New project; Sporkcello 1

Kalimna · June 2017

It would add another significant cost to your project, but the Obrien archtop course might prove invaluable http://www.obrienguitars.com/courses/archtop/

I have his classical course, and whilst the demonstrator is different, the production is superb. Might I also suggest you avail yourself of the Benedetto archtop building book - again not quite a cello, but similar techniques for the carving of the plates.

One significant advantage of building something smaller to start with would be cost of materials - an inadvertent slip with a drill or chisel on a £50 piece of spruce or sycamore is a helluva lot easier to stomach than on a £200-£400 set. You could even have a go at doing an archtop ukulele and use any bit of 'scrap' hardwood, whilst gaining the skills for carving/bridge fitting/etc.

Or scrub all that and go straight for a full carbon fibre body in colour-shift spray finish

Good luck with it,

Adam

Sporky · June 2017

That site's down at the mo but I will have a look later - ta.

Rocker · June 2017

Two pages and not a spec of sawdust to be seen. You must stop teasing us @Sporky and get doing something....

Sporky · June 2017

Yeah, 'cos the best way to make a cello is to throw sharp bits of steel at bits of wood without any planning...

I've not even bought any of the timber yet. Construction is probably a couple of months away.

Sporky · July 2017

Not a lot of progress with other things getting in the way, but I have acquired one of The Strad's cello posters - these have all the critical dimensions from one classic instrument, including carve profiles, top thicknesses and so on. Still going to take a lot of interpretation to go from that to the CAD but it's a start.

Roland · July 2017

The conceptual design stage doesn't provide many photos, and can take a long time, but is often more important than the actual build.

Jalapeno · July 2017

pic of the poster might fill the news vacuum ....

Sporky · July 2017

That is a fair point. I will provide such later.

DLM · July 2017

Sporky said:

You can get cheap sets for about £80 if you don't mind sounding a bit crap.

IME, a bit crap is really charitable for £80 for a full set.

Jalapeno said:

pic of the poster might fill the news vacuum ....

Nah. Too sensible for this place.

See below:

Sporky said:

The trendy thing in the 17th century was to mix some rosin with some varnish (which I assume was made mostly of pig's wee) to add a bit of red to the shade, but my plan at the moment is brushed acrylic.

I'll wis your post, Sporky, if you'll tell me whether it was the rosin or the pig whizz that gave the red colour. I ask because ’Er Indoors’s is a very deep red, and I want to fantasise about vast vats of porcine pee, perhaps produced in places proximate to Prague prudently re-purposed in its production.

Sporky · July 2017

Then it was definitely the pig's wee.

DLM · July 2017

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4325/35483867563_c84c7778ce_b.jpg

’Ers is at the back. That's an awful lot of piggy pee! (The ones in front are *much* newer, probably a century or more, so might not contain any porcine by-products.)

Oh. And in the interests of contributing something worthwhile, I understand it is the done thing to combine two different brands of string. I'll find out which, exactly.

We had a Silent Cello over at the weekend (with decent strings on it), and she liked it much better than the one we tried years ago in a shop. Maybe that can be borrowed next time she needs amplification, microphones have been dissatisfactory so far, and the fitting of pickups is, well, worrying.

Sporky · July 2017

Playing an acoustic cello is quite different though - it's so immediate, and they're incredibly loud. I don't think the electric has hampered my learning thus far but an acoustic would probably help it.

TTony · July 2017

I've been deliberately ignoring this thread for a-g-e-s, intending to just drop in at the end and scatter some wows about the place, without having to endure the torture of week-by-week progress shots.

I was pretty sure that it'd all be finished by now, so dropped by with my wows at the ready.

Sporky · July 2017

You've got a lot more ignoring to go.

Jalapeno · August 2017

<cough> poster <cough>

Sporky · August 2017

That's a nasty cough - you should get that checked.

http://www.monkeyfx.co.uk/pictures/builds/sporkcello/01 strad poster front.jpg
http://www.monkeyfx.co.uk/pictures/builds/sporkcello/02 strad poster rear.jpg

Jalapeno · August 2017

Awesomesauce !

DLM · August 2017

Phwoar! StripeAy!

Sporky · August 2017

You can't see it from the photos, but the poster demonstrates some of the shortcomings of traditional cello construction (and yet it's still a highly renowned instrument) - in particular, the ribs have cracked where they're glued to the corner blocks because each expands in a different direction with temperature and humidity.

I have some ideas on how to solve that for Sporcello 1. They may not turn out to be good ideas, of course... there have been a lot of attempts to deal with such problems.

TimmyO · August 2017

See now I'm just wondering exactly what *would* the synthaxe equivalent of a Cello look like?

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New project; Sporkcello 1

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