I've always been fascinated by the lute, and when a while ago I was lucky enough to get a recording of some John Dowland lute music, I 'lute tuned' my cassical guitar and tried it out- and it' s not that hard at all to play. On YouTube there are lots and lots of videos of people playing renaissance lute; go take a look!

It's thought that the lute was brought to mainland Europe by the Moors some time about the early middle ages and the name 'lute' is thought to come from the old arabic name Oud meaning wood. As the lute probably came to England via France, this would have become l'oud or 'lute' in English pronunciation.

The lute evolved over a few hundred years, into many forms and when you consider that many thousands were made, it is surprising that perhaps just 500 survive globably, most of these being in either museums or in the hands of collectors.

There are really two kinds of lute to bse modern reproductions on, the baroque style, and renaissance style. The latter has 6, 7 or 8 courses of strings, and was prevalent from about the year 1600 on. It is the archetypal lute depicted in countless pictures of mistrels.

One of the advantages of the renaissance lute is the tuning. Whilst there are many tunings, a six-course lute is commonly played in either one of the many 'old tunings', or 'new' tuning G-C-F-A-D-G. If you think about this latter you will realise that it is the same as a guitar with a capo on the 3rd fret, and the 4th (G) string flattened by a tone- which suggests an easy way to try out playing the lute on your guitar!

The old tunings can also be fun- there is one, 'vielle accord' (= 'old tuning' in French) which is A-D-F-A-D-F.

Anyway, the price of new lutes is colossal- unless you buy a kit. But I wanted to know if I had the skills to build my own. So 'Mark One' was drawn out on paper. It's a flat back (for simplicity) lute with a scale length of 515 mm. How this came about is simple but never mind!! It was simply the dimension from capo to bridge when my classical guitar is in lute tuning!

	This picture shows the neck of the lute being built up from pine blocks, glued and and clamped. After drying for 24h, it can be roughed up to shape with chisels followed by heavy glasspaper. I cut a piece of mahogany for the fingerboard, which you can see in later pictures.
	Here you can see one of the sides clamped up while the glue dries. I tried a number of techniques to bending the sides, and found that cutting slots, and then steaming just enough to shape to relieve the load on the points of attachment, worked great. You can do this over a pan on the hob- no particular special equipment needed.
	This shows the front and sides, with the roughed-out neck rested approximately in position, the first time it began to look as if it was going to be a lute. Inside are a print of the rose design, and a bit of scrap wood that I transferred the rose design to and cut a bit out as a 'proof of concept'. The rose design was a simplification of a pattern popular in around 1650 and was drawn up with Paint Shop Pro. It's bad news, incidentally, to do the rose after adding the sides- you want to do it first. Then you don't have to scrap the lot if the rose goes pear shaped. The sides also limit the travel of the fret saw.
	The completed rose design is printed off, and the lines gone over heavily but accurately with a soft ('B') pencil. Then a small square of paper is cut out with the design in the centre, and taped to the front of the lute, face down, in the correct position and orientation. It is then rubbed over with a pencil, like doing a brass rubbing, to transfer the design to the belly of the instrument. This can be touched up afterwards if necessary so that it is clearly visible. The position of the rose incidentally should be halfway between the bottom of the fingerboard and the bridge.
	I took this photo part way through cutting the rose out, when my fret saw blade broke! Bummer. I had to go to B&Q for some more.
	Now it's really beginning to look like something that you could play... this is with the rose complete, and rubbed down a bit with sandpaper. It has also been rubbed with grain filler. It will be left to dry overnight, and then this treatment repeated. There are a number of tiny dings and splinters picked up while being worked on.
	Next, I chose to make the pegbox. This was carved from solid 3/4 inch mahogany, which is a delightful material to work with good sharp tools. While on the subject of tools, it's always worth having a quick sharpen before starting work on each session. The end of the box where it joins to the neck is a complex shape, I tried to make it so that the tension of the strings will pull it together tighter. Not sure if this will be borne out in reality but we will see...
	I decided on a one-in-thirty taper for my pegs, which seems to be standard lute practice. I set up the tool slide of my lathe to give the required taper and turned up a 'test peg'. It's turned from 9mm hardwood (rammin) dowel. This takes a couple of attempts, as the wood is liable to snap at the narrow neck. You can avoid this by using a sharp tool and turning a short taper on the far end also. The lathe incidentally hadn't run for a few years so it got a 'service' before I did anything with it, but it ran beautifully and quietly.
	The peg holes are bored by starting with a pilot hole accurately aligned and then bored out to size in increasing steps. The 'test peg' (see above) is used to check the sizes. The holes near the neck end are obviously further apart, and so the difference in sizes due to the taper is greater.
	The fingerboard is of mahogany and was rubbed down and the frets fitted. The frets on this lute are guitar type ones, not tied gut. The fret wire was obtained from Wavelength Music on London Road, Sheffield. This is a wonderful friendly business and they stock just about everything for guitars. The fret wire was just 5.00 for four ft. An online fret calculator gave the required dimensions, and the finger board was marked up. A tenon saw (you'd think it would be a 'fret saw' he he he LOL at own joke) was used to cut the slots; the measurements being checked and double checked. You cut a slot and walk away for 5 minutes before cutting the next one- because an error here writes the neck off.
	What do you suppose is going on here? Well, on a guitar you get adjustable bridges to vary the action (height of strings above the frets) but on the lute you don't get this luxury. You can adjust it a bit by how you tie the string at the bridge; but its best to get it as right as possible when making the nut and the bridge. So a string is fitted with the bridge clamped in place, and the nut is adjusted in depth and the bridge marked up and drilled in the correct place. I couldn't resist the temptation to tune the string up to near pitch and check that the frets played in tune- they were spot on! However without the back glued on there is little strength in the body so I didn't push it. The peg worked beautifully as well.
	At the end of each work period I like to reassemble the instrument (because that is what it's becoming!) so I can just admire it- and spot any real issues! Since you saw it last, the body has been treated with grain filler and sanded down again- it's beginning to look good. I'll have to start thinking about finishes, soon.
	The bracing in this lute was derived from some images of lute interiors I found on the Internet. Professional luthiers spend a lot of time and effort getting this right as it has a dramatic effect on the tone of the instrument. For the amateur builder there has to be a starting point and I chose to copy a design that seems to be popular, knowing that once on, the probability was that the back would never come off again. There are two narrow braces crossing the inside of the rose and these are painted black on their front edge and sides so they will not be visible.
	At this point, the back was also stuck on and clamped and weighted. This needed to be done soon so that testing with the strings on could take place. The body is just not strong enough without. Before sticking the back on, I glued a paper label inside it that reads 'Alan Cordwell me fecit anno 2008' (Alan Cordwell made me in the year 2008). Then I had to complete all of the pegs and make a proper nut. This turned out to be surprisingly challenging- I made 5 different ones before I was happy with the result. Note the strange assortment of weights!
	And here it is, with strings on for the first time. It takes a couple of days before the strings are anything like stable in pitch, which gives time for reflection on what else might need doing. I spent a lot of time on grain filling the body, completed shaping the neck, and general tidying up in preparation for final finishing. The pegs were a bit variable and one actually needs replacing- the narrow end has broken. With the strings in reasonable pitch I found that the instrument has a tone a bit like a classical guitar, but definitely lute-ish as well. It is quiet compared to a guitar. All the frets play bang in tune and it is delightfully light on touch and easy to handle and play- first impressions were certainly favourable!

Last Modified 7/7/2008