I wrote about Shaw Piano 13837 here. I have been slowly working to make instruments for several members of the family that had owned it, and here is another. All poplar, as much of the piano was. This is for a seven year old who has an interest in playing guitar. Small hands can struggle with steel strings, so mu suggestion was a baritone ukulele. Same chord structures as a guitar, but lower tension and nylon strings (I REALLY like Aquila Nylgut strings. They has a lovely feel, and really sound like gut instead of nylon) so easier to fret. This is a lovely little uke, and has the extra sound hole that I like to leave just south west of the bridge, so it really is very like #91, linked above. The owner of this little instrument is the first cousin twice removed the owner of #91, after all.
For the fingerboard, I used the maple from the wrest plank of that piano, which had a lot of "birds-eye" in it. Bird's-eye is a rippling of the grain that creates gorgeous optical effects. No one really knows why it happens, and a lot of people have tried to force it over the years to no avail (including shooting maple trees with shotguns, which did not have much effect, surprise surprise.) Maybe I will write more about that in a future post. It makes for a shimmery, very hard surface on the fingerboard that really stands out visually.The bridge is a piece of the molding that was on the piano, an it (and the binding) are walnut. So as far as wood species, this little instrument is kind of a mutt, but it is a lovable mutt.
At any rate I am excited to keep this instrument in the family that gave me the piano. And I hope the little hands that play it now will continue to enjoy it when they are much much older. Here's the video:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete