we have lost sight of with all our improved modern glues.
Scrapers. These tools were displaced from common usage when modern abrasives and sandpapers were developed. But they can accomplish things no abrasive can even approximate. They also treat the wood's acoustic properties more respectfully.
Shellac. Shellac is a natural product of the lac bug. The lac bug secretes a resin which is gathered and refined. The resulting flakes are dissolved in alcohol to produce the familiar shellac found in hardware and paint stores. In lutherie we have special requirements that make these common preparations unuseful. But a more precisely compounded shellac is used in all Bear Meadow dulcimers.

These older techniques are sometimes more demanding of skill and time, but the results are astonishing. The curious result is that, the more I learn about building musical instruments, the longer it takes to make one!

The best way to make a premier musical instrument is with your hands. And the best tools are the ones that fit your hands. It follows, then, that the best tools are the ones your hand makes. The sizes, proportions, and balance of the tools you make yourself are just naturally going to be reflections of the size of your hands and the way you use them.

Almost all the carving tools I use I made myself. I make knives and chisels from old files and saw blades (a source of excellent tool steel). In addition, I inherited many of Walt Martin's hand-made jigs. I also have a few of my grandfather's tools, fine old instruments that are a joy to use. And I've collected some sets of chisels and carving tools that are over a hundred years old. The steel in these edges are like nothing you find today. They need a little more attention, but when taken care of, they are master's tools.

There are some processes that machines do a lot better than hands, though. So I have hung onto the thickness sander that Walt and Mike Martin built when they started up Sunhearth twenty-five years ago. And there is a nice old cast-iron 4-inch Delta joiner/planer. A 14-inch bandsaw. And I finally broke down and bought a drill press after five years of trying to drill perpendicular holes by hand.

Dwain Wilder

My guestbook has excellent anti-spam features for your protection as well as mine. Please write me there at Guest Book