Wandring minstrel I

The Mini-Hoo is done.

My only real disappointment is that I made it with six strings (most of the makers I was following had used six strings on theirs.) Seven strings would allow me to do a bunch more melodies and all of the major triads (in the appropriate inversions) of a major scale.

This was all about the learning. I built it cheap, mostly because I didn't want to waste time and money on something that might not work at all, but also to see if it could be done. And, yes; for about $15 in supplies and a couple afternoons work I got an instrument that doesn't sound too bad.

I've never built an instrument from scratch. There's a thing about experience that goes beyond the itemized and the strictly quantifiable; a gut sense of fabrication times and achievable tolerances and material variance and structural strength and stress patterns and failure modes. I had it in wood and basic woodworking. Now I have some of that in instrument building.

The first tailpiece hitch was leather cord. That snapped. The second was nylon string. That stretched. Now it is wire and I can tune it up to pitch. So that's a nice idea of the stresses and the material qualities required to withstand them. The hand-made brass tuning pins are right on the edge; when I tune to AMaj they are starting to creep. I'll be dropping in zither pins when I remove the revised bridge for finishing.

So that's a few learning experiences already. I went through three bridges; the first turned out to be too short when I changed how the strings were set into the tailpiece. The second had a brass rod for a nut to get the maximum sustain out of the strings. But then I decided I wanted volume instead, so I pulled the brass and reshaped the red oak of the bridge and it now has a decent sound. And if I shaved it thinner, it will be even less sustain but also change the tonal qualities (I hope, in a positive direction).

That, and moving the bridge around a lot, plus strumming in different places, to try and get an idea of what is going on in the interaction of all those elements.

Oh, and as one instrument builder put it, even a plywood soundboard will sound nicer when you tune the instrument higher...up until the moment it implodes. I can get lower tones easy enough, but it didn't get a nice sound until it was pitched up around ukulele pitches. Which sorta makes sense as the scale length is about ukulele size, too.

So, yeah, white pine is strong enough for this, and basswood (linden) makes a decent soundboard, but now I have a more focused instinct for what is asked of the materials and now I wouldn't dare use anything but a hardwood (or at least baltic birch ply) for a Celtic Harp. And I think I know how a decent tonewood would improve on the sound of an instrument like this one.

Even the varnish matters. I used polyurethane and yes I can hear the difference. Fortunately, for this instrument and my tastes, the changes aren't all bad.

I did this instrument entirely without math, and there are ways to figure out optimum string lengths and bridge placement and tone hole size but, you know, a good structure and a proper sound cavity and you can get a decent sound off a rather surprising variety of proportions.

Next post (probably!) the actual build, and sound samples.